Grandparent’s Day: M’dor L’dor

On a recent Sunday morning, the Museum hosted mutigenerational families for Grandparents’ Day.

Inspired by the value of m’dor l’dor (from generation to generation), visitors of all ages enjoyed activities focused on sharing family memories—and recording them for posterity. From storytelling to scrapbooking and oral histories, dozens of families had fun while sharing personal histories and exploring the exhibitions.

Following are the welcome remarks from Jeffrey Hausfeld, a grandparent and the host of our Grandparent’s Day program:

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Good morning. My name is Jeffrey Hausfeld, and it is a pleasure to greet you all this morning to Grandparents’ Day at the Capital Jewish Museum!

I was born in Brooklyn; New York and I have been in Washington for the last 43 years. That makes me a first-generation Washingtonian. I’m also a first-generation American. My mother, Ray Hausfeld, was born in Brooklyn, New York, and my father Walter Hausfeld was born in a small town in Poland called Tluste. In 1939 he and his younger brother traveled thousands of miles to Stockholm to escape the Nazis and the oncoming holocaust. My father was lucky enough to escape Europe on the last boat to leave Stockholm before the declaration of World War II. The name of that boat was called the Gripsholm.

It wasn’t until 40 years after he arrived in this country that he met a fellow passenger of that fortunate boat journey across the Atlantic. It was at my house in New Haven that my father met a moyel known in New Haven as the “Yankee Clipper” who just performed the brit Milah on my oldest son Joshua. And so goes the story of our resilience and survival through adversity.

I’d like to share another story with you of when I was a young man living in Brooklyn, New York and attending an orthodox synagogue called B’nai Israel of Midwood. It was the year of my bar mitzvah and Rabbi Pincus Dachowicz was so enamored with my voice and diction that he asked my father if I would chant the Haftorah for the second day of Rosh Hashanah at the main sanctuary. This was a big honor, usually bestowed only upon the senior members of the synagogue, and never to a youngster who was just bar mitzvahed. I studied very hard and diligently and sang as sweetly and loudly as I could.

When I finished the ending blessings, I turned around to see my father‘s reaction and saw him surrounded by his lantzmen from the old country, many of them had also escaped Europe, but some exhibited tattoos on their forearms having been incarcerated in concentration camps. They were all shaking his hands, hugging him and congratulating him on my performance. I saw the gleam in my father‘s eyes and a smile on his lips, and I knew that he was both pleased and proud of my performance. But I couldn’t figure out why no one was coming up to congratulate me. They were all huddled around my father, embracing each other and reveling in the moment. And then I realized that these men that lost everything… their livelihoods, their homes, their families still had one thing that they did not lose, and that was their hope… and it was through me that my father rekindled that hope for the next generation.

And that is why when asked by Bea Gurwitz, Malki Karkowsky and my daughter-in-law, Melissa Hausfeld, what we could do at the Capital Jewish Museum that could engage our community, I suggested a Grandparents Day so that we can all rekindle our hope in the next generation. Not only in our own grandchildren, but in the children and grandchildren of everyone who is here with us today and those who live in our community and are part of our story.

It is our responsibility as grandparents to nurture them and to explain to them where we came from, what is important to us, and how they are crucial in the continuum of preserving this precious legacy. I hope we can learn from each other how to best engage our grandchildren and educate them so that they can be good stewards of our collective history, mission and purpose. Please use this opportunity to share your experiences and learn from others so that we may enrich the lives and perpetuate the heritage that we have been entrusted with and have treasured for so long. Thank you!