It is a very nice feeling of surprise when after having learnt about someone from a book, you have a chance to meet the person in person later. Then you can really feel linked down right to the first-hand source. Such a thing might happen especially so when the book was published a long time ago. So, consequently, without a copy of 'Who's Who' International or National Edition you might be unsure whether the person in question is still alive. A Rabbi A. Unterman book on the Jewish tradition let me encounter Mr. Emil L. Fackenheim on its page several years ago. And now I could meet the person in real. For me it has become a Jewish historic touch experience and great intergenerational link owing to the life experience embodied in the man who has lived four generations plus so far.

Emil L. Fackenheim has delivered the lecture 'After Auschwitz, Jerusalem: In Memory of Rabbi Leo Baeck'. The event was held in the English-language. It took place at 8:00-10:00 p.m. on Tuesday, 7th November '00, at the Murstein Synagogue, located on the campus of the Hebrew Union College (HUC)-Jewish Institute of Religion at 13 King David in Jerusalem. Under the British Mandate period this street was known as Princess Mary Street. The synagogue was fully packed, which might be due not also to the renowned character of the guest but also the free-of-charge nature of the event. As the Talmudic wisdom says *im eyn kemah eyn tora, veim eyn tora eyn kemah* (Hebrew: 'There can be no material wealth without wisdom, and vice versa'). Actually, the infinite Tora(h), as embodiment of the Ultimate Wisdom, should be always taught for free. Not only because money is a finite category, but also because it belongs to a different (material) domain. Moreover, no man can claim his ownership to the G-o-d-revealed Tora(h). The man may only perform the function of its historic and cultural carrier.

Aged 84, Mr. Emil L. Fackenheim is at the same time a Canadian Philosophy Professor and German Reform Rabbi and Israe-li th-eologian. Permanently residing in Israe-l, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He has got a vast life experience from a long lifespan and a number of places he used to lived in. Born a year before the October Revolution of '17, he faced the W.W.II as a mature man (aged 23). Before that War he had been imprisoned for a quarter of a year in a concentration camp under the rise of Nazism in Europe. After E. L. Fackenheim left the camp he escaped to the English capital. And thence moved later to Canada, where he served the position of Philosophy Professor at the University of Toronto, Toronto. The time passing he was conferred the title of Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the same institution. The non-Zionist views E. L. Fackenheim had embraced from his teacher, he drastically revalued during the Six-Day War of 1967. At that time the very existence of the State of Israe-l faced a threat of annihilation. Then Professor made a resolution to come to settle in Israe-l, which he called a 'Jewish house against death'. In '83, when he was 67 years old, the Fackenheim family made *aliya(h)* (Modern Hebrew: 'immigration to the State of Israe-l').

This academic evening bore a specially emotional element for Prof. Emil L. Fackenheim as he had been invited to deliver this lecture by Dr Ye-hoyada Amir. Mr Y. Amir is the son of his friend, with the same surname, who he studied with in the pre-Holocaust Berlin. The father-son link has been really a sentiment for the speaker. The event was chaired by the son: Professor Amir, who is currently the Director of Israe-l Rabbinic Programme, HUC, Jerusalem.

The voice of the speaker was nobly slowed down and very fragile: the one of a person who saw the life from all its angles well enough. Thus, the quiet learned octogenarian plus was further aided with Mr. Chairman, who played the role *amoraim* did. *Amoraim* is a Jewish English (Yinglish) Hebraism standing for 'people involved in the loud transmission of words by a Talmud scholar in big halls in the times when microphones were unknown'. The lecture was opened on a quotation note. Prof. Emil L. Fackenheim quoted his fellow student Mr. Amir: 'I no longer believe in anything: G-o-d, man, or idea, for I have experienced too much in my life.'

The afore-mentioned non-Zionist mentor of young Emil was Leo Baeck. I think an efficient off-hand mnemo to remember his name could be the initials LBJ of the post-JFK U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, if we write his name as 'Leo Baeck the Jew'. Mr Leo Baeck was a well-known Berlin Reform Rabbi and leader of German Reform (also known as Progressive or Liberal) Jewry. After the NSDAP (German abbreviation for 'National Socialist Democrat Workers' Party) got hold control of power in the 1933 Germany, unlike many intellectuals, LBJ did not intend to leave. Mr Leo Baeck was not on the verge to come back to 'the Jewish national home in Palestine', to quote the phrase used by Lord Balfour in his letter to Baron Rothschild. This telegraphed letter made its name in the world history as the Balfour Declaration. LBJ did not want to go away from his German *Heimat* (German: 'homeland') as long as there was a *minyan* (Hebrew: 'a quorum of ten adult Jewish males necessary for some regular prayers'). Tragically, like in the neighbouring Po-Land, a great thousand year Jewish heritage presence in *Ashkenaz* (Biblical Hebrew: 'Germany; Northern Europe') ended abruptly overnight. The name of the heavy machine gun that started to shoot was the *Endlo"sung* (German: 'the master plan to exterminate all the Jewish Nation'). The gun was triggered on the *Kristallnacht* (German: 'Crystal Night') pogrom in Germany. As a philosopher said 'Those who start burning books, shall end burning people later'. And this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mr. Leo Baeck had managed to survive the Gas Chamber Era. After the slaughter of the Six Million of Jewish Beings, he --like many other survivors-- kept silent about the dreads of the Nazi Annihilation. This was practically dictated by the psychological law of a tormented soul. Lest the suffering not drive people into the pit of bottomless despair. The unobliterable memories of the Triumphant Catastrophe. The expatriate German Jewish survivor Leo Baeck died in London.

'The Heart of the Matter' or 'The Heart of Darkness' in the Prof. Fackenheim lecture --to quote the titles by late English novelists Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad, respectively-- was:

All the Tora(h) has got 613 commandments for the Jewish nation. 613 = 6 plus 1 plus 3 = 10 (commandments). 614 = 613 plus 1 = 10 plus 1 = 11. Numeral 11 might stand for the 'new' Fackenheiman 11th commandment, as added to the Basic Ten engraved on the Tables of the Covenant. Cf. a different 11th commandment in the Samaritan Pentateuch: Thou shalt worship the L-o-r-d Thy G-o-d in Mount Gerizim.

The lecture was followed by question time. The time allowance could only provide for seven questions. They were all posed and answered in the English language. Here are the points raised by seven different people of the public given in order of their appearance.

(1) Don Ricardo Pinjas Gold Stein y Wimberly de Jerusale'n: how to explain the Holcaust awareness emerged relatively late after WWII?

(2) MdM, the author of this report: should there be any limits to the democracy, e.g. the principle of freedom of speech? With all respect to the Six Million victims of the Shoa(h), the question is posed within the context of Holocaust denial as exemplified by the case of Professor Faurisson of France. The right to freely express his historical revisionist views was defended Professor Noam A. Chomsky, himself a Jew and prolific political activist supporting the radical democracy. The time passing, those against the Holocaust denier started to accuse Mr N. A. Chomsky of anti-Semitism, which made him quit the case to stop the spread of further confusion and misunderstanding. Actually, according to Prof. Noam A. Chomsky, apart from the very subject of argument --be it related to Holocaust or anything else-- Jews who deny a freedom of speech to their opponents behave like the Nazi oppressors who gave them no option to speak for themselves. Cf. a Roman Law court routine of providing every defendant with an advocate, regardless the callibre of the offence committed. The perennial internal paradox of Liberalist idea is whether those supporting the Democratic principle of tolerance should tolerate those who do not tolerate them. If so, there is a danger their actions might undermine the Democratic society and change it into a dictatorship.

(3) A middle-aged man, professor: may we compare the actions of some Arabs against Jews with those of German Nazis? E. L. Fackenheim: 'I am very reluctant to call anybody Nazi except Nazis'. Professor added his uncle lost his own leg for Germany during W.W.I, Germans killed him among the cripples, and then lied about that. The name for such behaviour is radical evil. How to explain it, e.g. Heidrich's sadism? Professor said he had come from the same town that Heidrich had. In his last will Hitler (y"sh) wrote Germans had to survive in order to kill more Jews.

MdM: the idea of radical / total evil reminds me of 'The Jewish War' by Josephus Flavius (original in Latin) or Henryk Grynberg (original in Polish). The latter showed the WWII was primarily not a war waged against 'non-Aryans' but one against all the Jewish Nation and Jewish Civilization. The Book of Esther speaks of the arch-anti-Semite Haman of Persia, y"sh. The history showed us there were some other H-letterd Hamans, whose aim was to annihilate the masses of Jewish Nation: (i) Hmelnitsky (B-ogdan of Ukraine, y"sh), (ii) Hitler (Adolf of Germany, y"sh), or (iii) Husseyn (Sadam of Iraq, y"sh).

(4) A young man: how to compare the Jewish Holocaust to the genocides of non-Jewish nations in East Timor, Cambodia, Rwanda, or Bosnia?

E. L. Fackenheim answered there is a difference between genocide and radical crime. Holocaust meant to kill every single Jew. Speaking of the killers he mentioned the martyr execution of Rabbi Akiva by a Roman soldier. That crime had been permanently imprinted in the killer's mind; and eventually the executioner himself converted to Judaism.

MdM: cf. the widespread conversions to Judaism of Nazi perpetrators' children who had come to volunteer on Israe-li *kibbutzim* (Hebrew: 'Communist or Socialist Jewish agricultural settlements') after the W.W.II. Philosophically / Morally, they are but innocent children of criminals: Judaism is not a racist religion. Also cf. the *mitsva(h)* (Hebrew: 'commandment') about Amalek and some cases in Jewish history when Amalekite descendants converted to Judaism, e.g. those of Hamanite extraction.

(5) A middle-aged lady: how would Leo Baeck react to the fact there are now some 100 000 Jews living in Germany?

E. L. Fackenheim stated he, personally, would never come back to Germany, where he was brought up. How could he live among the people whom he has in contempt? Unlike Emil L. Fackenheim, Leo Baeck might have still visited Germany, although he would not be able to re-live permanently over there.

MdM: cf. the firm resolution of a great many Holocaust survivors of the German-Polish death and concentration camps never to visit the anti-Semitic Po-Land. They swore so because of the widespread Polish complicity in terrors and cruelties against the Jewish People as well as post-war pogroms on the Jewish remnants in the past, as well as the unchanged strong anti-Semitic attitudes at large in the majority of present-day Poles. With some many neo-Nazi organizations legally operating in the post-war Germany and Allies' countries, we might ask a rhetoric question: what did those people learn or forget from the Holocaust lesson?

(6) A middle-aged woman: Besides the Holocaust denial now is there also another on-going denial of Jews' connection to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, Land of Israe-l, and Tora(h) at present on the part of those who hate Jews or Israe-l?

(7) An elderly gentleman of Polish-Jewish extraction who survived the Lodz Ghetto: May some responsibility for the Jewish deaths in ghettos be put also on the part of some Jewish community leaders who collaborated with the Nazi administration?

The concluding point was made by Prof. Y. Amir. He expressed the idea that he can call himself and all other Jews born like he after the Shoah, Holocaust survivors, since all Jews, --irrespective of their nationality, creed, sex, age, etc.--, had been doomed to die by the Nazi regime.

In the small informal post-disc talk that followed the official part several more questions were asked. Answering a question on the evaluation of 'post-Zionist ideology', Professor expressed his strong disapproval of such views.

Some of books by Prof. E. L. Fackenheim are: "G-o-d's Presence in History, The Jewish Bible After the Holocaust; A Re-reading", and "To Mend the World: Foundations of Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought"

Moments of Reprieve by Primo Levi.