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Newsletters September 2009 The Most Tragic Words
Newsletters September 2009 The Most Tragic Words
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... Ever Stated or Written In my reading of Jewish Stars in Texas: Rabbis and Their Work by Hollace Ava Weiner, I came across a startling, heartbreaking, tragic, and telling statement (see below). Weiner interviews the descendants of Heinrich Schwarz, one of the first leading rabbis to settle in Texas and who pastored a synagogue in Hempstead during the late 1800s, and discovers that the descendants of Heinrich scattered all across Texas and placed their roots in every part of Texas soil. One of the areas that the descendants of Rabbi Heinrich settled in Texas was the Haskell/Stamford area – west of Abilene. Now no one really knows much about this area because aside from the Wal-Mart coming to Stamford, nothing much has happened in this area since Jeannie C. Riley lampooned her hometown of Anson with the country song “Harper Valley PTA.” And that song was written in the 1970s! However, this area is critical to my life because my mother was born and raised in Hamlin (about 20 miles from Stamford), my father bought my mom’s engagement ring from his uncle’s jewelry store in Haskell, and most of my long- and not-so-long-gone family is now buried either in the Haskell or Hamlin cemeteries. In fact, when I told my mom about the page of Texas Jewish history, she remembers as a young girl going to Stamford and shopping in their department store. Anyway … In Weiner’s interview of the descendants of Rabbi Heinrich, his great-granddaughter remembers how the family was intertwined with every part of West Texas life – from the belles, to the football games, and everything else in-between. This tangle of threads included to the grandchildren of the rabbi even attending “evangelical revivals” when, I would assume, the circuit-riding tent preacher traveled through town. However, none of the rabbi’s long lineage of Jewish Texans ever converted to evangelical Christianity. Why? The answer can be found for me in the most tragic words ever stated or written. This granddaughter states, “No one tried to convert us.” Wow! What an indictment of Christian witness. What a declaration of the Ichabod nature of so many “Christian churches”. Christians in Texas were happy to invite them to compete for the title of Homecoming Queen but never told them about the reality and hope of Messiah Jesus, our Sar Shalom (prince of peace). And before one assumes that this is a page of Texas (or any other state) history past, let me ask you one question – Are there Jewish people living in your towns, on your block, and intertwined into your family tree who could also utter the words, “No one tried to convert us.” May God help us all if this is true. (This article can also be located on Tzedakah Ministries’ blog) |
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