There is an oft-repeated Hebrew phrase that declares “Am Yisrael Chai.” The English translation is something along the lines of “The Jewish Nation Lives.” That can be interpreted literally, applying just to Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, or metaphorically, referring to the Jewish people. The notion seems particularly poignant during the season of Chanukah, commemorating a time when the heroic Maccabees prevailed against enormous odds to defeat those who would undermine and destroy our unique Jewish religion.

In this, our annual issue, two articles in particular reinforce our people’s determination to keep our traditions and our history alive. The remarkable Oyneg Shabes archives, collected and sequestered for decades by doomed Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, and the ongoing effort to restore desecrated Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe testify to the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people in a hostile world where total destruction of Jewish life, and the annihilation of  Jews as a people, seemed imminent. And yet, despite it all, Am Yisrael Chai — the Jewish Nation Lives!

There is more: We look at “Get” refusal, when a spouse seeking a divorce cannot obtain the release required of Orthodox Jews to dissolve a marriage. We reprise the sorry role of U.S. diplomats after the First World War and before the Second who chose to shore up the Polish government rather than protest its reaction and role in anti-Semitic pogroms. Read about Rabbi Jacob Sonderling, a musical visionary whose impact was felt from Hamburg to Los Angeles. Finally, we are proud to have won another Rockower Award from the American Jewish Press Association, this one for “The Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom: Finding Common Ground,” by Miranda Spivack, which appeared in the Spring 2019 issue of B’nai B’rith Magazine.

— Eugene L. Meyer