There have been many stories in the news lately of parents who have done terrible things to their own children. The wrong way driver on the Taconic comes to mind as well as numerous incomprehensible stories that are headlined on the evening news or even the story told by Boris yesterday.

I have always been troubled by the story of the binding of Isaac. When I thought about the story this year, I wondered, what must Isaac have thought? From his perspective, he goes out for a three-day hike with his father. The text doesn’t record any conversation between them until they reach the top of the mountain. Isaac ends his journey with his father, tied to the altar looking up at his father holding a knife. His life is spared when an angel calls out to Abraham. How did Isaac recover from the trauma of knowing that his father had almost sacrificed him? How did he travel home with him? How did this event shape him? An event like this must have caused scars that never fully healed.

Maybe there can be perspective gained from sharing a small piece of our past.

I would like to read to you a speech written by Ariel Eder, on the occasion of the to honor the memory of Georgette and Pierre Lefrancois and to award them posthumously the title of "Righteous among the Nation" for having rescued and protected him at the risk of their lives during the tortuous days of the German occupation of France. Here is his story:



My story begins in the summer of 1942, in Antwerp, Belgium. At that time my parents had decided to seek safety by trying to flee to Switzerland. Being aware of the danger of this perilous enterprise, they decided to risk the trip without their four-and-a-half year old son - this, without a shadow of doubt, in order to safeguard their son's life. My parents, therefore, decided to leave me in the good hands of our neighbors, the Mortelmans and escape. 

Try now to imagine this small boy, happily returning home from a bicycle ride with a neighbor, eager to tell his parents about the tour he had just made, rushing up the stairs to the apartment and finding himself standing before a locked door. Try to visualize this child, less than five years old, knocking on the door with his little fists, crying and begging his parents, who he presumed were still behind it, to let him in. The terrifying silence, which was the only answer I received, clearly seemed like a bad omen. This traumatic event left me with a wound so deep that it has never healed. I was so furious at my parents for having left me behind without any warning, that at that time (between 1942 and 1945), the possibility of eventually returning to them never crossed my mind.

In 1942 I was sent to France, although I was apparently meant to stay with our neighbors, the Mortelmans family, until the end of the war. 

According to Elza Mortelmans, a few days after the bicycle ride with her husband, the Gestapo conducted a house-by-house search for Jews in our street. Hugo Mortelmans quickly grabbed me and hid me in the loft. I can imagine that the Gestapo raid must have frightened the Mortelmans family. As a result, a few days later I was on my way to the Belgian-French border to be smuggled by a ferry-man to France, more specifically to Marseille. 

For reasons unknown, my ferry-man in fact took me to Paris, to the owner of a bar named "Le Rancho" and asked the owner to take care of me for two or three days. After a few days, with no sign from my ferry-man, it was decided that I should be sent to her brother René, who lived in the village of St. Martin de Bienfaite. Her reasoning was that in wartime, life in the countryside was, at least to some extent, easier than life in town. My presence in France was illegal, I was not registered anywhere and had no food or clothing coupons.



A few days after my arrival in Bienfaite village, René's brother Pierre appeared. I can still picture him approaching, sitting atop a horse-drawn cart. I even remember the horse's name: Bichette. Pierre had just come from a neighboring village, Notre Dame de Courson (Courson), to move into the house next door to Rene's, where he and his family planned to live. I fell in love with his smile, the warmth that emanated from him and the way he spoke to me, even though I did not yet understand a word of French. As a result of his charm, within a few days I started to call him "Papa".

Pierre, his wife Georgette and their daughter Pierrette, moved into their new home and within a few days I joined my new family. 

If Pierre was my "hero", Georgette was without a doubt my "good fairy". From my first day with them, in the autumn of 1942, until my departure from Bienfaite in February 1945, they showered me with nothing but love and warmth. For me it was as if I had found my parents again, with the added bonus of a sister, who to this day remains very dear to me.
 I wonder if Georgette really knew what was going on during those dark days in France, or was she perhaps merely guided by common sense? Was she aware of the discriminatory edicts against Jews in France, or of raids against Jewish children?

Where would I have been led away to if Georgette and Pierre had not given me shelter?

I am more than just grateful to Georgette and Pierre; I also have boundless admiration for their bravery and courage in taking me into their midst.

As the years have passed, I become increasingly aware of the tremendous risks they took upon themselves and the predicaments they had to cope with. Among other difficulties: when I arrived at Bienfaite I did not speak or understand French; I had no identification papers whatsoever and therefore no legal status in France; my Jewishness had to be hidden at all costs.

One of Pierre's brothers, the Abbé (Abbot) Paul Lefrançois, contributed his share by finding a temporary solution to the problem of my legal status. He was active in the resistance, a man who was always prepared to defend a just cause, sharp minded, always ready with an answer and the author of strongly-worded articles in "Le patriote de l'Eure" (the clandestine leaflet of the Resistance).

He prepared a false certificate according to which: "Pierre Lefrançois, when marrying Georgette Suzanne, agreed to adopt her illegitimate son Henri, who was born before her marriage". This document in effect legitimized a "bastard". And by whom? By an abbot!

Georgette and Pierre were fully aware that should there be even the slightest threat of having to authenticate this certificate, the entire family would have to move and go underground.

And what does one do with a child of Jewish origin, in a small French village, during Sunday mass at church? Georgette and Pierre decided to teach me some prayers and basic religious practices so that I would not stand out from other children of my age.

However, this solution apparently tormented Georgette for many years and it was only in 1982 that I became aware of what she considered her "bad conscience".

During one of my visits to my dear Georgette, she felt the need to relieve herself of a burden that had troubled her conscience for so long. She was afraid that my parents, during all those years, were convinced that she had intended to convert me to Catholicism.

"I want you to know", said my mother from Bienfaite on that meeting, "that if I taught you prayers and some basic Catholic practices, it was only to save your life and avoid attracting the attention of other inhabitants of the village, to keep up appearances with some of the neighbors. All the time I kept wondering how I would dare look your parents in the eye at the end of the war, if I had inadvertently caused you to embrace the Catholic faith."

For me, the Lefrançois family will always remain my family.

Meanwhile, my parents had found refuge in Switzerland in the summer of 1942.

Shortly after my parents left Antwerp, the Mortelmans family succeeded in sending a message informing them that they had sent the "well wrapped plant" to Marseille and that it could be collected from the restaurant (giving the name and address of the restaurant).

In December 2005, while going through one of my father's books, I came across an envelope in which I found poems written by my father in Hebrew. Among them I found a poem, written in Switzerland some time between the summer of 1942 and the end of 1943, a lamentation in which he longs for his lost son. In one line he asks: "Is he still in Marseille?" which proved he had received Mortelmans' message. The Mortelmans seem to have informed my parents that they had changed my name from Ariel Eder to Henri Reder, together with my correct date and place of birth. I still have this little piece of paper. I am convinced that this small piece of paper played an important role in my reunion with my parents. While the war was still ongoing, they began trying to find me with the help of the Red Cross in Switzerland, probably asking to check simultaneously under both my real and false names. Georgette and Pierre also tried to find out, via the French Red Cross, the parents of Henri Reder, born in Antwerp on December 25th, 1937, the only information they had on me.

At the beginning of 1944, after one and a half years without any information about me, my parents were informed that I was alive and living in a small village in Normandy. I still have the picture the Lefrançois family sent to my parents via the Red Cross.

On June 16th, 1944, Pierre died. He had been seriously wounded in a resistance action.

From July 1944 to February 1945 (at which time there were no longer any battles in Normandy), Georgette Lefrançois had been literally bombarded with post from the Eder family, sent through the Red Cross: postcards, telegrams and letters from all kind of institutions and organizations, asking to deliver the "child" as soon as possible to his sick mother in Switzerland. According to the doctors who treated my mother, the return of her lost son was the only remedy that might help her.

In February 1945, Eli Sternbuch of St. Gallen (Switzerland) arrived in Bienfaite on behalf of my parents to take me back to them.

Was I glad to return to my biological parents? It took me some time to re-adapt myself to the parents who had left me behind without any attempt to explain the need for separation in the summer of 1942. There were many times when I said to my biological mother: "my French mother would never have acted like that in those circumstances…"

Yes, children can sometimes be very cruel, even with wonderful parents.

My mother passed away in 1989 and "my mother from Bienfaite" in 1998.

The place where I spent two and a half years of my childhood marked me for the rest of my life. It is important to me that my family and everyone may hear the story of Georgette, Pierre and the entire Lefrançois family and to give them all the honor they deserve.

There is a Talmudic quotation: "He who contributes to the saving of one human being, has as much merit as if he had saved the whole of mankind."

Ariel ends his story by expressing his gratitude to all Frenchmen and women who contributed to the rescue of Jewish children by quoting Sabine Zeitoun, at the end of her book "Ces enfants qu'il fallait sauver" ("These Children Who Had to be Saved", edit. Albin-Michel, 1989):

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• ‘Due to the dedication and inestimable help of many volunteers of different political, social and religious backgrounds, over 70,000 Jewish French children, out of a total of 84,000, escaped deportation.
. . . Christians, agnostics and secular people played a decisive role in this battle… Women, mothers of families, Protestant ministers, intellectuals, and peasants in Paris and everywhere throughout France, took part in the distribution of false papers or in giving shelter to the persecuted, if only for a few hours, a few months or sometimes a few years. Risking their lives, these men and women dared to ignore the orders of Vichy, to defy the monstrous Nazi projects."

Nobody can or will ever forget these humanitarian acts of courage and heroism.

Ariel is my husband Les’ first cousin. Ariel never got over the trauma of being abandoned by his parents at such an early age and then later had to leave the new family to whom he had bonded. But he refused to give in to adversity and grew up to be a caring, considerate and decent man. Today he lives in Netanya in Israel with his wife Karen and nearby live his three children and grandchildren.

And what about Isaac? The Torah tells us that he too somehow overcame the trauma of his near sacrifice at the hands of his father.

People who refuse to give in to adversity inspire me. People may find previously unknown abilities, talents, and strengths within themselves. Some people risk their lives and perform deeds that are selfless. We all have the power to protect those who are less fortunate – to do our part to make the world a better place – not perfect, but improved. President Obama recently observed, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for."

Maybe it’s just the time of year or maybe it’s the time of man. The willingness to sacrifice for a worthy cause. Benevolence for those who are less fortunate. Tolerance for those who are different. Respect for the environment. Embracing these goals would make for a fine new year.

Shana Tovah.