At age 9, Noah Abelson visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Stopping in a room dedicated to non-Jews who saved Jews during World War II, he asked his mom to read aloud every one of their stories.
“We were there for like three hours just reading,” recalled Abelson, now 13. “I mean they were so interesting. They just were something I liked to hear.”
Tomorrow, when Abelson celebrates his bar mitzvah at Redwood City’s Temple Beth Jacob, he will take his connection to those stories a step further.
The San Mateo resident will dedicate his ceremony to Alexander Roslan, a native of Poland who saved several members of a Jewish family. Roslan, now 89, lives in Florida.
Abelson will relay Roslan’s story during his bar mitzvah speech at the Conservative synagogue.
And he will contribute a portion of his gifts to the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which provides monthly financial assistance to more than 1,500 aged and needy Christians who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Funds will be earmarked for Roslan.
In 1943, the Roslans, a Christian Jewish family, took three young Jewish boys into hiding in their home. When two of them contracted scarlet fever, Roslan managed to get them admitted to a hospital using false identification.
One of the ill brothers died. The other took longer than expected to recover and required costly care. Roslan moved his family to a one-room apartment in order to pay for the boy’s medical treatment.
In a letter to Roslan, Abelson wrote, “I am honoring you because what you did for the three boys…I cannot believe you were so caring to sell your house in order to take care of the two boys’ sicknesses.”
Abelson read about Roslan in a book of righteous gentiles published by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous.
“All of the people did acts that deserved honoring but yours was the most righteous and special to me,” Abelson wrote to Roslan.
Abelson and his mom Gilah also talked to Roslan on the phone. During the conversation, the young boy wiped tears from his eyes.
“It’s kind of weird when you hear a story like that. You think, ‘That’s a fairy tale,'” he said last week. “But it was true and I could talk to him. There’s no words to describe how amazing what he did is.”
A seventh-grader at Borel Middle School, Abelson likes sports, especially basketball and soccer. And he likes to cook. “Usually after school, I make spaghetti or something. Sushi’s my favorite food.”
He thinks he might be a chef when he grows up. Or a lawyer like his dad, Mark.
After seeing the movie “Ghosts of Mississippi” — which tells of a white lawyer’s successful prosecution of the man who shot civil rights leader Medgar Evers — Abelson thinks that’s the kind of law he’d like to practice.
“He’s always been into fairness and justice,” his mom said.
Abelson’s Torah portion, Vayikra, tells of sacrifices made by Jews to God when the Temple existed in Jerusalem. In his speech, Abelson will link the concept of sacrifices to those who saved Jews during the war.
“When the righteous gentiles saved someone during the Holocaust, they gave up time, money, and possibly even their own lives and the lives of their family members,” he writes.
Knud Dyby, an 84-year-old Danish rescuer who lives in Novato, will deliver a sermon.
“It really strikes me that at his age he has a sense of altruism and commitment,” Dyby said. “I couldn’t say ‘no.'”