Butler woman brings Judaism back to storybook German town
Everyone knows the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. But few people realize the fairy tale might be based on actual events that happened more than 700 years ago, in a real town in north-central Germany. That town still thrives today.
Hamelin — actually, the Germans spell it “Hameln,” without the “i” — has a remarkable connection to Butler. The founder and matriarch of Hameln's Jewish community is Rachel Arnovitz Dohme, a native of Butler, a 1970 graduate of Butler Senior High School and a life member of Butler's Congregation B'nai Abraham synagogue.
During a recent vacation in Germany, my wife Cherie and I took a four-hour train excursion to Hameln to celebrate that connection in a special way.
We observed Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, with Dohme and her congregation inside the synagogue she built five years ago.
Blame Robert Browning for adding the vowel. The English poet decided “Hamelin” was a better fit for his rhyme scheme. But he got the description right when he wrote in 1839:
“Hamelin Town's in Brunswick, By famous Hanover city; The River Weser, deep and wide, Washes its wall on the southern side. A pleasanter spot you never spied.”
Seated at a fountainside cafe in the village square, there's almost too much for the eye to take in.
Square brass plaques, imprinted with the image of a rat, dot the cobblestones surrounding the market square church.
Renaissance period architecture — guild and burgher houses embellished with ornate scrollwork and statuary — adorns the perimeter. It's all spotless — and blocked off from vehicle traffic.
The church once included a stained-glass window depicting the Pied Piper legend. The window was installed sometime around 1300. A fire destroyed it in 1660.
The oldest written record of the legend is the first entry in the village chronicles, dated 1384, stating, “It is 100 years since our children left.”
As the Brothers Grimm told the story, in the spring of 1284, a stranger in a colorful (pied) coat offered to rid Hameln of a rat problem if the town paid him. The town gladly accepted his offer, and when he played his magic pipe, the rats followed him right into the River Weser, where they all drowned. But the villagers refused to pay since the rats were now dead.
The pied piper went away, angry and unpaid. But he returned on June 26, the feast day of Saints John and Paul. While all the parents were in church, he lured away 130 children the same way he had lured the rats. They were never seen again.
Historians have long speculated if there was any truth to the Pied Piper legend. Some say the rats suggest the story had to do with the plague, but the plague did not take hold in Europe until nearly 80 years later.A newer and more likely theory is that the young people were recruited for colonization of newly acquired lands in present-day southern Poland and Romania. Unless you were a firstborn son and in line to inherit the family's property, the promise of land and riches would have been tantalizing.The event would have coincided with European efforts to secure its eastern frontier against invasion by two grandsons of the Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, according to historians who favor this theory.Dohme moved to Germany in the mid-'80s. One of the things she missed most was Butler's synagogue.“I wanted that experience for my children,” she said.But there was no synagogue. For more than 400 years Hameln had supported a small but vibrant Jewish community until Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass — Nov. 9, 1938, when the Nazis destroyed the synagogue. The Jewish population was decimated — 101 of Hameln's Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The remainder left, never to return.That officially changed in 1997. Dohme founded Jüdische Gemeinde Hameln, the Reform Jewish Community of Hamelin, organizing Russian immigrants who were interested in knowing about their Jewish heritage.“That all came about after the Berlin Wall came down, from an agreement between the German chancellor at the time, Helmut Kohl, and the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Heinz Galinski,” Dohme said. “They agreed to settle Russian ethnic Jews in Germany rather than risk the second loss of a Jewish population — the population of German Jews was shrinking, and Germany didn't want that.”In the 19 years since its founding, the congregation has grown to more than 200 members, almost all of whom are Russian Jewish émigrés. The new synagogue, completed in 2011, sits on the location of the destroyed original. Close working relationships with the local government and cultural and church groups such as the Society for Christian-Jewish Solidarity have contributed to the congregation's success, Dohme said.“We actually have two Torah scrolls: one we were able to purchase and the other was a gift to us, paid for by Hameln's Christian churches,” Dohme said.
The Society for Christian-Jewish Solidarity recently offered to provide a set of embroidered fine linens, she said.About 50 people were in attendance for the Rosh Hashana sunset service Sept. 20, reciting prayers in a mix of German and Hebrew, with a smattering of English for the benefit of Cherie and me.The New Year is an occasion for gifts and greetings.On behalf of Butler's congregation, we presented Jüdische Gemeinde Hameln with a set of four watercolor portraits of the matriarchs of the Old Testament — Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah — created by Butler artist Ben Vincent, a member of B'nai Abraham.A sumptuous potluck followed the worship, featuring a German-Baltic-Jewish mashup of flavors and color — red cabbage, smoked salmon, potato latkes, cakes, sweets and fruits of all kind.“It's wonderful that they are ethnic Jews,” Dohme said. They came to Hameln knowing practically nothing about their religious heritage, but they recognize the foods. Their families held onto the recipes.”Before we ate, there was one moment that will stay with me forever.Rabbi Ulrike Offenberg — one of only seven female rabbis in the entire country of Germany — invited Cherie and me and two congregants to hold the corners of a linen cloth over four boys while they received a blessing.Later, the rabbi told us the children were brothers, all siblings with a single mom. Like most of the congregation, they were immigrants.They showed up soon after the rabbi exhorted the aging congregation to pray for more children. And they continue to come.“We asked, and just like that, they showed up,” she said with a laugh.Imagine that. Children suddenly showing up in Hameln, where according to legend they've been known to disappear.
