Preface to "...And Often The First Jew"
​

It is a heady but eerie feeling to preach in a church
with a cornerstone with the year 1220 on it and to
have one of the community leaders inform you that
you are the first rabbi to preach there in the church’s
history. “Many of our worshippers,” he continued,
“have never seen a Jew before.”

It was not a unique example. When I spoke in German
churches in towns and villages like Schulensee,
Kaltenkirchen, Bordesholm, Husum, Friedrichstadt
and even in cities as large as Leipzig, Neumünster or
Kiel, I was almost always the first rabbi to ever speak
there, and for many worshippers, I was the first living
Jew that the worshippers had ever seen.

To be “the first” is both a privilege and a burden. I am
ever mindful the impression those to whom I speak
will have of Jews and Judaism depends on what I say
and the way I say it.

For four years it has been my privilege and that of my
wife Vickie to spend part of the year in Germany.
There, in addition to my work in synagogues and
churches, we teach together in German high schools
about the Holocaust. To facilitate our lessons we use a
wonderful exhibit about Vickie’s own 97-year-old
mother, Stefanie Steinberg.

She was born in Breslau and was uprooted along with her
family in 1936 when the Nazi government informed her father,
a respected Radiologist who had served in the German army
during World War I that he could no longer be a
physician in Germany. The family moved to Barcelona,
but after the Civil War erupted in Spain, the family
dispersed and Stefanie lived in a Kinderheim in
Switzerland. When she was 17, she made her way to
New York and eventually to Los Angeles and San
Francisco.

High School students find her story enthralling, and
some have reached out to connect with her personally.
Almost all of the students to whom we speak have
never seen a rabbi before; many have never seen a
Jew.

“Being the first” causes Vickie and me to feel a special
responsibility similar to the one I feel when I preach or
teach in German churches. We want students to know
about the Shoah, and its horrors. But I constantly say
to students and parishioners to whom I speak:
         Wir können die Vergangenheit nicht ungeschehen
         machen, aber wir können gemeinsam an einer besseren
        Zukunft arbeiten.
We cannot undo the past, but the future is ours to shape.
If in some small way, our experiences in Germany and
the essays in this book can some how contribute to that besseren Zukunft –
that better future, our efforts will be amply rewarded.
​
Rabbi Stephen Lewis Fuchs
Sanibel, Florida
Chanukah 5779