nazi paraphernalia (yemach shmo!)

I met a lovely lady at a local antique mall. She asked me if I ever get up to Ashland, which is about a 20-25 minute drive from me. I said I some times go up there, and she told me about another mall she sells at.  I am always on the hunt for jewelry, especially vintage pieces, so I was so excited to go on Monday.

I only have eyes for jewelry. I walk in and meet the owner, who seems to be a super nice guy.  He hears me out and shows me around to all the vendors with jewelry, and I spend some time wandering around. The woman who sent me has a lot of nice pieces.  I picked out a bunch from her, and one from another vendor. The owner was so nice and said he would call the vendors and ask for a better price since I was getting a lot of stuff.

While I was waiting for him to get an answer, I wandered around and started looking at other cases. Then I discovered this -- (The video starts 3:03 where she says, "I hope no one is offended.")

Normally, I am not a "snowflake". I have big girl pants and I can handle a lot. But this, well, this was beyond just being offended. This is just plain WRONG!  I was beyond shocked. I was horrified and literally shaking as I was so bothered by it.  I told the owner how upset I was about it. He starts telling me how wonderful the dealer is. He explains it is not the same dealer as I am buying from, and that his kids are all wonderful people as well. I start tuning him out cuz he was literally one line away from saying some of his best friends are Jewish too.  I cut him off and said I am not sure if I am comfortable making a purchase here.

So I go outside to clear my head and think about it. No. This is the owner I am talking to, not some local employee. I go back and explain that by his allowing this in his store, he is condoning it.  I told him six million of my brothers and sisters were murdered by them and I can't support it. I took my Jewish Benjamins and left.

Two days later and it's still bothering me. There are people out there who still glorify and agree with what was done to us. And they are the ones looking to buy this garbage. Those pictures of those monsters, they need to be destroyed, not displayed. History needs to show that they were monsters who brutally and with glee murdered innocent human beings. Anything less is an insult to their memories.

I know I made the right decision. If you are passing through VA, there are tons of great places to visit. Sadly, that is not one of them.

edited to add:
BTW, I mentioned this story today to Billy from The Attic Consignment (awesome shop! Make sure you stop in there and visit it!). He said a few years ago, he got a bunch of stuff. He ended up selling to to a nice Jewish guy. The guy was willing to buy it from him for any price. He asked him why. He said exactly what I mentioned above, that buy this Jewish guy buying it, he is getting it off the market. Most of it he destroys. Good for him. I won't spend money to do that, because with this particular vendor, I feel it will only encourage it rather than discourage it.

edited again to add:
I also get the feeling that they are proud of this. The fact that the case is one of the first ones you see when you walk in (prime selling spot), and the fact that the wife choose to highlight it in their video says a lot to me.

Another Birthday Sans Birth Day Boy

Chof Zayin Nissan

Some people look at it as Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. Honestly, I never even knew about it until the day my Labor and Delivery nurse showed up in my room to tell me how meaningful it was for her to see a Jewish baby born on this day.  To me, this day was always just "Yossi's Birthday".

Wednesday found me getting very down. I had some great jewelry finds, but nothing was enough to pick me up. Usually, I make the birthday child's favorite dinner, but this year I did something different. I made US a special dinner, which we all enjoyed very much. (Thank you to my dear husband for buying us ground lamb for Pesach. LOL ... waited until after to make lamburgers. No, they were not as good as the ones from Burgers Bar in Israel, but they were delish.) 

Thursday morning however found me in a very unusual place for 7:30am. I went to Yeshiva to see them use Yossi's Torah.  I actually heard it before I saw it. I heard the little tinkling of the bells (they aren't real bells, cuz the middle piece is not there, but they do klink against the sides of the kesser) before I realized they had taken it out. I know it was only 3 aliyos, but it was enough to pull me up and carry me though out the whole day.

Thank You Hashem for such a big bracha of having Yossi's Sefer Torah so close by!