He was 97 so none of us were surprised by his passing, but still the death of Chaim Ezra Berkowitz z”l hurt. It touch me deeply for him as a person, his family, our community, and the ends of an era of Jewish history. Looking back I realize that I have written this same piece in 2011, 2019, and now again today. But his story needs to be told and more importantly people need to hear it.

Today Adina and I took our 16-year-old Emunah and 10-year-old Libi to the funeral of Chaim Ezra’s funeral. For girls’ lives he was the Candy Man at our synagogue. While others might have been deputized, Chaim Ezra was the real thing. He was the OG Candy Man. He was a saintly elderly man who survived the Holocaust by hiding in the forest. In his hands he held multitudes. His held his own personal pain, the loss of his family, the loss of his entire community, and the loss of world that is no more. And at the same time with every piece of candy he gave to a exuberant smiling Jewish child he handed Hitler a posthumous defeat. The ultimate revenge was living a good life filled with sweetness.

I am sure each of my children have cavities from his candy over the years, but for someone like Chaim Ezra who has tasted the bitterness of true hatred in his life, I could not imagine denying him the satisfaction of bringing joy to the next generation. We live in a time of tremendous freedom. While the Holocaust will always be in our memory, as the years pass there will fewer and fewer survivors. I hope Libi remembers this , but she will have very few memories of survivors.

When I originally met Chaim Ezra I thought he experiences the nadir of humanity and I thought the future was bright. And as I reflect today on his passing, I look back and ask myself, “How naïve was I?” From Pittsburgh to Poway, from Christchurch to Sri Lanka, and from Nova to Bondi Beach we are regularly discussing Antisemitism and other acts of terrorism that have become the new normal. As sad as I am for our society and my children to witness the reemergence of this hatred and heightened levels of terrorism in our world, I have a different level of sadness for Chaim Ezra. While no one should experience such hatred in their lives, knowing what Chaim Ezra has gone through it is excruciating that he had to leave this world knowing that it could very much happen again. Were all of those times we said, “Never Again”, just platitudes?

While we need to reinvest in safety and security in our community, we cannot cower in fear or let that investment replace investing in the joy of living Jewishly. The life lesson of Chaim Ezra Berkowitz is one that we all need to learn. Every one who gave out candy in our shul got their candy from him. Chaim Ezra would not have it any other way. He would pay for the candy with money he got from German reparations. On Purim we read about our salvation from another genocide in the Persian Empire. There we we read on Purim: As the days when the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month that was reversed for them Mi’Yagon l’Simcha – from grief to joy and from mourning to a festive day-to make them days of feasting and joy, and sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. (Esther 9:22)There is a profound feeling that comes from a reversal of sadness into happiness. Chaim Ezra took those lemons and made lemonade. Now more than ever we all have a lot of work to do to ensure that we can reverse all of this grief and make it into joy. We need this for ourselves and our children.

May his memory be for a blessing. And as a reminder, it could not hurt to brush.

• The Sweetness of Jewish Life– 2011
• Sweet Sweet Candy: A Thought for Yom HaShoah– 2019