Searching for Reb Oren's Golden Land

The other day, while interviewing B’nai Israel’s Rabbi Etan Mintz about having a sign on his shul’s property defaced with a swastika, I couldn’t help but think of Reb Oren Sauber. I wondered what he would’ve thought of the whole sad affair.

I never actually met Reb Oren — he died long before I came into this life (in fact, my mother was named after him) – but he was my great-grandfather and I’ve always felt a kinship with him. The little I know of him I heard from my grandmother, Sarah, who passed away in 1986.

All I have of Reb Oren is this photo (shown above) left by my grandmother. To me, he looks contemplative, righteous and proud.

From what I gather, Reb Oren was an exceedingly pious and learned man, steeped in the rigorous ways of the old yeshiva world of his native Riga, the Latvian capital. He and his wife, Dora, came to the United States – Locust Point, to be precise – shortly before the turn of the 20th century, had six children and made a life for themselves in East Baltimore’s teeming Jewish ghetto. They lived somewhere on Albemarle Street, in what’s now known as Little Italy, and theirs was not an easy existence.

Reb Oren was strictly “old school.” From what I’ve heard, he never really earned a dime in America. First of all, he was no spring chicken when arriving on these shores and quite a bit older than his wife, a tenacious, hard-working caterer. He also never spoke English. So Reb Oren – like many Jewish scholars of his era – spent his days studying Torah, Talmud, Gemara and Mishnah, while his wife worked to feed the family.

He was a melamed, a teacher, at B’nai Israel on Lloyd Street, only a few blocks from where he lived. He appears to have been a well-regarded, charismatic melamed in his time, and whenever I step into that beautiful, sacred shul I think of him. I imagine him sitting at a tisch (table) with younger bucherim (students), going over some particularly challenging Talmudic passages with a woeful facial expression and a ballet of dramatic hand gestures.

My mother, always a person with a strong work ethic, could never make heads or tails of the fact that although Reb Oren didn’t make a livelihood for his impoverished family, they absolutely adored him. Of course, she was hearing these accolades several years after his passing. But her own mother and uncles and aunts (and bubbie as well) spoke of the man in reverential, worshipful tones. It seems he was gracious, gentle, thoughtful and generous of spirit.

At some point, because his eldest son Harry started making a good living in vaudeville, Reb Oren and his family moved to New York. I believe he died not long after that, and is buried there.

Reb Oren left Riga and came to Baltimore with a dream to give his kids a better life in the goldeneh medina, or golden land. He wanted them to live without fear of persecution and bigotry, someplace where they could be Jews and live in freedom and flourish. His children might not have maintained his level of observance – in fact, many of them went into the Yiddish teater (theater), something frowned upon by the pious – but they never forgot that they were Jews, first and foremost, and they never forgot him.

I wonder what Reb Oren would’ve thought of that horrible image of Nazism and fascism painted on a sign next to his beloved shul. I wonder if he could fathom the reservoir of hate and mean-spiritedness that would fuel such a heinous, despicable act, or the amount of pain caused by it.

But I have a hunch he would’ve applauded Rabbi Mintz and those people of all faiths and backgrounds who came together last Sunday morning to stage a demonstration, sing “Oseh Shalom” and proclaim, “This will not be tolerated in our America.”

That’s the America that Reb Oren wanted to live in.