It is the question that many of us are asking ourselves: How can we celebrate Simchat Torah this year?
Traditionally a day of vibrant song and dance, where we rejoice with the Torah, this year feels different. How can we bring ourselves to dance on the first anniversary since the horrific pogrom that took place last Simchat Torah in Israel, where so many people were slaughtered, injured and taken hostage? The scars from that day remain painfully fresh.
Simchat Torah has always been a festival of joy, a celebration of the Torah and Jewish life. Yet this year we feel the weight of grief and wonder how it is possible to dance in the face of such sorrow. This struggle is unfortunately not new to our people. In fact, it is something we have been forced to navigate for centuries—dancing in the shadow of tragedy.
This year, as Simchat Torah approaches, I also find myself reflecting on the life and legacy of my great-grandmother, Lily Ebert, who my cousins and I called “Safta” and who passed away last week at the age of 100. She was a Holocaust survivor who, despite enduring the unimaginable horrors of Auschwitz, lived her life with immense strength, resilience and love. Her life is a powerful lens through which to understand the complexity of this moment in Jewish history.
Safta was born in Bonyhád, Hungary, in 1923. She grew up in an Orthodox Jewish family with six siblings. Her idyllic childhood was shattered when, at the age of 20, the Nazis invaded Hungary and her family was deported to Auschwitz. On July 9, 1944, Safta, along with her mother, three sisters and younger brother, arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of that day her mother, youngest brother and a sister had been murdered in the gas chambers with more than 14,000 others who had arrived from Hungary that day, including more than 100 members of her extended family.
Safta and her two surviving sisters were forced into slave labour, first in Auschwitz and later at a munitions factory in Altenburg, Germany. In the final days of the war they endured a death march but were liberated by Allied forces in April 1945. Despite the trauma of these experiences, Safta made a promise to herself in Auschwitz: if she survived, she would tell the world what had happened and live a life of purpose – that being the only way she would be able to honour the memory of those who could not.
After the war Safta soon made her way to Israel where she met and married my great-grandfather, Shmuel Ebert. Together, they built a beautiful family. She often spoke of standing on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv in 1948, witnessing the Declaration of the State of Israel – a moment of hope after years of suffering. In 1967 she and her family moved to London, where she spent the rest of her life sharing her testimony and educating younger generations about the Holocaust.
Safta passed away last week and her final wish was to be buried in Israel, next to her husband who had pre-deceased her, in the land that she had called home after the Holocaust and which had given her so much hope. Last week, we laid her to rest on Har Hamenuchot, overlooking Jerusalem.
Safta’s story is one of resilience, a reminder of the Jewish ability to rebuild after unimaginable loss. As we grapple with the emotions of this Simchat Torah, I think about how Safta lived her life. Even after experiencing the worst of humanity, she never let it define her. She chose life, and she chose to celebrate it. She was a loving mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and recently a great-great grandmother, who became a beacon of hope for millions. Her presence on social media, where we started a TikTok account together in 2021, allowed her to share her story with an entirely new generation. Even in her final years she was teaching the world about tolerance, love, and resilience.
This year, as Simchat Torah approaches we of course feel a very difficult conflict about how we can bring ourselves to celebrate. But Safta’s life teaches me that simcha, joy, even in the face of tragedy, is not just an act of defiance – it is an essential part of our survival.
Safta understood that to live as a Jew is to carry both joy and sorrow in equal measure. Her survival wasn’t just about defying death, it was about building life again, about celebrating the family and future that emerged from the ashes.
As we gather for Simchat Torah, we may dance with a heavy heart but we must still dance. We dance in memory of those murdered so cruelly last Simchat Torah. We dance for those 101 hostages in Gaza and pray for their return. We dance for our soldiers who are fighting for the survival of the Jewish homeland. And we dance for those who came before us and ensured that we could continue to dance. I will also dance for Safta, who taught me that even in the darkest times, we must hold onto life and joy.
