Never forget.
This year’s commemoration for Yom HaShoah / Holocaust Remembrance Day will be virtually, with events on Sunday, April 19, and on Monday and Tuesday,
The Annual Gathering of Remembrance normally is NYC’s largest Holocaust commemoration event, with more than 2,000 people attending at Temple Emanu-El, to honor the six million souls lost in Europe’s WWII concentration camps and Jewish ghettos.
This year is not normal, and the community will come together online, instead.
The virtual candle lighting will take place on several virtual channels, and participants everywhere, not just NYC, are invited to post photos of their own candles of remembrance.
The event is at 2pm, and also will be available to watch later if you can’t attend.
Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.
The Museum’s You Tube Page (https://www.youtube.com/user/MuseumJewishHeritage),
The Museum’s website (https://mjhnyc.org/), and on
Temple Emanuel-El
The Temple’s website (https://www.emanuelnyc.org/)
The remembrance event includes songs from many of the countries of Europe which suffered the most under the Nazis, brief statements from elderly survivors and the lighting of memorial candles by survivors and their decendants.
Here is the statement by MJH president Michael S. Glickman at the 2017 remembrance event, which included Holocaust survivors telling their stories about survival:
Remembering the lives lost in the Holocaust is an act of resistance against the Nazis’ attempts to dehumanize and destroy the Jewish people.
The full horror of genocide is in its ambition not only to murder individuals, families, and communities, but also to wipe out the entire people to whom they belonged—the people who could tell their story, acknowledge their humanity, and preserve their memory.
In their attempt to obliterate the Jewish people, the Nazis sought to change the future and master the past. There would be no Jews to remember the Jewish people who were exterminated; there would be no Jewish perspective on Jewish history, no Jewish insistence that each life is important and should be mourned. Having been denied their humanity in life, victims of the Shoah would be denied it in death.
There would be no survivors’ voices or rallying cries.
Today, we are still here. The Jewish people persist, and we refuse to forget.
Monday, April 20
The Soap Myth
Did the Nazis make soap from the corpses of murdered Jews?
Fifty years after the end of World War II, impassioned Holocaust survivor Milton Saltzman battles Holocaust historians to include the atrocity of “soap” in their Holocaust memorials and museums. The Soap Myth is a gut-wrenching play that wrestles with the conflict between survivor memory and historical proof, as well as with the scourge of anti-Semitism masquerading as Holocaust denial.
The play poses such provocative questions as: Who has the right to write history? Who determines the truth? How does a survivor survive surviving?
This is a FREE PBS’s recording of Jeff Cohen’s play, starring Ed Asner and Tovah Feldshuh, followed by an invitation to join a virtual discussion on essential questions about the shaping of history and the seduction of anti-Semitism.
This program is presented by the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center, the National Jewish Theater Foundation and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.
With:
Ed Asner & Tovah Feldshuh, The play’s stars
Jeff Cohen, Playwright
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar
Ira N. Forman, President Obama’s Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism
- 6pm Monday, April 20
- FREE, register here to get log-in information for the Zoom event.
- Or, just watch and listen to the livestream of the class from Temple Emanu-El’s website at https://www.emanuelnyc.org/broadcast/
Tuesday, April 21
Reading of Names
Tuesday, April 21, 2020, 6:45 a.m. – 7:30 a.m..
Since 2000, Upper West Side synagogues and the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan have honored the victims of the Holocaust with an annual overnight Yom HaShoah Reading of the Names.
Because of the COVID-19 outbreak, it will all take place online this year, and more than a dozen NYC synagogues and temples are participating.
The reading will begin with an evening program from 7–9 p.m. on Monday, April 20, followed by the overnight Reading of Names, which will be interspersed throughout the day with speakers and teachers.
Stephen Wise Free Synagogue will read names from 6:45am to 7:30 a.m. on April 21.
Those interested in participating in the reading should choose a time slot here.
Your name and email address will be provided to the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, which will send you a link to join a Zoom webinar that will be broadcast to their Facebook page.
Click here to watch the service.The Reading of the Names will be punctuated throughout the day with speakers and teachers (schedule forthcoming). Join us to bear witness and commemorate those lost in the Shoah.
Anyone is welcome to add names during the night or day by adding a comment during the course of the Reading of the Names.
Anyone also is welcome to share photos and family stories on the online platform, enabling everyone to participate.
Reading of Names schedule:
9:00 PM – 9:45 PM –Name reading by The Jewish Center
9:45 PM – 10:30 PM- Name reading by The Carlebach Shul
Wednesday, April 22
photo of Jewish Partisans courtesy Jewish Partisans Education Project
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation
There were thousands of Jewish men and women in Europe who fought the Nazis, and the mission of this San Francisco-based group is to remember them and share their stories, especially with school groups
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation will be hosting a special virtual commemoration of Yom HaShoah v’HaGevurah via Zoom to remember those we lost and those who fought back during the Holocaust.
- Remember Those Lost During A Special Ceremony.
- Celebrate the Perseverance and Resilience of the Jewish Partisans.
- Learn How They Took Care of One Another During Challenging Times.
- Hear the First Hand Real Life Experience of A Teenage Jewish Partisan.
Keynote address by Dr. Michael Berenbaum, renowned Holocaust Scholar.
Q&A Session with Allen Small, a Jewish Partisan who fought the Nazis and their collaborators as a teenager.
Email questions for Allen Small to events@jewishpartisans.org, or tweet your questions to @jpeftweets.
11:00 AM – 11:45 AM – PST
1:00 PM – 1:45 PM – CST
2:00 PM – 2:45 PM – EST
Register at www.jewishpartisans.org/YHS2020.
To maintain the security of the our virtual commemoration, JPEF will email your zoom link two hours in advance of the program.
Not Long Ago Not Far Away
Holocaust Remembrance Day also would be an appropriate time to visit – virtually – the extensive exhibit about horrors and lessons of Auschwitz with artifacts from museums around the world, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.
There are several ways to participate, including age-appropriate lesson plans for children, in a handy PDF format you can download, along with supporting images and videos, including personal experiences of Holocaust survivors.
Since we parents and grandparents also are educators, even if not formal school teachers, this is an excellent opportunity to learn together.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage Holocaust Curriculum (holocaustcurriculum.nyc) is a free online resource offering ten lesson plans about the Holocaust, from the rise of Nazism to liberation and life post-war.
An eleventh lesson plan on antisemitism defines antisemitism and examines anti-Jewish discrimination in Nazi Germany, emphasizing how Jews responded to this discrimination.
This historical background leads into how antisemitism affects Jewish communities today, in New York City and around the globe.
The exhibition is produced with: Auschwitz Exhibition and Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz
What do you think about this? We welcome your comments.