A couple of years ago, at the ripe old age of 96, Simon Wiesenthal died in his sleep. Wiesenthal survived nine different concentration and labor camps and faced certain death on two occasions, but somehow, he outlived his Nazi tormentors.
Music plays a critical role in society as an integral part of social and political history, but more importantly as intrinsic to the total human experience, noted Irene Heskes, a historian and author specializing in sacred and secular Jewish music.
A few weeks ago, I had this conversation with my 13-year-old daughter, who was reading Elie Wiesel's Night for a school assignment. I was driving her home with her in the back seat.
I said, "You know, it's not a subject I like to talk about."
And she said,
Jews throughout the world have been commemorating the Holocaust annually on the 27th of Nisan since 1953, when the Israeli government inaugurated this day of remembrance and linked to the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of a decade earlier.
Holocaust Remembrance Day, which comes upon us soon, is a time to reflect on the darkest tragedy of the Jewish people in the modern age (and some would say in all of history).
In recent decades, trips to Poland for 11th graders have become de rigueur in high schools in middle class communities.
The English essayist and poet Alexander Pope wrote, "Hope springs eternal in the human breast..." That adage is challenged by the four protagonists in Anita Diamant's book, Day After Night.
Together, we will champion the lessons of Passover by bringing greater wholeness, justice, and belonging to our world.