The white cars moved slowly, their cargo of coffins unbearably heavy, their silence loud. Inside, the bodies of Shiri Bibas and her two small sons, Ariel and Kfir; also Oded Lifshitz, a retired journalist — all hostages stolen from their homes on Oct. 7, returned in death. The convoy drove past Nir Oz, the kibbutz from which they had been taken. Crowds lined the road as the cars passed — somber, standing with Israeli flags [...]
Leo Geyer, a British musician and Oxford University doctoral candidate, has spent eight years studying the music written and played at Auschwitz. The orchestras, made up of inmates, were ordered to play marching tunes at camp events. Geyer’s discoveries comprise 210 fragments, some complete scores. Geyer came upon the forgotten manuscripts by chance in 2015 when he first visited Auschwitz while working on a commemorative piece of music to honor the late Sir Martin Gilbert, [...]
A full-scale replica of the secret annex where Anne Frank penned her famous diary opened in New York City on Jan. 27 as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The exhibit at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan represents the first time the annex has been completely recreated outside of Amsterdam, where the space is a central part of the Anne Frank House museum. While the original annex has been intentionally left [...]
Nearly 200 Columbia University faculty members sent a letter to the school’s interim president, urging stronger safety measures for Jewish students. (Columbia Spectator) Boston University rejected a proposal from Students for Justice in Palestine to divest from Israel. “The endowment is no longer the vehicle for political debate,” the school’s president said. (Algemeiner) A Massachusetts middle school student performed a Nazi salute in class, prompting the principal to assure parents that “appropriate action would [...]
When millions of Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews perished in the Holocaust, their stories, culture, and way of life were wiped out. One survivor, the novelist Chaim Grade, made it his life’s mission to keep their memory alive. In scores of stories, poems and novels, Grade faithfully recreated the world he lost in pre-war Europe, vividly reimagining his formative years in Vilna and the yeshivas he attended. After his death, his wife Ina Hecker kept his [...]
Tikkun Olam Seeks Volunteers To Help With Charitable Projects Rabbi Suzan Lipson Leads Event Focused On Fruits, Nuts And Wine The shul’s first Tu B’Shevat Seder for Women brought together dozens of members and guests to explore the holiday focused on trees coming to life after a cold winter. The seder plate for this holiday featured fruits, nuts and red and white wines in varying proportions to illustrate life-giving properties. The [...]
Veronica Kaliski, chair of the shul’s Tikkun Olam group, reported the results of a planning meeting to meet the needs of the upcoming season at Common Ground. Among the initiatives this spring, Tikkun Olam will chose crops to align with the needs of CAST clients. Also, only one crop will be planted in each of the three beds the group maintains. This approach will better facilitate care and harvesting. The group focuses on planting during [...]
The Book Circle will meet on Thursday, March. 20, at 3 p.m., in the community room at the shul, to talk about Paper Bullets by Jeffrey H. Jackson, a Nazi resistance story by an unlikely pair of heroines. Paper Bullets tells the story of two French women who drew on their skills as artists to write and distribute “paper bullets” — wicked insults against Hitler, calls to rebel, and subversive dialogues to demoralize Nazi [...]
Life is a constant movement between order and disorder, a delicate balance between structure and chaos, between the expected and unexpected, between moments of clarity and the unknown. This tension is the very essence of our existence — the breath that sustains us and the drama that shapes our journey. In the midst of the profound pain in Israel and for Jews around the world, Hamas released the lifeless bodies of two young souls, [...]
In one of the many messages that fill my email inbox daily — messages offering ideas, suggestions, advice, opinions, objections and complaints — one of our members told me in one of the more helpful daily messages that he tries to perform one act of kindness every day. Now that’s a welcome idea. Just imagine what a world this would be if the more than eight billion people who inhabit our planet would, in each [...]
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