A Heavy Responsibility

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Andrea Wiese

From my blog:

This is my fourth summer working for NFTY in Israel. The past three summers I have been in charge of my group and logistics, but this summer I am also going to be the tour guide. I have been in a course for the past few months going around Israel to learn about the different sites that we take the participants. Our trip also includes a week in Europe at the beginning (and then 4 weeks in Israel.) The trip is called L’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. We also had a trip with the other guides to Europe, to Prague, Krakow, and Warsaw. This was the fifth time in my life I have been to these locations, so the shock-factor wasn’t part of my experience. But I did feel a new sense of responsibility, more than just Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] Yom Ha… Season as Israelis

Posted on April 12, 2013 by admin

New Alumni Blog Post!
Stef Jadd Susnow (Year Program ’06-’07, PEP ’07-’09) 
and Matt Susnow (Year Program ’06-’07) 
Write about the "Yom Ha..." Season in Israel...
      it's a truly special experience being in Israel
      for these national holidays.

This week marked the beginning of one of the most poignant times on the Israeli national calender, a period I like to refer to as Yom Ha… season. Within the span of one week three major commemorative holidays occur: Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day). The emotional roller-coaster that the close proximity of these holidays create was thoughtfully designed when established by the Knesset (Israeli government). By concentrating these national commemorations across eight days, we have no choice but to see how the Holocaust, Israel’s many wars, and Israel’s independence are intrinsically tied.

This week began with Yom HaShoah, whose full name is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah, “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day”. As indicated in the name, this day is not only for commemorating the millions of lives that were lost, the millions that were murdered at the hands of the Nazis, but also for acknowledging and celebrating the heroism and resistance that is so often overlooked when talking about the Shoah (Holocaust). This point was driven home this year at Continue reading →

In Pain, but Numb.

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Megan D.

From my blog:

Photo of Israeli traffic on a major road stopping for 2 minutes for Yom Hashoah

Monday was my second Yom HaShoah in Israel. I was standing in the middle of the partition in the road on Rivkah and Pierre Koenig to get a good view of the people stopping their cars and getting out to pay their respects to the dead when the wail of the memorial siren sounded. Another woman stood with me, her phone out for video taping the streets during the two minutes that all of Israel stops on its tracks, and hopefully, takes the moment to remember what the world has lost. Last year, I was standing in a similar place, quietly battling an inner turmoil that comes with the day, and had been carrying around an ache that had settled from my throat to my chest, like I needed to let out a good cry, when I witnessed the unified mourning of a country at a standstill, even if only for a few moments. This year though, something happened that deeply disturbed me.

During the siren, a single car, a worker’s vehicle, came careening down the road, as if the driver not only refused to stop for those two minutes, but was driving in such a way that indicated that he wanted the rest of us who were standing and acknowledging the siren to know, that he was in no way with us on this. The woman with the camera on the partition stepped out into the road in front of the car to get him to stop, which he was forced to do, and at that point, he was caught at the red light. She shoved the camera close to his smug face through his open window, where he proceeded to Continue reading →

The Sirens Blared

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Heather K.

From my blog:

Pardesniks listening to the Yom HaShoah siren on the roof of Pardes – by Rachel Rosenbluth (Spring ’13)

There are certain moments in my life where everything has come to a screeching halt. Most of these have just been moments when my personal world, or maybe my family or community, has stopped. Today (Yom HaShoah), I experienced an entire country ceasing all activity – learning, work, driving, shopping – and pause for two minutes to remember to remember the 11 million who perished in the Holocaust – 6 million of whom were Jews, and 1.5 million of whom were children. Children who hadn’t done a single thing wrong except be born into unlucky circumstances. Continue reading →

[Alumni Guest Post] Reflection on Yom Hashoah

Posted on April 8, 2013 by admin

Daniel Shibley (Yr. '11, Fellows '12) shared the following:

A lit Yom Hashoah candle in a dark room (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A lit Yom Hashoah candle in a dark room (Photo: Wikipedia)

As the clock turned from 9:59 to 10:00, it began. Quietly at first, and then reaching a volume that brings all of Israel to a halt. The siren of Yom Hashoah silenced all other man-made noises, leaving every body to their own thoughts and memories of the Shoah and its victims. The gusty wind and the birds, which had been muffled by the sounds of the beit midrash, were accompanying the wailing of the siren. Although Hamas shattered my hope of never having to hear the siren outside the context of Yom Hashoa and Yom Hazikaron, somehow the sanctity of that moment rang true, the souls of the victims were standing with us as we paused our Torah learning on their behalf. Continue reading →

[PCJE Dvar Torah] God Cries Along – by Aviva Golbert

Posted on April 4, 2013 by admin

It is usually considered good practice to connect one’s Dvar Torah about the Parshah to some current event or to an upcoming holiday. As such, I want to find some segue between this week’s Torah portion – Parshat Shemini – and Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be commemorated in Israel next Monday. In truth, it is actually next week’s double portion of Tazria-Metzora under whose purview Yom HaShoah falls this year, but Shemini, and its telling of the death of Aharon’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, at God’s hands, because they “offered before the Lord alien fire which He had not enjoined upon them,” is often referred to as a jumping-off point for speaking about the death of six million Jews during the Holocaust.

And yet Continue reading →

Pardes According to Me

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Eva Vadasz

This blog is about my school, the purpose and the aim of my sojourn in Kookooland (for English speakers, the title of my blog is zizilend meaning kookooland). Pardes (meaning “orchard”) is a yeshiva (Hebrew school) where Jews of all backgrounds and affiliations can study their religion, at any level. In this yeshiva, boys and girls study together. (This is extraordinary since traditionally, yeshivas were only for boys). Here there are boys who do not wear a kippah and girls who do. The leadership is Modern Orthodox. The teachers (mostly Americans) are generally consciously liberal and open-minded. Before the year started, I thought that in the breaks between classes, my future classmates would jump up on the desks and perform their feelings in a live version of High School Musical . Later I found out that I was wrong. My Zak Efrons would improvise songs from the bottoms of their hearts during class. Though I was right about the jumping on the desks.

They do not give you candy for going davening (prayer) and do not look down on you if you do not daven

You can be anybody coming from anywhere, the most important thing is that you want to study. Continue reading →

A Párdesz [Hungarian]

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Eva Vadasz

Repost a blogomból

Ez a bejegyzés az iskolámról, az egy éves zizilendi tartózkodásom okáról és céljáról szól.

A Pardes (a szó jelentése citrus- vagy gyümölcsliget) egy olyan jesiva (héber hittudományi iskola), ahol bármilyen háttérrel rendelkezők, bármilyen irányzathoz tartozók tanulhatnak zsidóságot, bármilyen szinten. Ebben a jesivában fiúk és lányok együtt tanulnak. (Gy. k.: ez egészen rendkívüli, mert a jesiva egy olyan intézmény eredetileg, ahol kizárólag fiúk tanulnak.) Itt vannak fiúk, akik nem hordanak kipát és vannak lányok akik igen. Modern ortodox a vezetés, a tanárok általában rendkívül tudatos liberális és szabadelvű gondolkodók. És amerikaiak. Mielőtt belevágtam volna ebbe a nagy kalandba, azt gondoltam, mivel a suli amcsi, tuti lesznek majd, akik a szünetben feltérdelnek a padra és elénekelik az érzéseiket mint a Highschool musicalben. Aztán rá kellett jönnöm, hogy rosszul gondoltam. Itt a Zak Efronok az órán imprózzák el dalban, mi ül a szívük mélyén. A padra térdelés stimmelt.

Nem adnak cukorkát, ha elmész imádkozni, és nem néznek le, ha nem Continue reading →

[Student Profile] Hannah Grossman

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Derek

Hannah Grossman is an explorer. Her Jewish journey has taken her from the farthest ends of the earth to the deepest corners of her psyche. Yet the further she has traveled from her native New Jersey, the closer she has come to finally finding her Jewish home.

Hannah grew up in West Orange, NJ to an observant Conservative family. She describes her neighborhood as “very Jewish,” and between her neighborhood and her twelve years spent in a Solomon Schechter day school, “growing up I pretty much knew only Jews.” For her, a large part of what that Jewish environment meant was a commitment to social justice in her home, synagogue, and school, a Jewish value that would remain constant through all the journeys life would later take her on. Continue reading →

[Guest Post] Reflections of the Alex Singer Hike in 2012, the Year of his 25th Yahrtzeit and a Poem

Posted on November 2, 2012 by admin

by Suzanne Singer, Alex’s mom

Three events happened this year that gave us a theme for the Alex Hike. Benjy joined around 250 IDF officers on their trip to Germany and Poland to learn about and see the physical remains of the Shoah. Benjy’s son Itai went with his 12^th grade class to Poland to witness the physical remains of the Shoah. Alex’s unpublished thesis from Cornell, Letters from the Diaspora, went up on the Alex website complete with all his drawings–available to everyone for the first time at www.alexsinger.org.

Because Alex’s year in Europe studying and traveling to places where Jewish communities had once thrived led to the thesis, and because writing the thesis led to Alex’s decision to make aliyah and join the IDF after college—that became the theme for the hike.

Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Shoah / The Holocaust