Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

President Biden delivered these remarks on Tuesday at the Capitol for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museums Days of Remembrance.

Thank you, Stu, for that introduction, for your leadership of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Youre a true scholar and statesman and a dear friend. Speaker Johnson, Leader Jeffries, members of Congress and especially the survivors of the Holocaust. If my mother were here, shed look at you and say, God love you all. God love you all.

Abe Foxman and all of the survivors who embody absolute courage and dignity and grace are here as well. During these sacred days of remembrance, we grieve. We give voice to the six million Jews who were systematically targeted and murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. We honor the memory of victims, the pain of survivors, the bravery of heroes who stood up to Hitlers unspeakable evil. And we recommit to heading and heeding the lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history, to revitalize and realize the responsibility of never again.

Never again, simply translated for me, means never forget. Never forget. Never forgetting means we must keep telling the story, must keep teaching the truth, must keep teaching our children and our grandchildren. The truth is, we are at risk of people not knowing the truth. Thats why growing up, my dad taught me and my siblings about the horrors of the Shoah at our family dinner table. Thats why I visited Yad Vashem with my family as a senator, as vice president, as president. And thats why I took my grandchildren to Dachau, so they could see and bear witness to the perils of indifference, the complicity of silence, in the face of evil they knew was happening.

Germany 1933, Hitler and his Nazi Partys rise to power by rekindling one of the oldest forms of prejudice and hate: antisemitism. His role didnt begin with mass murder; it started slowly across economic, political, social and cultural life. Propaganda demonizing Jews. Boycotts of Jewish businesses. Synagogues defaced with swastikas. Harassment of Jews in the street and the schools, antisemitic demonstrations, pogroms, organized riots. With the indifference of the world, Hitler knew he could expand his reign of terror by eliminating Jews from Germany, to annihilate Jews across Europe through genocide, the Nazis called the final solution. Concentration camps, gas chambers, mass shootings. By the time the war ended, six million Jews one of every three Jews in the entire world were murdered.

This ancient hatred of Jews didnt begin with the Holocaust. It didnt end with the Holocaust either. Or after even after our victory in World War II. This hatred continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world and requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness. That hatred was brought to life on October 7th of 2023. On the sacred Jewish holiday, the terrorist group Hamas unleashed the deadliest day of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Driven by ancient desire to wipe out the Jewish people off the face of the Earth, over 1,200 innocent people, babies, parents, grandparents, slaughtered in a kibbutz, massacred at a music festival, brutally raped, mutilated and sexually assaulted.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

View original post here:

Heres What Biden Said in His Speech at the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony - The New York Times

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Heres What Biden Said in His Speech at the Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony – The New York Times
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

The U.S. Coast Guard Holocaust Days of Remembrance Observance will take place on Wednesday, May 8, 2024, from 11 a.m. 12p.m. EDT in the Ceremonial Entrance at NCR Headquarters in Washington, D.C. The event will be streamed live here. You can also call-in at+1 410-874-6742using Conference ID: 465 578 624#.

The Coast Guard is collaborating with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) for the event. Amanda Rooney Stierli, USHMMs Program Manager of Civic and Defense Initiatives will give a presentation on Holocaust history featuring a case study and discussion focused on leadership, ethics, and choice.

Days of Remembrance is an annual, week-long commemoration of the six million Jews persecuted and murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Days of Remembrance will be hosted in the U.S. this year from May 5 to May 12, with Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) falling on May 6.

For more information, please contact: Sara A. Florini at Sara.A.Florini@uscg.mil or (202) 795-6003.

-USCG-

See the rest here:

Coast Guard to host Holocaust Days of Remembrance observance on May 8 - MyCG

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Coast Guard to host Holocaust Days of Remembrance observance on May 8 – MyCG
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

President Biden will speak at the Holocaust Memorial Museums Days of Remembrance event on Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where he is expected to draw on the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and address the rise in antisemitic incidents.

You can expect the President to make clear that during these sacred days of remembrance, we honor the memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust and recommit to heeding the lessons of this dark chapter. Never again, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said during a briefing with reporters on Monday.

The event will also feature remarks from Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The address comes as American college campuses are embroiled in protests over Israels war on Gaza, which has left at least 35,000 Palestinians dead. The speech comes at a time when Biden has come under growing criticism for his administrations support for Israel as the death toll mounts.

Read More: Gaza Calls, Columbia Falls: Campus Protesters Defy Suspension Threats and Occupy Hall

On Apr. 17, Columbia University students set up about 50 tents referred to as the Gaza solidarity encampment demanding a ceasefire and divestment from companies with ties to Israel or weapons manufacturers. After negotiations with the university failed, NYPD in riot gear cleared the encampment on Apr. 30 and arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian students.

Protests have since spread across the country, and led to the cancellation of multiple graduation ceremonies.

In some cases, the protests have been marred by antisemitic incidents, and Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe. It is completely OK to protest the war in Gaza or be horrified by various actions of the Israeli government, Jacob Schmeltz, a student at Columbia University, told the Associated Press. But Jewish students at Columbia right now do not feel physically or emotionally safe to be on campus.

Student protests have spread to Europe. On Tuesday, Dutch police arrested around 125 pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Amsterdam. Police broke up a similar protest at Berlins Free University on the same day.

Protests or encampments have also been held in Australia, Canada, the Middle East, and South America.

See more here:

Biden to Address Antisemitism at Holocaust Remembrance Event - TIME

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Biden to Address Antisemitism at Holocaust Remembrance Event – TIME
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

UTICA, N.Y. -- The Jewish Community Center in Utica hosted the annual Helen and Leon Sperling Holocaust Program.

The event pays tribute to Helen Sperling, who traveled extensively to share her personal story from the Holocaust.

This year's featured speaker is Michael Gyory, the son of Hungarian Holocaust survivors and the chairman of the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center of White Plains.

Gyory shared his experiences of growing up with family members who survived the horrors of war and concentration camps.

His presentation, The Triumph of Willpower, focused on his older cousin,gnes Keleti, who is currently 103 years old.

Keletiis considered the greatest female Jewish Olympian of all time, winning 10 medals in gymnastics for Hungary.

"The message of her life is willpower,"Gyory said, "and if you have enough drive and willpower, you can overcome. It's the significance of overcoming antisemitism. It's the significance of overcoming anybody who tells you, you can't do something because you aren't the right color; you're not the right religion. Just don't let those obstacles get in your way."

The Jewish Community Center in Utica hosted the annual Helen and Leon Sperling Holocaust Program.

Read more from the original source:

Annual Holocaust Program at Utica's JCC Features Speaker with Family Members Who Survived the Horrors of ... - WKTV

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Annual Holocaust Program at Utica’s JCC Features Speaker with Family Members Who Survived the Horrors of … – WKTV
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

TOPEKA Gov. Laura Kelly said the states annual Holocaust commemoration Monday inspired by one of humankinds darkest chapters of genocide felt more significant given escalation in blatant acts of antisemitism in Kansas and elsewhere in the United States.

Kelly said the Jewish Community Relations Board reported a 500% increase in antisemitic incidents in Kansas City. A budget bill approved by the 2024 Legislature included $500,000 for bullet-resistant window film and anti-vehicle limestone barriers at Jewish centers in the state.

Last year, a vendor had to be expelled from Overland Parks farmer market because of antisemitic threats on social media. A Topeka synagogue was graffitied with pro-Palestinian messages in February.

It was 10 years ago on April 13 that a former Klansman and neo-Nazi from Missouri murdered three people at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and the Jewish retirement community Village Shalom, the governor said.

Kelly said the Jewish Community Relations Bureau reported that from 2014 to 2022, the level of antisemitic incidents tripled in the United States. And, she said, that period preceded surge in antisemitism associated with fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

Im glad to be with all of you again for such a meaningful tradition that feels more important than ever, Kelly said during the 2024 Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Topeka. It is critical that we stand with the Jewish community during this difficult time. Jewish people deserve peace and security in every part of the world, and that includes here in Kansas.

Kelly said the 6 million Jews and millions of other people from marginalized communities who died in the Holocaust of World War II must not be forgotten. Their memories should be preserved by pushing back against bigotry, hatred, prejudice as well as indifference whenever it surfaced, she said.

Discrimination of any kind, including anti-Semitism, has no place in Kansas. As governor, I will continue to call out and condemn antisemitism and any rhetoric or behavior that aims to discriminate and divide, Kelly said.

The governor signed a proclamation that affirmed May 5-12 as the days of remembrance. It described the Holocaust as the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945.

She said the history of persecution and tyranny of the Holocaust offered an opportunity for people to reflect on moral and ethical responsibilities of individuals, societies and governments.

The state of Kansas urges its citizens to actively rededicate themselves to the principles of individual freedom in a just society, the resolution said.

Link:

Kansas governor points to contemporary 'echoes' of Holocaust in cities, state and nation Kansas Reflector - Kansas Reflector

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Kansas governor points to contemporary ‘echoes’ of Holocaust in cities, state and nation Kansas Reflector – Kansas Reflector
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

(May 10, 2024 / JNS)

A cattle car exhibit on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this week welcomed visitors, including elected and appointed officials, for an immersive learning experience about the Holocaust, as well as the dangers of antisemitism, intolerance and racism.

It was stationed from May 6 to May 9 near the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The traveling exhibit, organized by the nonprofit groupHate Ends Now, included a 20-minute, 360-degree immersive presentation and featured a rare collection of original artifacts. Itsopening included an event with public officials andcoincidedwith Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 6 that also markedthe anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Todd Cohn, CEO of Hate Ends Now, said the exhibit in the capital of the free world during a time of alarming increase in antisemitism globally sends a powerful message, reminding us of what happens when hate is allowed to go unchecked. People of all ages have a visceral reaction when they step foot in the cattle car and when it seemingly comes to life with the voices, pictures and stories of this dark era.

Trained docents provided critical context and framed the presentation. Accompanying the exhibit were 25 original artifacts from the Holocaust, and visitors got to see and hear firsthand accounts of survivors, all in the backdrop of a replica of a World War II-era cattle car used to transport Jews and other targeted groups to concentration and death camps.

Amid sharp increases in antisemitism across the country, the need to bring the cattle car to more people is greater than ever before, said Cohn. Particularly for people who do not connect as much with a textbook or museum or dont otherwise have access to educational opportunities like this, the exhibit is especially important.It is the perfect learning experience.

You have read 3 articles this month.

Register to receive full access to JNS.

Israel is at war.

JNS is combating the stream of misinformation on Israel with real, honest and factual reporting. In order to deliver this in-depth, unbiased coverage of Israel and the Jewish world, we rely on readers like you.

The support you provide allows our journalists to deliver the truth, free from bias and hidden agendas. Can we count on your support?

Every contribution, big or small, helps JNS.org remain a trusted source of news you can rely on.

Here is the original post:

Visceral reminder of Holocaust in form of cattle car exhibit in Washington - JNS.org - JNS.org

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Visceral reminder of Holocaust in form of cattle car exhibit in Washington – JNS.org – JNS.org
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

These were the images Americans were presented on Tuesday about their two choices for president: One taking his grandchildren to Dachau to bear witness to the horrors of Nazi death camps, the other sitting on a hotel bed in his boxer shorts waiting for sex with a porn star.

It was perhaps a twisted cosmic coincidence that President Bidens nationally televised speech on Holocaust remembrance would take place at the exact moment that former President Donald J. Trump was in a courtroom confronted by Stormy Danielss testimony about a sexual tryst gone wrong.

But the surreal synchronism of the disparate events 182 days before the election captured the sometimes unreal reality of a presidential race like none before it, at once profound and tawdry, a contest with momentous consequences and a circuslike surround sound. A nation grappling with two wars overseas and campus unrest at home is also being asked to parse through the unseemly details of a married mans purported dalliance with a woman who had sex on camera professionally.

This may not have been what the founders had in mind when they established the presidency, watching Mr. Bidens speech at the Capitol condemning a ferocious surge of antisemitism while internet feeds provided the latest from Ms. Danielss account about the particular coital position she and Mr. Trump assumed. Yet so goes 2024, a year of twists and turns that defy history and the imagination.

Mr. Biden had the more conventional though not inconsiderable challenge, exhibiting presidential leadership at a time of national trauma. He has come under fire from the left in his own party for not doing more to restrain Israels war in Gaza, but wanted to use the annual remembrance ceremony to link the murder of six million Jews during World War II to the killing of 1,200 people during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led terrorist attack on Israel.

It was a speech with high-minded historical flourishes and deeply personal recollections, one aimed at summoning our common humanity while heeding the lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history. He described his father teaching him about the Shoah, or Holocaust, at the dinner table when he was young and passing the lessons along to his children and their children when he was older.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit andlog intoyour Times account, orsubscribefor all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?Log in.

Want all of The Times?Subscribe.

Read the rest here:

Trump in Court and Bidens Holocaust Speech Offer a 2024 Election Split Screen - The New York Times

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Trump in Court and Bidens Holocaust Speech Offer a 2024 Election Split Screen – The New York Times
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

Dozens of people gathered at the Holocaust Tolerance and Memorial Center in Glen Cove last Sunday to commemorate Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Day, which pays tribute to the 6 million Jews that were killed in World War II. Glen Cove City Councilwoman Marsha Silverman, Congregation Tifereth Israel and North Country Reform Temple welcomed Jews and non-Jews to honor the millions of victims of the Holocaust.

This years remembrance had a heightened sense of urgency, seven months after Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the deadliest single day in the countrys history. Antisemitism has surged worldwide, according to the Anti-Defamation League, which has reported a steep jump in incidents in the months since. The ADL recorded more than 7,500 antisemitic episodes in the United States in 2023, compared with fewer than 3,700 in 2022. It also noted significant increases in incidents in large American cities, including New York City and Los Angeles.

To be Jewish is to remember to claim our right to memory, as well as our duty to keep it alive, Rabbi Michael Churgel, of North Country Reform Temple, said. There is evil in the world, we cannot let ourselves forget, yet to remember the goodness of our loved ones is to find a way to trust the world again, to place the moments in our sacred calendar. These are the purposes of Yom HaShoah.

The observance also commemorates the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when a band of Jewish resistance fighters in the largest Nazi ghetto in World War II managed to defy their well-armed German occupiers.

The evenings keynote speaker, Gail Kastenholz, is the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, and has dedicated herself to Holocaust remembrance, earning the Bruce Morel Education Award in 2019. She spoke about her parents experiences in the war, and how that formed her life path as an educator. She is now a docent for the Holocaust Center.

Kastenholzs parents were interned in a ghetto in northern Germany in 1941, and members of her fathers family were murdered in retaliation for the killing of a Nazi soldier by a Jew there. Remarkably, her parents managed to escape, and were hidden by a Polish farmer in a barn for 18 months. Despite the trauma, they eventually found refuge and built a new life in the United States.

People survived not because they were smarter, richer or better than anyone else, Kastenholz said. Somebody did something for one moment to help them live. A righteous person took action that was dangerous simply because it was the right thing to do.

Her parents ate potato peels, she said, to survive in the barn. In their memory, she leaves potato peels out for Seder.

I am the link between the past, present and future, Kastenholz said. That is and has been my legacy for more than four decades. As a Jew, a mother, a wife or grandmother, a friend, an American educator, and a member of the human race, I am a second-generation survivor being a 2G is in my DNA and in my heart and in my soul.

After Kastenholz spoke, Silverman reflected on the dwindling number of Holocaust survivors. She noted that although the number of people who were killed may seem abstract, hearing firsthand accounts helps to deepen the understanding of one of historys darkest moments.

Another attendee, Assemblyman Charles Lavine, president of the New York chapter of the National Association of Jewish Legislators, addressed the concerning rise of antisemitism and the seeming ostracization of the Jewish community in segments of American society. He drew parallels between the experiences of Jews and other marginalized groups, emphasizing that all forms of hatred and discrimination must be confronted and condemned.

We today face the challenge of being the other, Lavine said. Whether a person is black or Latino, gay, bi, trans no matter what they are they subjected to hatred. Too many of our colleagues in government thrive on that hatred. We must do everything we can, because Jew hatred is nothing more and nothing less than racism.

Link:

Yom HaShoah held at Holocaust Tolerance and Memorial Center - liherald.com

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Yom HaShoah held at Holocaust Tolerance and Memorial Center – liherald.com
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

These are questions I was keen to put to Professor Richard J Evans, one of the worlds leading experts on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. We spoke just before the release of the TV adaptation of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which is one of 2024s most hotly anticipated historical dramas.

Its based on a 2018 novel by Heather Morris, which is itself centred on the real story of Slovakian Jewish Holocaust survivor Lale Sokolov (a tattooist at Auschwitz), who met the author in later life.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz has sold millions of copies around the world and won plaudits from many reviewers, but also come in for criticisms from some Holocaust scholars for a number of inaccuracies within the book. Evans read the novel in advance of our conversation and found himself sharing many of these concerns.

I'm afraid the historian in me is always on the lookout for little mistakes and little errors, which can be a bit irritating, he said. But the major one for me is that this book cannot cope with the extremes of inhumanity, brutality, and horror that you find in Auschwitz.

For 99 per cent of the inmates, the concentration camp is a degrading, humiliating, appalling and shocking experience from which there's no escape. And this novel is about escape: escape through love, escape through an affair, escape through the humanity and the help of other prisoners and of some of the camp auxiliaries and camp guards. That softens the contours of what was really a horribly appalling experience. So, to me, that doesnt ring true.

In response to the critics of the book, both Heather Morris and the books publishers argued that this was a work of fiction albeit based on a true story and therefore shouldnt be judged by the same criteria as an academic history of the camp.

I asked Evans for his response to that. If you're going to set a novel in a historical context, then I think you do need to get as much right as you can about that context, he said. A lot of people come to the Holocaust, not through academic books, which are often very difficult to read, admittedly, but through fiction. And so, I think fiction writers have a duty not to distort the context and to distort the nature of the camps and of human relations in them.

Evans made it clear that these criticisms do not apply to The Tattooist of Auschwitz alone. For example, he believes that The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (a hugely successful 2006 John Boyne novel later made into a film) gets it completely wrong.

The book imagines the son of the commandant of Auschwitz starting to chat through the fence to a boy in striped pyjamas in other words, a young boy who's a prisoner there. Now, young boys were almost all taken straight to the gas chambers. They weren't made into permanent prisoners. And the idea that the son of the commandant of Auschwitz would not be a dyed-in-the-wool Hitler youth is just completely misleading.

Even Schindlers List, surely the most important Holocaust film ever made, takes some liberties. It concerns Oskar Schindler, who is a businessman, a corrupt, immoral German businessman who goes to occupied Poland in order to get cheap labour for his factories. These cheap labourers are Jews, essentially forced labourers. Schindler keeps them working for him in order to save them from the gas chambers. It's a remarkable story and it is a true story. But in making the film, Spielberg converts it into a moral parable.

Historical records show that Schindler was as corrupt a businessman before and after. It didn't affect his character at all. He was always having extramarital affairs with women. The film sort of prettifies this by showing him reconciling with his wife, which he didn't do at all according to the historical record.

As listeners to our podcast may recall, Evans admires the recent Jonathan Glazer film The Zone of Interest, itself based on the Martin Amis novel of the same name. But even here he felt that some aspects were misleading.

Its a very good film, but it has a problem, which is that it's about what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called the banality of evil when referring to Adolf Eichmann, one of the main officials of the Holocaust.

The film shows Rudolf Hss, the commandant of Auschwitz, living a kind of conventional bourgeois home life, but in fact his memoirs say that the stress of his work was destroying his marriage and his home life.

One reason that telling stories about the Holocaust can be so difficult is that so few people survived long enough to provide a sufficient narrative arc.

Films have to have a beginning, a middle and an end. And for a lot of people this did not happen, said Evans. The Holocaust was not structured in that way.

Another issue, specific to screen adaptations, is that its incredibly difficult to reflect the appalling condition of those who had to live in the camps. As Evans pointed out: You've got healthy, well-fed Hollywood actors and extras playing people who in reality were starving, covered in lice, sick and brutalised. You can't really convey that on film.

Considering the challenges confronting those seeking to write books or screenplays about the Holocaust, is it even possible to do it properly?

That's a very difficult question because I think it's very difficult to actually convey the full horror, said Evans. I've read stomach-turning accounts of eyewitnesses and victims, and I think it's really difficult. But I think it could be possible and I think authors should try, but they owe it to the readers to do some serious, hard research.

HistoryExtra members can explore this topic further with exclusive content from our archives

Not a HistoryExtra member? Explore our latest membership offers

There is one film that Evans cites as an excellent example of fictionalising the Holocaust 2001s Conspiracy, starring Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci, which dramatises the 1942 Wannsee conference. This was the meeting where the plans for the Holocaust were laid out.

The film is based very closely on the minutes of the meeting, prepared by Adolf Eichmann. And where they can't fill in some details, the film cleverly takes from other documents: the diaries of Alfred Rosenberg for example, who was the chief ideologue of the Nazi party. It is a very good introduction if you do want some kind of dramatisation.

Read this article:

Fictionalising The Holocaust: What The Tattooist Of Auschwitz Tells Us - BBC History Magazine

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on Fictionalising The Holocaust: What The Tattooist Of Auschwitz Tells Us – BBC History Magazine
Tags:

Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

Living Links, the first national organization created to engage and empower third-generation (3G) descendants of Holocaust survivors, has joined forces with the USC Shoah Foundation. The new partnership will expand a Living Links program that teaches 3Gs to share their family stories in classrooms and with community groups to counter antisemitism, bigotry and hate.

At a time when the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling and antisemitism is on the rise, 3Gs are uniquely positioned to offer personal accounts about how unchecked intolerance and hate led to the Holocaust.

An estimated 1 million grandchildren of Holocaust survivors live in the United States.

In 2023, nearly a dozen independent 3G groups that had formed over the last decade joined to create Living Links, a national network that offers grandchildren of Holocaust survivors social, educational and advocacy opportunities in a supportive environment that honors and explores their common and complex legacies.

"My parents' generation the children of survivors were often afraid to ask questions about their parents' experience, or unwilling to dredge up wartime pain," said David Wachs, co-founder and co-president of Living Links. "Sharing this unique thread of my identity is a powerful way for me to connect with others and to make a lasting impact."

In cooperation with the USC Shoah Foundation, Living Links will increase the number of 3G affiliates nationwide and expand the speaker training program. 3GNY founded the program in 2010 and has trained some 500 speakers and reached 60,000 students.

The partnership comes at a moment of urgency and peril, when antisemitism is being normalized throughout society, according to Dr. Robert J. Williams, Finci-Viterbi Executive Director Chair of the USC Shoah Foundation.

"Recent events make it clear that we need new and innovative resources for reaching the next generation," Dr. Williams said.

As it marks its 30th anniversary year, the USC Shoah Foundation continues to strengthen connections with descendants of Holocaust survivors, especially the families of the more than 55,000 survivors who recorded testimony for the Visual History Archive.

"We are thrilled to partner with the USC Shoah Foundation because we share the goals of preserving the memory of the Holocaust and building a better future," said Jennifer Loew Mendelson, co-founder and co-president of Living Links. "Their organizational expertise, networks, and expert guidance will ensure Living Links' success in becoming a vibrant, independent organization."

A lead gift of $1 million has been pledged toward a program budget of $5 million over the next three years.

For more information, go tohttps://www.wearelivinglinks.org

Living Links, formed in 2023, is an organization for grandchildren (3Gs) of Holocaust survivors and all victims of Nazi persecution. We believe 3Gs and a growing number of 4Gs have an essential voice in countering hate and keeping the history of the Holocaust relevant in today's world. Living Links is partnering with the USC Shoah Foundation to empower descendants of Holocaust survivors to create enduring communities devoted to preserving and sharing their families' legacies.

Read more here:

USC Shoah Foundation Partners with Living Links, First National Organization for Grandchildren of Holocaust ... - USC Shoah Foundation |

Category: Holocaust | Comments Off on USC Shoah Foundation Partners with Living Links, First National Organization for Grandchildren of Holocaust … – USC Shoah Foundation |
Tags: