Our Blog
Elie Wiesel’s Legacy and Tomorrow’s Headlines
Have you ever wondered about the headlines on the day that carries the news of your passing? If you could see them, would you be uplifted? Surprised? Apathetic? Upset? I thought about this last week when I read The New York Times on Sunday, July 3, 2016. The paper ran...
Reaching Beyond The Synagogue On Holocaust Remembrance Day
Holocaust Remembrance Day/Yom HaShoah, May 5, 2016. Jews and others will gather in synagogues, community centers, schools, and other venues to remember those lost in the Holocaust, and to decry the intolerance and hate that enabled the tragedy. “Never again” will be a...
A Golden Eagle, Hard-Boiled Brown Eggs, and A Black Woman: What Do These Have to Do with Passover?
Three days before Passover in 2008, Lucia Weitzman dreamt that a golden eagle descended from the sky and embraced her with its wings. Onlookers watched in awe.
Righteous Among the Nations
In July 1996, the Consul General of Israel presented Lucia Weitzman with a plaque recognizing her adoptive parents, Genowefa and Franciszek Swiatek as “Righteous Among the Nations” for their heroism during the Holocaust. Their names were added to the Wall of Honor in...
When Faith in God and Destruction Met at the Beach
I asked the same “why” questions as many before me have asked throughout history. Why the hate? Why the killing? And why the destruction of this beauty which God has created?
Has The Holocaust Overtaken American Jewish Identity?
Krauthammer points to the growing Holocaust emphasis in Jewish education, from Sunday schools to university Holocaust studies programs, as one example of what he sees as an unfortunate trend tipping the scales from a necessary dedication to keeping alive the memory and the truth of the Holocaust to Holocaust memory emerging as the dominant feature of Jewishness in America.
What the Academy Award-Winning Holocaust Film “Son of Saul” Tells Us About the Power of One
On Sunday night, “Son of Saul,” a work of fiction set in 1944 at the very real Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A unique aspect of this Holocaust film is its focus (literally its camera lens) on a single...
Book Review of Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
This review might have had a very different tone if I were in middle school, a girl—or a Palestinian. I chose to read Where the Streets Had A Name, published in 2008 by Randa Abdel-Fattah, because I am in the process of writing a middle-grade/young adult allegory...
Building Bridges Between Christians and Jews
Book Review ofThe Bridge Builder: The Life and Continuing Legacy of Rabbi Yechiel Epstein As portrayed in an “authorized biography” by Zev Chavets, an American-Israeli author and columnist, Rabbi Yechiel Epstein is a driven, courageous, and complex figure. He is the...
Elie Wiesel’s Legacy and Tomorrow’s Headlines
Have you ever wondered about the headlines on the day that carries the news of your passing? If you could see them, would you be uplifted? Surprised? Apathetic? Upset? I thought about this last week when I read The New York Times on Sunday, July 3, 2016. The paper ran...
Reaching Beyond The Synagogue On Holocaust Remembrance Day
Holocaust Remembrance Day/Yom HaShoah, May 5, 2016. Jews and others will gather in synagogues, community centers, schools, and other venues to remember those lost in the Holocaust, and to decry the intolerance and hate that enabled the tragedy. “Never again” will be a...
A Golden Eagle, Hard-Boiled Brown Eggs, and A Black Woman: What Do These Have to Do with Passover?
Three days before Passover in 2008, Lucia Weitzman dreamt that a golden eagle descended from the sky and embraced her with its wings. Onlookers watched in awe.
Righteous Among the Nations
In July 1996, the Consul General of Israel presented Lucia Weitzman with a plaque recognizing her adoptive parents, Genowefa and Franciszek Swiatek as “Righteous Among the Nations” for their heroism during the Holocaust. Their names were added to the Wall of Honor in...
When Faith in God and Destruction Met at the Beach
I asked the same “why” questions as many before me have asked throughout history. Why the hate? Why the killing? And why the destruction of this beauty which God has created?
Has The Holocaust Overtaken American Jewish Identity?
Krauthammer points to the growing Holocaust emphasis in Jewish education, from Sunday schools to university Holocaust studies programs, as one example of what he sees as an unfortunate trend tipping the scales from a necessary dedication to keeping alive the memory and the truth of the Holocaust to Holocaust memory emerging as the dominant feature of Jewishness in America.
What the Academy Award-Winning Holocaust Film “Son of Saul” Tells Us About the Power of One
On Sunday night, “Son of Saul,” a work of fiction set in 1944 at the very real Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. A unique aspect of this Holocaust film is its focus (literally its camera lens) on a single...
Book Review of Where the Streets Had a Name by Randa Abdel-Fattah
This review might have had a very different tone if I were in middle school, a girl—or a Palestinian. I chose to read Where the Streets Had A Name, published in 2008 by Randa Abdel-Fattah, because I am in the process of writing a middle-grade/young adult allegory...
Building Bridges Between Christians and Jews
Book Review ofThe Bridge Builder: The Life and Continuing Legacy of Rabbi Yechiel Epstein As portrayed in an “authorized biography” by Zev Chavets, an American-Israeli author and columnist, Rabbi Yechiel Epstein is a driven, courageous, and complex figure. He is the...