Yom Hashoah
Our 6th graders commemorated Yom Hashoah with two programs. Shortly before Pesach each 6th grader was given a memorial candle featuring the name of an individual who perished in the Shoah. Mrs. Rubin shared her parents’ stories of survival. Mrs. Helen Wasserman, Mrs. Rubin’s mother, survived concentration camp; Mr. Wasserman was a partisan during the war.
Today, the children learned the history behind the Shoah and viewed the ceremony held at Yad Vashem yesterday. Featured were stories of survivors as they lit the torches of remembrances and meaningful tributes from the Chief Rabbi of Israel. Our 6th graders referred to the candles and the lives they represented during our program.
Our seventh and eighth grade students were addressed by Rabbi Isser Fisher, a survivor of the Holocaust, from Vilna. Rabbi Isser Fisher was born into a respected rabbinic family, in Vilna, Poland before the war. After his father was murdered, together with most of the city’s rabbis, he fled with his mother and sister to Radin, the town which had been home to the Chofetz Chaim. They miraculously survived the slaughter of the town’s Jews and were later hidden underground by righteous Lithuanian gentiles. His surviving immediate family came to the United States after the war, where he studied to become a rabbi. He later also taught as a professor of Business in Touro College for many years. He continues to administer to a Kehilla in Brooklyn.
Our students engaged in meaningful conversations about how blessed we are to celebrate our Yiddishkeit freely. B’ezrat Hashem, may our blessings continue to grow.
