Page 4 - The Jewish Voice - June '24

Page 4, The Jewish Voice

LocaL HappEnings

Beth David Holds

Yom Hashoah Vigil

Last month, Temple
Beth David continued a
longstanding tradition,
unique in this area, of
conducting its 12th Annual
Yom HaShoah/Holocaust
Remembrance Day Vigil
of Remembrance. The
theme of this year’s solemn Father Tom Lafreniere and Frannie Rich, from St. Paul of Andrew Koerner and son Pastor Mike Zdorow from
ceremony was Remember – the Cross Cooper The Gathering Place
and Teach the Generations. Rabbi Danielle Bensimhon
As morning stretched leads attendees in a memorial the ensuing hours of the
into day and then into night, service. ceremony, while art created
and for the 12 hours from by Jewish children martyred
9:45 a.m. to 9:45 p.m., Beth David members and their families, in the Holocaust, along with
friends, and members of other communities of faith came photos of Jewish partisan
groups, were displayed in
the temple sanctuary and
Local Students Learn Lessons from page 1 images of pre-war Jewish life
in Europe were projected onto
At the HLE, students participated in a 90-minute lesson a screen.
about the Holocaust focusing on the ghetto and concentration Temple Beth David’s
camp Terezin, where Freidl Dicker-Brandeis taught over Rescued Holocaust Torah
600 children art to help them cope with the horrors of the Bruce Bronstein lights Bobbi and Adam Sadow read Scroll, saved and preserved Rabbi Debra Eisenman, Beth
Holocaust. Years later over 4,000 children’s paintings, a memorial candle after names. from wartime destruction and David Scholar-in-Residence
poems, and pieces of artwork were discovered in a hidden reading names. recovered from a destroyed
suitcase in the children’s dormitories. Czech synagogue, bore silent witness during the vigil as a
Students also discussed the poem “The Last Butterfly,” together to read the names of living symbol of the connection between our community and
written by Pavel Friedmann while he was a child prisoner Jewish martyrs who perished the now departed congregations that read and learned from
at Terezin. Friedmann was never freed to see the butterflies in the Holocaust, as well as scrolls like it so many decades ago.
he longed to see in his poem, as he was transferred to the of the Righteous Among The Members of area churches, including The Gathering Place
Auschwitz camp, where he died at the hands of the Nazis. Nations, non-Jews who risked of Palm Beach Gardens, participated in this ceremony of
After the lesson, students gathered at the Gendelman their lives to aid and shelter remembrance as did the Church of St. Paul of the Cross of North
Children’s Holocaust Memorial, located on the MorseLife Jews during that dark time Palm Beach with its spiritual leader, Father Tom Lafreniere,
Campus. Home to 5,000 ceramic butterflies, the memorial period in the world’s history. reading the names of the Righteous Among the Nations.
takes the form of a kapok tree that rises 27 feet with a 26-foot- The vigil began with Each participant kindled an individual memorial candle,
wide canopy. The butterflies on the tree were painted by Palm the chanting of prayers by Speaker Ariele Schwartz, which, as the day lengthened and darkened, provided greater
Beach County Public School District students, survivors, and Beth David’s Rabbi Danielle representing 3GNY numbers of flickering flames, and greater light. Each reader
community members during a yearlong project by the HLE. Bensimhon, as well as and listener signed a large placard attesting to their status as
Many of the Rosarian Academy students had painted remarks by its Scholar-In-Residence Rabbi Debra Eisenman witnesses on this solemn day of memory and resolve.
butterflies and were able to find them on the tree during their and Pastor Michael Zdorow of The Gathering Place. This was As antisemitism again rears its ugly head, Temple Beth
visit. Each student left with a biography of a child who had followed by a talk by Ariele Schwartz of 3G New York, who David’s Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day Vigil of
died in the Holocaust and a pin depicting one of the tree’s speaks at schools throughout the New York metropolitan area Remembrance has never been more meaningful than it is now.
branches adorned with painted butterflies. to bring the personal nature of the Holocaust and its memory We must continue to Remember — and Teach the Generations
Entrusted by the State of Florida to deliver age- to young people through her own experiences and journey as — both communally and personally; a remembrance of horror
appropriate lessons from the Holocaust for grades 5-12 to the granddaughter of a survivor. Six yellow memorial candles and loss and yet an affirmation of survival and life; a harkening
all 67 school districts, the HLE offers in-person lessons were kindled in memory of the six million, and then a seventh to a darker time in history, and yet enforcing the resolve of
to schools and community groups on the MorseLife candle was lit in memory of the Jews who died during and “never again”; an ongoing plea for justice and tolerance.
campus in West Palm Beach. after the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023. The names of Jews
Photo courtesy Holocaust Learning Experience who were murdered by the Nazis were then read throughout Local Happenings on page 6

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