As We Care for Survivors, Don’t Forget the Damage Done to their Descendents

The words “Never Forget” have become synonymous with the Holocaust, but as the actual horror of the Holocaust starts to fade, it’s time we add to the mantra an addendum: “Never Ignore.”

Mordechai Smith and Yosefa Schoor, co-presidents of YU’s Student Medical Ethics Society, will present an Oct. 21 conference on “Jewish Approaches to Medical Dilemmas Borne Out of the Holocaust.”

As the events of 60 years ago start to slip into history, the suffering of those who survived the Holocaust has been a steadfast reminder of the atrocities of which humanity is capable if we do not keep ourselves in check. Their scars are front and center. Their tattooed arms impossible to ignore. And helping them heal will be our cause even as they enter the last stages of their lives.

Yet as we focus on that generation, often lost are those whose pain will endure long after the last survivor is gone—the generations of their children and grandchildren who have been traumatized by growing up with the pain their families endured during the Holocaust and scarred by the trauma of growing up with those in post-Holocaust shock.

The tales of some survivors are certainly famous, but most suffered in silence, refusing to discuss their terror as they tried to protect their children from pain. Their children grew up with parents who never dealt with their own trauma, and the silence was often deafening and painful.

Some have been able to deal with the silence constructively, teaching about the Holocaust, not letting the world forget what happened. Some fight it by being vocal about genocide. Others research the genocide in attempt to understand what happened to their parents.

Yet thousands more simply suffer from psychological disorders such at post-traumatic stress disorder, low self-esteem and hoarding, according to such publications as the Cambridge Journal. Read the rest of this entry…

From Caracas to Cologne, Childhood Friends Reunite to Pursue Business Dreams at Yeshiva

Daniel Simkin and Leon Franco have come a long way together. As children in Caracas, Venezuela, they attended the same grade school.  In March, as students at Yeshiva University, they attended the 15th World Business Dialogue in Cologne, Germany—winning two of only 300 coveted slots available to students across the globe in a rigorous selection process.

Childhood friends in Venezuela, Daniel Simkin and Leon Franco have reunited at Yeshiva University.

The conference is the world’s largest student-run business convention. Featuring 60 high-profile personalities and executives from top companies such as British Petroleum, General Electric Europe and North Asia, and Ford of Europe, it engaged students and speakers in conversation about topics that will have economic and social impact on the future.

“We met students from all around the world who want to do something in life, change something,” said Simkin, a sophomore majoring in mathematics at Yeshiva College. “They run profit or nonprofit organizations around the world. We all had this ambition and desire to share ideas and concerns.”

Simkin and Franco have always been ambitious. In Venezuela and over his time at YU, Simkin has tried his hand at a variety of industries—“entertainment, manufacturing, social media, iTunes and politics,” he says, to name a few—and Franco, a junior majoring in marketing and finance at Syms School of Business, has interned for New York Senator Charles Schumer and UBS Wealth Management.  The two applied to the World Business Dialogue because they were convinced it could give them valuable insight and connections to further their careers.

“I want to create or participate in a multinational company and to do that, I have to understand people and different economies,” said Simkin. “I’m hoping to apply what I learned about general business practice at the conference in the future.”

At the conference, Franco and Simkin had the opportunity to hear from industry leaders about everything from business strategies to ethical dilemmas and future forecasts. They also benefited from the juxtaposition of opposing worldviews in conversation.

“The CEO of British Petroleum Europe was advocating a slower introduction of eco-friendly alternatives to oil consumption, while the German Transport Authority explained that it is developing strategic ways to be more efficient with their use on a day-to-day basis,” said Franco. The conference helped crystallize his feelings about sustainability.

Franco (left) and Simkin (right) networked with students from around the world and heard from captains of industry at the World Business Dialogue in Germany.

“Individuals have to change their consumption habits, but someone has to educate them,” said Franco. “Whether I make a green company or just a company with green aspects, I understand that anything I do is going to have a social component. There has to be more than just profit-generation—you have to be giving back because that’s the only way we’re going to maintain a healthy world.”

Though Franco and Simkin knew each other as children, they only recently reunited. Franco, who had moved to the United States with his family in search of greater religious freedom in 2000, had already begun his studies at YU when he encountered Simkin at a dinner with mutual friends in New York City. Simkin was shocked. He had come to the U.S. for a summer course in English between semesters at the Universidad Metropolitana of Caracas.

There, things had been rough: a hostile atmosphere toward Jews on campus led him to downplay his religious identity and as more and more of his friends left the country for Israel or the U.S., he found his own grasp on Judaism slipping.

When Franco told him about YU, Simkin had to see it for himself. The two headed back uptown together and Simkin was amazed by what he found. “I saw a small campus where everyone has a Jewish environment,” he said. “People walking around in the streets with kippas on and tzitzit out, eating kosher food, inviting each other for Shabbat. It was exactly what I lacked in Venezuela, and I thought, ‘This is where I need to be.’ ”

The road wasn’t easy. Simkin spoke very little English. But three courses and six sittings for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) later, he arrived at YU. “I’m pursuing my university education as a businessman while studying who I am in the morning,” Simkin said. “Everyone knows Hebrew, so I use it more than I did in Venezuela. And when my kids ask me in the future, ‘How do you make Kiddush?’ I’ll know because I learned about it with a rabbi in class.”

For Franco, the school held a similar appeal. “Here, we are always surrounded by people who share our values, respect us, lead morally correct lives and have a vision for the future,” he said. “I have friends here from Spain, France and Thailand and everywhere around the world that there is a Jewish community. Somehow, we all ended up here and we’re all united, and I think that’s amazing.”

YU’s New York City location is also critical for Franco as he develops his professional career. “Every business has a headquarters in New York,” he said. “The fact that we’re here and able to connect with potential employers and an international community of Jews while receiving a good education and exploring our religious identities as individuals is important.”

“We have a great group of international students here at YU and I have the fortune in my role as the entrepreneur-in-residence to meet them on a one-to-one basis and discuss with them everything from how to start a business and how to raise money to what career they should pursue if and when they plan to go back to their home country,” said Michael Strauss, associate dean at Syms.

When Franco and Simkin were accepted to the World Business Dialogue, Strauss worked with the students to find a way for them to attend despite the cost of airfare, which they couldn’t afford. “I have spent 40 years in business and we’re no longer in a cocoon,” said Strauss. “Any day that a businessman is involved in business, he is exposed to the international world via importing, exporting, sales, purchasing, supplies—it’s an international global environment.” He added: “Having exposure to that environment, which the conference gave them, is extremely invaluable and therefore I felt that it was critical that they, as YU students, were able to attend.”

Simkin and Franco are especially appreciative of their professors at Syms and Yeshiva College, including Strauss, Professor Steven Nissenfeld in management and Professor Brian Maruffi in entrepreneurship, whose mentorship and guidance have helped them flesh out big plans for their futures.

For Simkin, Professor Norma Silbermintz’s English as a Second Language course had particularly meaningful results.

“At the World Business Dialogue, Leon [Franco] looked at me and said, ‘Six months ago, all you knew how to say in English was ‘Hi, my name is Daniel,’ ” Simkin recalled, laughing. “ ‘Now you’re speaking in front of 300 international students as a delegate from YU!’ ”

YU Student Returns to Israel on One-Year Anniversary of the Jerusalem Bombing She Survived to Run in Marathon

Pia Levine, a student at Yeshiva University in New York, was riding with a friend on an Egged bus in Jerusalem, carefree after an excursion to the swanky new Mamilla shopping center, when she suddenly heard what sounded like a large clap of thunder. It was a few minutes after 3 p.m. at a bus stop near the Jerusalem International Convention Center and the boom came from a detonated pipe bomb. It killed one person and injured some 40 others that Wednesday, March 23, 2011. Of the bus passengers, only Levine and her friend were able to walk away from the scene.

A survivor of a terror attack, Stern College student Pia Levine now raises money for victims of terror.

Levine, although physically unhurt, was no longer carefree.

Set to leave Israel a few days later, Levine attempted to proceed with her plan: to run in the Jerusalem half-marathon that Friday and go home to the US.

All too soon, however, Levine realized that she was far from unscathed. The One Family Fund organization, which provides financial, legal, and emotional assistance to victims of terror in Israel, found Levine and aided in her medical care the day after the bombing in Jerusalem—essentially getting her back on her feet and running in time for the marathon—and then later after her return to New York.

Now, the 20-year-old is running for charity as a member of Team OneFamily. In that capacity she’s already participated in the New York Triathlon last summer (see NY television coverage here) and is currently back in Jerusalem to again run in the half-marathon, with a two-fold mission: to close an emotional circle and raise money for the organization that helped her so much.

Read full article in The Times of Israel…

From the Land of Purim, Jews with Complex Identities

For many American Persian Jews, self-identification can be complicated. Whether they were born in Iran or they are first-generation Americans, the culture and patriotism of their parents’ homeland can clash with their lives in America. This inner conflict has been exacerbated by the ongoing political tensions between Iran and the United States. Mix in some public musings on the possibility of war with Iran from Israel, and Persian American Jews (or are they Jewish Persian Americans? American Persian Jews?) are effectively being pulled in three directions.

The Persian Jewish community in American remains quite insular, concentrated in a few close-knit enclaves, including one on Long Island. And while the western label Orthodox doesn’t quite apply, Persian Jewish religious practice certainly has more in common with contemporary Orthodox Judaism than it does with any of the liberal streams. Because of all of these factors, Yeshiva University, the Modern Orthodox university with its various schools scattered around the city of New York, has a particularly high concentration of Persian Jews.

“I feel an internal conflict,” admitted Sarit Bassal, a student at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University. Bassal’s family is the paradigm of this cultural potpourri: Her father is from Iran, and her mother from Israel, but she and her siblings were born in New York. The possibility of a war involving two or all three of these homelands has left Bassal feeling a bit lost.

“It’s really sad when we hear that the country our parents grew up in wants to destroy the country I identify with, the Jewish homeland,” explained Bassal.

At the time of the interview, Bassal was holding down a booth in a lobby at Stern advocating for women’s rights in Iran. Another Persian student, Sarah Mansher, sat next to her. Mansher said she feels less conflicted about the situation, although both feel strongly enough about their parents’ homeland to fight on behalf of citizens there whom they’ve never met, Jewish or not. Read full article in New Voices…

The author, Simi Lampert, is a senior at Stern College for Women.

Yeshiva University Student and Comic Finds the Humor in Life

Meet Eitan Levine.

At 22, the Yeshiva College senior has already performed at a host of comedy clubs throughout the tristate area, including Caroline’s, the Stress Factory and the People’s Improv Theater. He’s opened for Daryl Hammond of “Saturday Night Live” and has performed with comedic super-stars Louis CK, Judah Friedlander and Jim Gaffigan. He hosts “Prolaffs!” on WYUR and is a staff writer for The Quipster. A comic book enthusiast, Levine serves as head announcer of the International Quidditch Association and is a noted Yeshiva University roller hockey intramurals commissioner.

Oh, and he plays the ukulele.

Levine, a native of Springfield, NJ, discovered his passion for comedy at an early age—but not how you’d expect.

At 10, Levine was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma of the tibia, an illness that landed him in and out of hospitals as a child. “I had a journal that just ended up becoming a joke book,” said Levine. “I was kidding around with a doctor one day and he was like, ‘You should go into this.’ And for the first time I thought to myself, ‘Hey, maybe I can be good at comedy.’ ”

Thus a career was born. At 15, with an arsenal of written jokes at his disposal, Levine took part in his first open mike at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick, NJ. “My dad was worried I’d embarrass the family,” he laughed. “I was on crutches at the time and I was so nervous.” His first joke bombed. His second joke did pretty well. His third joke set him on a roll that would culminate in a standing ovation as he left the stage.

Levine was hooked.

Levine with comedian and actor Judah Friedlander

As he finished high school, Levine hit more and more open mikes across New Jersey, working himself into the comedic milieu and honing his jokes. He went on to attend Yeshivat Yesodei HaTorah in Israel, where he also competed in, and won, the Israel Last Comic Standing contest. But Levine wanted to expand his range. While pursuing a marketing major and film minor at Yeshiva College, he enrolled in improv studies at the Upright Citizens’ Brigade and the People’s Improv Theater (PIT), where he currently hosts his own regular show. “It’s like a funny Jeopardy-esque trivia show,” said Levine. He also performs every other week with DeWolf Hopper, an improv team.

“It’s been great having Eitan around the PIT,” said Chris Griggs, an improv instructor at the theater. “He truly loves improvisation and comedy. He immediately seemed to bond with everyone and now is really a part of the theater’s fabric.”

At YU, Levine has found a unique home base for his comedic career. “There are a lot of big advantages to being a comedian here,” said Levine. “You get the benefits of living in a Jewish community, where if I want a mincha, I can get a mincha without walking halfway across campus to the Hillel. But you’re also in New York… This is where comedy is really happening and I’ve been able to perform on a fairly regular basis as a student here.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKSn0AbWRCk&list=UUuzvwA-URlLuOewpBK11Deg&index=17&feature=plcp

Levine is proud of his identity as a religious comic and is especially careful with the way he presents himself to audiences. “People look at me as an Orthodox Jew and I don’t want them to think that I’m only religious when it’s convenient,” he said. “I do this because I believe it’s the right thing. The comedians I work with understand and respect that about me and they are very accommodating.”

Still, Levine felt, “religious comics can be few and far between.” He noticed a lack of humor that felt relatable to young Orthodox audiences. Last year, he organized the Kosher College Comedy Tour, a traveling band of Jewish comics that has performed at more than a dozen Northeastern universities. The intent: to create a unique synthesis of young, religious humor that would speak directly to the Jewish college crowd.

“For years, getting a stand-up comic for a college Hillel or Chabad was tough because all the clean comics were these ‘My wife! Take her!’ types who were better suited to entertain at a nursing home than comedy night at the University of Maryland Hillel House,” Levine said. “It was really fun to go to the Hillel houses of different colleges and see the diverse Jewish crowds.”

Levine’s shows have also raised money for several charities, including the Hebrew Academy for Special Children, Camp Simcha and the YU QUEST comedy fundraiser. Charities are important to him, because as child, humor gave him the tools to fight through tough times during his own illness. He sees a basic life lesson in comedy. “I think a lot of our problems as a society could be solved if people lightened up a little bit, took a step back from whatever situation they’re in, and laughed… People need to calm down and get that minute to laugh.”

Levine has made it a point to give people that minute at YU. As a staff writer at The Quipster, a satirical online news site produced by YU students, his articles gently mock current events and trends in the YU world. “We’re there to keep everybody grounded,” said Levine. The radio show he co-hosts with Moshe Press, a senior at Yeshiva College, is similar in tone. While a good portion of the show is devoted to comic books (“We’re huge comic book guys”), Levine and Press are not afraid to tackle heavier items on the news circuit.

“We do satire and comedy,” said Levine. “When something serious comes up, we switch our hats and our jokes become more geared toward what’s going on and what our opinion about it is.”

Currently Levine is applying to the NBC Universal Page program, a 12-month, post-graduation program that places participants in the news, entertainment and production world. Levine also hopes to study screenwriting next year and eventually become a sitcom writer. He’s working on a spec script to show potential employers—a project he is getting some help with from Erik Mintz, adjunct instructor in English at Stern College for Women and a former sitcom writer for “The Nanny” and “Mad About You,” among others.

“My professors here have been incredibly supportive and have always taken the time to watch my work and offer feedback,” said Levine.

“Eitan is a highly creative force at Yeshiva College and someone about whom I expect to hear a great deal of good stuff in the months and years to come,” said Dr. Eric Goldman, adjunct associate professor of cinema at YU, who has worked with Levine in several film studies courses. “He has that gift where he can simply look at the camera and make you laugh. It’s quite special.”

Young Entrepreneur Balances Dual Role as Student and Marketing Executive

It’s only his first semester on campus, but David Prince has a pretty good idea of what he wants to major in—marketing.

David Prince juggles his responsibilities as a first year on campus student and president of his own marketing firm.

He’s been doing it professionally since tenth-grade.

At 21, the Syms School of Business student is president of a full-service management and consulting firm he founded four years ago, Prince Management. At an age when many college students are writing their first cover letters to their first internships, Prince has represented and secured endorsements and business opportunities for a wide range of clientele in the entertainment and corporate world, including NFL and NBA athletes, rappers, musicians and charitable foundations.

So how does a yeshiva kid from Highland Park, New Jersey become a successful public relations executive before he graduates high school? And what brings him back to the classroom when his career has already taken off?

According to Prince, it all started with a marketing internship at Marc Ecko Enterprises in the summer after ninth-grade. “I always knew that I loved business, but didn’t necessarily know what industry or what capacity I’d be involved in,” said Prince. “I fell in love with marketing.”

Prince spun his internship at Ecko into a full-time position as a marketing and public relations coordinator, with responsibilities that included social media, networking and marketing strategies. In an effort to attract celebrities to a fundraising event for Tikva, an orphanage Ecko supports in the Ukraine, Prince reached out to many well-known names. One of them was NBA player Al Harrington—then a member of the Golden State Warriors.

“I set up a lunch and my goal was to convince him to get involved with Ecko,” Prince said. However, Harrington was so impressed by Prince’s sincerity and enthusiasm for Tikva that he turned the conversation around. “He asked me if I’d be interested in working with him.”

Prince was 17 at the time.

An 18-year-old Prince with his client, Al Harrington, received an award for their commitment to underprivileged youth.

After a follow-up meeting in Harrington’s off-season Las Vegas home, it was official—marketing and public relations for Harrington and the Al Harrington Foundation were in Prince’s hands. “I had no idea how to do it all,” Prince said. “It probably wasn’t the smartest thing but sometimes you just have to be able to go with your gut and say, ‘Yeah, I can figure this out. This is going to work.’ It did.

“Thank God, within two weeks we had endorsement opportunities on the table, I got him scheduled to film MTV’s Cribs and we were already planning the first foundation event.”

His work with Harrington was so successful that Prince began to think about offering his talent to others. “The summer before my senior year, I walked into my local accountant’s office and created an LLC,” he said. At awards shows and in locker rooms after games, he reached out to recording artists, athletes and others who could use his services. Today, Prince has a growing clientele.

So college, especially the intensity of Yeshiva University’s dual curriculum, may seem like an odd choice. But for Prince, who was awarded a scholarship by the McKelvey Foundation for his entrepreneurial skills, it was the only option.

“The stuff you learn on your own is in some ways the most valuable education you’ll ever get,” said Prince, “but I also wanted grounding in the areas I wouldn’t necessarily come across because I’m not in every industry. I’m taking finance and accounting classes that are important to give you the roundedness of a full business education.”

At YU, Prince can also focus on another pillar of his personal and professional life: Torah.

“I chose YU because the religious aspect was extremely important to me. It’s hard enough to find time to learn even in a good environment. Here learning is constantly accessible.”

It’s also in tune with what Prince views as a key life lesson: “Surround yourself with people you admire and look up to, whether in business or your personal life,” said Prince. “That’s why I’m at YU now—incredible people.”

For Prince, business ventures and opportunities never come at the cost of his Torah values or Jewish identity. “I’m a Jewish businessman,” said Prince. “Whatever I do, I do as a Jew.” That’s why you’ll never find Prince without a yarmulke at any show or arena. “My kippa grounds me and tells everyone else where I’m holding. I think of it as a great opportunity to make a kiddush Hashem [sanctification of God's name] wherever I go.”

The ‘holding’ hasn’t always been easy. Prince recently returned from two years of study in Israel, several time zones and continents away from an industry he described as “all about personality and face-to-face communication.” Nevertheless, he is proud of those years and considers them an investment in himself and his business.

“It didn’t make sense for me to be 17 and flying out to Las Vegas, hanging out with basketball players and celebrities,” said Prince. “Obviously that all came from something bigger. I could say that going to Israel for two years was one of the most difficult things for my professional career, but that learning is the fuel I’m using for my life now.”

What’s next for Prince? He’s not sure, but he’s excited to find out. “My dream is to work in a place where I feel I can make a difference in the world,” he said. “That’s the only thing I really want to do.” For other young entrepreneurs, Prince offers advice in a similar vein: “Don’t give up on a good idea… there are ideas that pop into your head, especially if you’re an entrepreneur, which, if you put a little confidence into them, can sprout into something beautiful and incredible.”

Ariella Gottesman, Co-President of YU’s Israel Club, on the Checkered Past of Israel’s National Anthem and its Relevance Today

Many years ago, I heard a speaker – a self-proclaimed Zionist – taking HaTikvah to task. In her opinion, it didn’t speak to the Zionist dream, the true feeling of the Jewish heart aching to return home, or the mission of Zionism. She suggested that The Impossible Dream from the hit Broadway musical “The Man of La Mancha” take its place as the Israeli national anthem. The very words, she thought, encapsulated everything Zionism and Israel stands for:

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go…

I was quite taken with this idea as a child, with the notion that this stirring song about reaching “the unreachable star” could serve as a more fitting national anthem for our homeland. I took out the CD from the library and listened to the song countless times, smiling as I internalized the lyrics. It struck a chord within me, far deeper than HaTikvah ever had.

So, why shouldn’t this song represent the Zionist dream? What does HaTikvah really have over The Impossible Dream?

Recently, I hit the books (and the Internet) to figure it all out.  What I discovered was fascinating.

Similar to The Star Spangled Banner, which is actually a four paragraph poem with only the first verse known, HaTikvah has seven other stanzas, which nobody knows.

HaTikvah was originally a nine stanza poem written by Naphtali Herz Imber, a relatively unsuccessful poet, loafer, alcoholic and womanizer who lived in the late 19th century. The original title was actually Tikvateinu – Our Hope – and it was the anthem of several settlements in the 1880s. Imber later died of alcohol induced liver disease, not a very glorious way for the writer of Israel’s national anthem to pass.

Samuel Cohen later put these rhymes to a Romanian folk song, Carul cu Boi. Though he slowed down the rhythm and refined the sound, when one listens to Carul cu Boi, it is clear that the two songs are related. The tune that makes Jews worldwide rise and put their hands to their hearts means, in Romanian, “Cart and Oxen,” and the original is a dancing tune.

The more I uncovered in my research, the more the case was made for The Impossible Dream to take center stage.

Yet, HaTikvah, with its interesting, and perhaps scandalous, past, still has a unique quality that The Impossible Dream cannot and never will have. This quality fills the heart of the Jew. It makes us smile, it makes us cry, it defines us, and it makes HaTikvah our national anthem.

On May 12, 1948, before David Ben-Gurion read the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the audience spontaneously sang HaTikvah in unison. After the Declaration was signed, the crowd once again rose and sang:

To be a free people in our land,

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.

No one in that room, or anywhere in that newly born country, would have envisioned owning all of Jerusalem. Not under the White Paper, nor under the UNSCOP Partition Plan, nor by any other conceivable course of events. At best, they thought, it would wind up under UN jurisdiction. At worst, it would fall into the hands of the Arabs, who would in all likelihood deny Jews access. Indeed, by the end of the 1948 war, when the smoke had cleared, Jerusalem was still not under Israeli control.

Yet, Jews still dreamed of Jerusalem. Their eyes still looked towards Zion. The city where David camped was still in their hearts. And, in 1967, against all odds, we claimed our birthright.

The religious Zionists suggested two alternatives to Hatikvah as Israel’s national anthem, The first was Shir Hamaalot Beshuv Hashem et Shivat Zion, Psalm 126, whose theme is the  return to Zion and which says this return would seem like an impossible dream come true. It had been set to music by the famed Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt, and the song as he rendered it became popular in recent years when “Shir Hamaalot” was sung by popular Israeli singer Chanan Yovel.

The other was first Chief Rabbi Avraham Kook’s poem about the return to our land and the city where David camped. Both were rejected by the secular Zionists who made up the majority of those who founded the state.

The Impossible Dream is a wonderful song. I smile and cry every time I listen to it. But it does not focus on Jerusalem.  As such, it cannot possibly represent the Zionist dream because it is impossible to fulfill the Zionist dream without our Golden Jerusalem.

Ariella Gottesman is an undergraduate student at Stern College for Women and co-president of the Yeshiva University Israel Club.

Read the op-ed in The Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva and Ynet.

Simon Goldberg, President of the Student Holocaust Education Movement at YU, on Maintaining Humanity in Inhumane Times

On a spring day five years ago, I stood inside the Permanent Exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and prayed. I sought fervently to believe that what appeared so heartbreakingly before me was an illusion. That it could not have happened so transparently. I imagined the world from inside a German cattle car, which, only 65 years prior, served to actualize Hitler’s genocidal ambitions by carrying tens of thousands of Jews to the gas chambers.

I promised the six million souls looking down on me that I’d always remember them. But I have since, intermittently, found myself contemplating the ramifications of that commitment. What exactly are the responsibilities of the rememberer? Is he to sing? To safeguard? To study? Perhaps simply to know—to be aware of the horrors that once besieged a European Jewry in the heart of the Europe?

Too often, in the weeks leading up to Yom Hashoah, we forget how to remember. The lessons that emerged from the Holocaust—though all rooted in tremendous gravity—are not all centered around pain and suffering. Anecdotally, as well as in diaries, journals, and survivor testimonies, we bear witness to stories of profound decency in unthinkable conditions. We draw strength from the arresting bravery of some 400 ghetto fighters who mounted a rebellion in Warsaw on the eve of Passover 1943, with just a few automatic weapons. We learn of the poet Paul Celan who translated William Shakespeare’s sonnets while imprisoned in Romania. We turn our gaze to the pervasive stream of paintings, drawings, music and writing that were left behind in the camps. One teenager, Marcel Chétovy, wrote on a wall in Drancy that he and his father were leaving the deportation camp in France “with very good spirits and the hope of returning soon.” They were never heard from again, but we would do well to make them heard—aside from talking about of their tragic fate, to also speak of their lives—of the hope and humanity that their spirits exuded.

In the eyes of scholar John Felstiner, creative resistance is “more human than blowing up a train, because of everything it takes to make a piece of art or a poem. The personhood is what the Nazis were trying to destroy, to try to erase from the globe.” The rememberer, in my mind, exists primarily to champion the victory of personhood. To emulate the daring pronouncement so many victims made—that they were, albeit in bleak and deplorable circumstances, alive and breathing. He exists to assert the legacy of the victims as impenetrable and lasting.

We need to pay tribute to these courageous individuals because, in many ways, they show us how to live and how to remember; that to remember is to live, and that we have a choice now—as they did then—to maintain our humanity in a cry of tolerance against fascism or to remain reticent, apathetic and uninvolved.

In reflecting on the future of memory, Hedi Fried, survivor of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen and founder of the Stockholm Storytelling Project, admits that the younger generation ought to learn her story because she can hardly understand it herself. But she begs us to remember another imperative: namely, that “democracy dies if you don’t work for it.” It crumbles, much as it did across this century of blood and loss—in Cambodia, in Rwanda, in Bosnia and now in Darfur.

We are not helpless, but we are also not as helpful as we could be. At this historic crossroads, we have a unique responsibility to validate the lessons of the past. At this juncture between life and death, between what we can see and what remains to be seen, passive commemoration does not suffice. It cannot. If we are to build a world centered on dignity, tolerance and respect for the Other, we have to make it such. Yom Hashoah, as the name implies, lasts for 24 hours. Yet the realities of the Holocaust are eternal. They require us to be constantly cognizant and vigorously vigilant.

Many today still do not taste the liberties a young Sophie Scholl once dreamed of when she left the word “Freedom” on a scrap of paper before being led to her execution. There are still dictatorships impinging on people’s basic human rights; there are still maligning grips of revisionism—those which seek to distort, deflect, twist and undermine our collective consciousness. There are still violent expressions of racism, bigotry and anti-Semitism—all of which threaten the welfare of our livelihoods. In some ways, none of us are really free—not until we have risen to the challenge that memory has bestowed upon our generation. For the world shakes as I write; it erupts with uncertainty and flings to the fore a barrage of recurrent tensions and chaos.

Our only hope lies in remembering how to remember.

Simon Goldberg is a third-year student at Yeshiva College majoring in history and political science. In 2009 he founded SHEM, the Student Holocaust Education Movement (SHEM) at Yeshiva University. On Monday night, May 2, SHEM will present a Yom Hashoah Ceremony featuring Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis in YU’s Lamport Auditorium at 8:30 p.m. The event will be webcast live at www.yu.edu/yomhashoa.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkvh1Woush4

Sep 27, 2010 — Yeshiva University’s Student Medical Ethics Society (MES) will be hosting its fifth annual conference, entitled A Beautiful Mind: Jewish Approaches to Mental Health on Sunday, Oct. 31 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at YU’s Wilf Campus, 500 West 185th Street, New York, NY. The conference is sponsored through the generous support of Rabbi Dovid and Mrs. Anita Fuld.

MES, a student run organization under the guidance of YU’s Center for the Jewish Future (CJF), was founded in fall 2005 to promote education and awareness of medical ethics at YU. Since that time, it has grown from a small group of students with common interests to a major campus organization running large-scale events and educational programming with University-wide participation. Its previous conferences dealt with organ donation, fertility, end-of-life issues in Jewish law and modern genetics.

The Oct. 31 conference will provide participants with a broad foundation for the medical background needed to understand mental health, as well as the advanced medical research and practices used today to prevent and manage mental health challenges. Topics covered include suicide, depression, eating disorders, addictions, substance abuse and more. Participants will also be introduced to an overview of the fundamental ethical dilemmas surrounding mental health, as well as how the system of halacha [Jewish law] approaches these complex issues.

Jennie Kraut, a student at Stern College for Women who along with Adiel Munk, a student at Yeshiva College, serves as co-president of MES, hopes the conference will provide a public forum for issues that are considered taboo in the Orthodox Jewish community.

“We want people to recognize that the mental health issues that either they themselves, or someone that they know, is grappling with are legitimate and that it’s okay to talk about these issues” explained Kraut. “There is a large stigma against people who are struggling with mental health issues in the Jewish community and we are hoping that by educating them we will, at the very least, spark some discussion in the Orthodox Jewish world.”

“We felt that there was no better way to bring these issues to light than by convening the top experts in the country who are not only familiar with these kinds of topics but also with the Orthodox Jewish community,” added Munk.

Rabbi Kenneth Brander, The David Mitzner Dean of CJF, helped launch MES five years ago and serves as one of the group’s mentors.

“These are issues that affect all of us in one way or another,” said Rabbi Brander. “As members of families, communities and society we must not shy away from the tough issues we face. It is important that we deal with these issues with first-rate medical experts and through the prism of halacha.”

In addition to gaining broad knowledge in medical, ethical, and halachic issues of mental health, conference participants will be able to choose from a series of specialized tracks, each geared toward in-depth analysis of the most pressing issues in the field. These tracks include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bullying and Harassing, Child Abuse, Living with a Mentally Ill Family Member and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

“Yeshiva University is the embodiment of Torah U’madda,” said program director and mentor, Rabbi Dr. Edward Reichman, associate professor of philosophy and history of medicine at YU’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “The philosophy of the institution permeates its students, who are infused with a love of learning and acquiring knowledge. The Medical Ethics Society consists of men and women who truly reflect the University’s ideals.”

The conference is open to the public but pre-registration is required. For more information or to register visit www.yumedicalethics.com or contact yumedicalethics@gmail.com.

Apr 15, 2009 — A handful of Yeshiva University’s most talented student exhibited their artwork at the YU Museum on March 22 when the University held a celebration of student and faculty creativity at the venue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It was the first time student work was on display there.

Elliot Kaminetzky, a psychology major at Yeshiva College, was very excited to see his three paintings—portraits of his father and sister, and a landscape in the style of Cezanne—in a public setting. “I was trying to show the contrast of modernity and tradition in the portrait of my father studying,” Kaminetzky said.

Rivka Siegel, a studio art major who plans to be an illustrator, exhibited an oil painting of a soldier wearing tefillin and a print on a similar subject—pieces about “prayer and war,” she said.

Curated by faculty members Susan Gardner and Traci Tullius, the exhibit also included the work of Stern students Rebecca Cinnamon, Gila Romanoff, Malke Freifeld, Sara Levit, Ruthie Matanky, Kaley Wajcman, Raquel Laban, Rachel Fried, Revital Avisar and Rebecca Palgon, and Yeshiva College students Elliot Kaminetzky and Chezi Gerin.

The exhibit highlighted the close ties that the museum is forging with the students’ classroom experience under the leadership of Jacob Wisse, associate professor of art history at Stern College for Women who was appointed director of the museum in January. “We are here to celebrate the presence of the University community at the museum, and the commitment of the museum to demonstrating and presenting the mission of YU,” Wisse said.

The recently tenured associate professor of art history has a background in museum education and curatorial work. Through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wisse earned a Curatorial Studies Certificate and was twice awarded its Theodore Rousseau Curatorial Fellowship. He introduced courses at Stern that use exhibitions and museum collections to complement the classroom experience, including a summer program in Florence on the art and culture of the Renaissance.

“We may serve as a showpiece for musical, literary and artistic talent but even more essentially as a place where some of these talents can be experimented through innovating exhibitions, educational programs and by brining together the YU community in the best spirit of interdisciplinary collaboration,” Wisse told the audience gathered at the museum event.

Morton Lowengrub, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs, concurred. “This is the cultural arm of the University and an important face to the outside world,” he said.

The event—which was the inspiration of Norman Adler, University professor of psychology—featured a reading by Joanne Jacobson, professor of English at Yeshiva College, from her recently published memoir, Hunger Artist: A Suburban Childhood. Peninnah Scram, professor of speech and drama at Stern College and an accomplished storyteller, read a short story by John Updike titled Women and Museums.

The audience was also treated to performances by the Stern Music Ensemble, featuring David Glaser, professor of music, on viola da gumba; Marcia Young, director of performance studies, on Baroque triple harp; students Sarit Bendavid and Reena Ribalt on flute; and Hadassa Klerman on recorder.