Are you a journalist (or sales pro) who values truth, Torah and Medinat Yisrael? Repressed at work by woke truthiness, debased values and Israel-hate? Ready to come home? See p. 23
May 10, 2024 Kedoshim • 2 Iyyar 5784 • Vol 23, No 16 W
TheJewishStar.com
Publisher@TheJewishStar.com • 516-622-7461
7th Candle By Ed Weintrob As is customary at Yom HaShoah commemorarions, six candles were lit in the Five Towns on Sunday night, one for each million of the six million Jews who were slain by the Nazis. Four of the candles were lit by Holocaust survivors and two on behalf of survivors who could not particpate. But a seventh candle was lit as well, to acknowledge the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and its aftermath, including the continued captivity of hostages and the growing number of Israeli casualities — 614 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Oct. 7 and more than 3,200 injured, many seriously. That candle was lit by Einav Danion, mother of 24-year-old hostage Ori Danion. “It feels inappropriate to divert our attention from the horrors of the Holocaust and the lessons learned from the survivors,” Dana Frenkel said in opening the program. “And yet, how
could we not address the brutal massacre that took place on Oct. 7? “The disappointing reactions of some of our supposed friends, the repulsive displays of antisemitism on our so-called enlightened college campuses — including shouts of Intifada revolution, Zionist go back to Europe — the devastating revelation of the Jew hatred that has been simmering for decades, there is nothing I can say that will make me feel that I’ve adequately addressed this community tonight.” Survivor Sally Muscel, delivering the Fanya Gottesfeld Heller Memorial Address, described how her parents sent her away, as a 10-year-old, from their Polish home as the Nazis approached. Abandonment trauma haunts her still, she said. “I really couldn’t understand that my parents wanted to save my life,” she said. “I thought that they don’t want me anymore.” See Candles on page 10
The Jewish Star photos by Ed Weintrob
Lighting candles for the 6 million, from left: Survivors Livia Horowitz, Barbara Baker and Shoshana Friedman. At right, Sharon Fogel accompanies Einav Danion, mother of Ori, a 24-year-old hostage, who lit a seventh candle.
Survivor Sally Muscel described her life before, during and after the Shoah, then lit the first of six candles in memory of those who perished.
For 30+ Years!
By Ed Weintrob Riverdale remembered the Holocaust the way Jews commemorate so much: through ritual. The device created for this by Rabbi Avi Weiss at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale was a Yom HaShoah Seder. “There is no event in Jewish history that is remembered without ritual,” HIR President Jessica Loeser read from the Seder’s Haggadah. “Only through a formalized ritual, enacted each year on Yom HaShoah, as the Exodus from Egypt is enacted each year on Passover, can we prevent the Holocaust from becoming a footnote in Jewish history.” After Rabbi Steven Exler lit
six yarzeit candles, and a siren sounded to simulate the observance of Yom HaShoah in Israel, the Haggadah was read and sung, in English, Hebrew and Yiddish, over one-and-a-half hours. Shoah testimonies were read and prayers were recited. Before concluding with the singing of Hatikvah, Rabbi Exler said the assembled were “standing here today, still strong and resilient. Together with Eretz Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael, we represent the answer to the lament of Yechezkel 37 [that hope is lost]. “The three generations of us in this room [are] connecting to the eternal hope of our people.”
Ed Weintrob, The Jewish Star
R’dale ‘seder’ marks Shoah