In partnership with Facing History, Yeshivat Noam Middle School teachers led a meaningful program centered around the theme of strength during the Shoah. The students watched a powerful video illustrating strength and the teachers facilitated an interactive dialogue about the content of the video.

Led by Rabbi Hagler, the students read “The Acceptance” which is a commitment to never forget the atrocities against the Jewish people. Then the students split up by grade and heard from survivors and their families about life in Europe during the war.

Eva Grunberger Major from Nyirbator, Hungary, great-grandmother of five current Yeshivat Noam students, spoke to the sixth graders about surviving Auschwitz and showed the students the number imprinted on her arm. She shared with the students her memories and the importance of living a Jewish life.

Fran (Fay) Malkin spoke to the eighth graders and shared with them the documentary film about her family. Michael Katz, a parent of Noam alumni, spoke to the seventh grades and Morah Esther Feil spoke with the fifth graders.

The eighth graders put on a dramatic production about the Shoah for the middle school students during the day, and for their parents and the larger community in the evening. At the culmination of the production, the students divided into various rooms and each presented the story of a survivor. Under the creative and artistic expertise of Rebecca Lopkin and Yeshivat Noam eighth grade history teacher, Rabbi Jeremy Hellman, the students created a living museum using art, poetry, narrative and artifacts from Europe to bring each story to life.