The Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey’s annual Yom HaShoah Holocaust Remembrance Program, including the story of three Holocaust survivors’ remarkable story as young children during the war and a speech by general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Z. Rosensaft, will take place on Wednesday, April 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the JCC of Paramus/Congregation Beth Tikvah.
Three young individuals will narrate the stories of Moshe Blonder, a Fort Lee resident born in 1938 in Antwerp, Belgium; Jeanette Amar, a Fair Lawn resident born in 1938 in Morocco; and Sandra Prentki, a Glen Rock resident born in 1938 in Poland. All three individuals were very young when the war began. According to a committee member organizing the event, “These three individuals have exceptional stories of survival. They were all small children and yet the implications of what happened to them affected their whole lives.” The three survivors will accompany the narrators on the bima and light candles while their stories of survival are narrated.
Additionally, the program will feature guest speaker Menachem Z. Rosensaft. He was born in 1948 in the displaced persons camp of Bergen-Belsen, Germany. As a child of Holocaust survivors, Rosensaft has spearheaded Holocaust remembrance activities for most of his life. In addition to serving as general counsel emeritus of the World Jewish Congress, Rosensaft is an adjunct professor at Cornell Law School and a lecturer of law at Columbia Law School, in which he teaches courses on antisemitism in the courts and in jurisprudence and on the law of genocide. This past January, Rosensaft’s book “Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz,” a collection of Psalms written from a post-Holocaust perspective, was released.
At the commemoration, Rosensaft will discuss how we can best navigate this pivotal moment in history to ensure Holocaust remembrance. Since the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling, we will soon no longer have the privilege of hearing firsthand narratives. Rosensaft suggests that we engrain Holocaust remembrance in our collective consciousness by bringing it into our daily, Shabbat and High Holiday liturgy. “We need to make sure that the greatest tragedy to befall the Jewish people ever is marked in our religious consciousness in some way,” Rosensaft said.
Similar to previous years, the commemoration will include a procession of rescued Torahs from Czechoslovakia that are located within the synagogues of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
In February 1964, Ralph Yablon rescued 1,564 Torah scrolls stolen by the Nazis from the synagogues throughout Czechoslovakia. The Nazis were planning on creating a museum with all Jewish artifacts to depict to the world what they believed would be the extinct Jewish race. Yablon donated these Torahs to the Westminster Synagogue in Kent House, London. Many of these Torahs were repaired and refurbished by a sofer and distributed to communities around the world.
The rescued Torah procession will lead into a procession of children carrying yahrzeit candles. Any child old enough to walk with a light candle is encouraged to participate.
This commemoration is largely run by second-generation survivors. In the late 1940s in Paterson, New Jersey, a committee of Holocaust survivors began this commemoration, which is now sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey.
The committee members encourage all families to attend. “We like to say that Jewish children are the survivors’ victory, so it is important that children have an active role in this special evening,” one committee member said. If your congregation is home to one of the rescued Torahs, you are invited to take part in this year’s commemoration by bringing your Torah to march in the procession. To register for the commemoration, go to
jfnnj.org/yomhashoah.
