Yavneh Academy’s Annual Holocaust Production was held on Thursday, April 3, at Ma’ayanot High School in Teaneck. Rabbi Jonathan Knapp, head of school, in addressing the sixth and seventh graders at the early performance of this year’s Holocaust production, made reference to the Holocaust play as one of the most meaningful experiences of a student’s life at Yavneh and has been so for over 40 years.

“We are all so proud of our Yavneh 8th graders. They took a compelling story and turned it into a poignant production. For us at Yavneh, the Holocaust education experience is not only about the Shoah. The curriculum arms our students with knowledge and facts about antisemitism over the ages and teaches them how Jews can and must respond. Sadly, as we all know over the past 18 months, this is more critical than ever.” At the evening performance, Rabbi Knapp elaborated upon this theme and quoted Rabbi Jonathan Sachs, ”To fight for land we need arms; to fight for freedom we need education.”

For the past 24 years, the play has been produced by Judaic faculty member Rabbi Shmuel Burstein, who devotes endless hours to the project from its creation through its performance. What gives Rabbi Burstein the most gratification from this major undertaking each year is that the production gives a presence and a voice to those who endured the Holocaust. “It’s hard to describe the nachas, very much like that of a proud father, at seeing yearly a new group of students taking seriously the task of keeping Holocaust memory alive. I feel that through our production we are ensuring that the memory and legacy of the kedoshim remains with us l’dorei dorot,” for generations. And as more and more survivors leave us, having the rare opportunity to honor living survivors allows us to keep our hold on this vital living history a bit longer.”

In past productions, Yavneh celebrated the lives of well-known Holocaust heroes including Elie Wiesel, Rav Yisrael Meir Lau, the Bielski brothers, Jacob Frank, Rabbi Herschel Schacter, and Chiune Sugihara. The current production has its origins at Yavneh where the seeds for the play were planted when then fifth grader Eli Siesser of Teaneck. He approached his great-grandfather Alfons Sperber to share his Holocaust story with him in fulfillment of his immigration project. During their weekly phone conversations, Sperber’s memories returned slowly after many years of lying dormant. The result of the interviews was an inspirational saga of courage, resilience and hope.

Eli’s father, Ron, realizing how precious and soon to be fleeting these stories of survival are, decided to expand the interviews and create an account of survival for his family and community. The result was the publication of “Live and Be Counted: A Boy’s Heroic Tale of Survival, Faith and Family,” which was published in October 2024 and was immediately acclaimed as Amazon’s #1 selection for the month. Rabbi Burstein saw the dramatization of this memoir as an opportunity to bring the memory of the Holocaust closer to home and to the Bergen County community.

Barbara Rubin, middle school principal, who always provides tremendous support and encouragement to the students year after year, expressed her appreciation to Ma’ayanot High School for Girls for opening up their lovely and spacious auditorium for the production, which allowed for a larger audience to attend and an extended exhibit space. She also praised the phenomenal talents of Mikaela Simon, who has been artistically directing the Holocaust play for the past four years. Simon expressed excitement at the personal and local story that the students are enacting this year as we all realize that this will soon not be realistic.

Before the evening performance, visitors were greeted by a multimedia gallery consisting of original student artwork and personal family artifacts from before the Holocaust and after the Holocaust which the students shared, including a lovely kiddush cup, a set of silver candlesticks and even a small sefer Torah.

For the fourth year, under the tutelage of Jason David, director of technology and innovation at Yavneh, three students created virtual reality scenes from the play. By creating a program and through coding all the images, the students created an immersive VR experience of a key scene in the play which visitors could experience on a computer as well as through the three headsets provided.

Through the Gabriella, z”l and Walter, z”l Weiss Yavneh Connects Program under the direction of Karen Horn, 10 eighth graders interviewed family members who survived the Holocaust, including grandparents and great-grandparents, and recorded them on video to ensure that they will long be remembered. This program has added greatly to the meaning of the evening for the students involved as well as to the visitors. One such individual who was interviewed by his great-niece, Ariella Kieffer, wasMarvin Jacob Jakabovitz, who is currently 102 and still shares his Holocaust saga with his extended family at the Pesach Seder.

At the evening performance Ron Siesser was in attendance together with Sperber’s younger sister, Helgi, who is key in the memoir. Siesser played a video message from Alfons Sperber and shared, “Yavneh’s eighth grade Holocaust play is its crown jewel to the community. The students’ portrayal of our family’s story exceeded our expectations and brought many of us to tears.That its two main characters and survivors — Alfons and Helgi — were able to see their story come to life made the play that much more moving and meaningful.”