Bruriah seniors capped off a year of Holocaust study with a full day yom iyun at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park.

The program began with a welcome from museum educator, Dr. Paul Radensky. An emotionally-evocative and inspiring address was given by Rabbi Josh Blass, mashgiach ruchani at YUand rabbi of Kehillas Bais Yehuda of Wesley Hills, who delivered “How We Can Relate to the Holocaust: Being ‘a Jew of Fate’ or ‘a Jew of Destiny,’” (an idea developed in Rabbi Soloveitchik’s “Kol Dodi Dofek”).

The students toured the the museum, which includes a photo exhibit about the Lodz ghetto, then viewed an empowering film about young female resisters. As a climax to the day’s program and to their course in the Holocaust, the group was privileged to hear testimony from a most extraordinary woman, survivor Sonia Klein. Klein was their age when she was sent to Auschwitz, where she spent two years. Her message of memory, resilience, optimism and activism made a profound impact on the students.

The program, which is in its ninth year, was the innovation of Ellen Azizollahoff, and has since been replicated by a number of other schools.