On Yom HaShoah, Yavneh Academy lower school students viewed the school’s Torah scroll which was rescued from the Nazis from Vyskov, Czechoslovakia, and presented by the Class of 1985. The curtain for the Torah scroll showcase is only raised once a year, on Yom HaShoah. Yavneh faculty member Azi Steiner sang with the students, “Place Where I Belong.” The song tells the experiences and feelings of a Torah scroll in the first person, from its creation by a scribe in Kiev and regular use there in a shul, to its eventual resting place in an American museum.

In middle school, led by Mrs. Rubin and banot Sherut Leumi, Aviya and Tal, the sixth graders learned the history of the Shoah. Students also shared actual stories of first, second and third generations of Holocaust survivors. The program concluded with a video of survivors, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren singing Chai. The seventh grade program featured the documentary, “The Number on My Great-Grandfather’s Arm,” a riveting story of a young boy interviewing and illustrating his great-grandfather’s experience during the Shoah. Rabbi Burstein, director of Holocaust studies at Yavneh, answered the many different questions thoughtfully posed by the students. After watching a clip from “Schindler’s List,” the eighth graders reflected on the unbelievable experiences that European Jews endured. Sharing their thoughts with one another and with Rabbi Burstein, students discussed their own family histories.