VIEW VIDEO HERE.

The Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program is
now featured on the website of the Jewish Labor Committee at:
(www.jewishlabor.org ).

There’s a basic description of the program, as well as a downloadable
application in PDF as well as Word format.

a) please share with others as appropriate;
b) if anyone wishes to make a link to the item, its specific web address is: http://www.jewishlaborcommittee.org/2008/11/2009_holocaust_jewish_
resistan.html / Arieh Lebowitz, Communications Director, Jewish
Labor Committee

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2009 Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program

A summer study program in Poland and Israel for U.S. secondary
school
teachers.

Thank you for your interest in our Summer Seminar Program on
Holocaust
and Jewish Resistance, initiated by Vladka Meed in 1984.

This year’s program is scheduled for July 5 – 23, 2009.

Our seminar includes educational activities in Poland and Israel with the
participation of scholars from Israel’s Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the
Study Center of the Ghetto Fighters’ House at Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot.

On the web site above, there is an online application for you to print out,
complete and send back to us.

NOTE if for some reason you cannot print the application, just email us
at jlcexec@aol.com and we’ll send one out asap. Applications are
evaluated by a committee as they are received –so applying early is
to your advantage. All applications must reach our office no later
than April 1, 2009.

For further information, cost, accommodations, etc., please contact
the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Program, Jewish Labor Committee:
tel: (212) 477-0707 email: jlcexec@aol.com

Payment is expected immediately upon notification of acceptance, which
will contain more information on the program.

Program Goals:
** To advance education in U.S. secondary schools about the Holocaust
and Jewish Resistance;
** To deepen teachers’ knowledge and strengthen their ability to implement
Holocaust studies in their classrooms;
** To teach each new generation about the Holocaust and Jewish resistance,
so that they will know, understand and never forget;
** To further educational activities which use the lessons of the past as
warnings for the present, and the future.

Curriculum includes:
** Martyrdom and the Struggle for Survival in Jewish History;
** Life in the Ghettoes and the Camps;
** The Final Solution;
** Armed Resistance and Revolt;
** Spiritual Resistance;
** Reaction of the Free World;
** The Holocaust in Literature and Art;
** Post-War Impact of the Holocaust.

Contact Information and Sponsors:
For further information contact:
Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teachers Program
c/o Jewish Labor Committee
25 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010
tel: (212) 477-0707 email: jlcexec@aol.com

The HOLOCAUST & JEWISH RESISTANCE TEACHERS PROGRAM
is
sponsored by the:
American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
American Federation of Teachers
Educators Chapter, Jewish Labor Committee

With the active support of the:
Atran Foundation, Inc.
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss Monument Funds, Inc.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

NOTE: A major part of the cost of this program is covered by very
substantial scholarships arranged by the American Gathering of Jewish
Holocaust Survivors.

400 RABBIS URGE YAD VASHEM TO RECOGNIZE
1943 MARCH TO WHITE HOUSE BY 400 RABBIS

NEW YORK- More than 400 rabbis, including senior leaders of all denominations, have signed a petition urging Yad Vashem, Israel’s central Holocaust museum, to add materials recognizing the 1943 rabbis’ march to the White House and other Holocaust protests organized by the Bergson Group.

The petition was delivered this week to Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the new head of Yad Vashem, who was visiting New York to address the United Nations on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The petition was organized by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and spearheaded by Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, one of the first historians to write about the rabbis’ march, and Rabbi Benyamin Kamenetzky, dean emeritus of the South Shore (Long Island) Yeshiva, who was one of the marchers in 1943.

“The rabbis’ march was the only rally for rescue of Europe’s Jews that was held in the nation’s capital during the Holocaust,” the petition states. “The march and the Bergson Group’s other protests –rallies, lobbying in Washington, and hundreds of newspaper advertisements– helped shatter the silence surrounding the Holocaust, and put pressure on the Roosevelt administration to take rescue action. These efforts played an important role in bringing about the creation of the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board, which helped save more than 200,000 Jews from Hitler.”

“Yad Vashem already includes material pertaining to various aspects of the Allies’ disappointing response to the Holocaust,” the petition points out. “Visitors to Yad Vashem need to know that although too many people were silent during the Holocaust, there were some who spoke out. Publicizing this fact can help inspire future generations to speak out against injustice.”

Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the Wyman Institute, said: “Yad Vashem cannot ignore the fact that sich a wide range of American Jewish religious leaders feel so strongly about the omission of the Bergson Group from Yad Vashem’s museum.”

Dr. Medoff called the petition “a remarkable and unprecedented display of intra-Jewish unity,” and noted: “Imagine how much more might have been accomplished during the Holocaust years, if Jewish leaders had acted in this spirit and set aside their differences. Today’s rabbinical leaders recognize the mistakes of the past and want the historical record to be set straight, so that we can all learn from it.”

Leaders of all Jewish religious denominations signed the petition to Yad Vashem.

Reform leaders who signed the petition include Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism; Rabbi Peter Knobel, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; former CCAR president Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman; Hebrew Union College vice president Rabbi Chalres Kroloff; and Rabbi Uri Regev, former president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism.

Conservative leaders who signed include Rabbi Daniel S. Nevins, dean of the Jewish Theological Seminary; Rabbi Dr. David Golinkin, president of the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies and grandson of one of the 1943 marchers; and the the Rabbinical Assembly’s executive vice president, Rabbi Joel H. Meyers and past president, Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz.

Orthodox leaders who signed include Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, chancellor of Yeshiva University; Rabbi Shalom Carmy, editor of the Orthodox scholarly journal, Tradition; Rabbi Michael Myers, dean of the Hebrew Theological College; Rabbi Avi Weiss, head of the Yeshivat Chovevei Torah rabbinical school; and the Biala Rebbe, Grand Rabbi Aaron Shlomo Rabinowitz.

Reconstructionist leaders who signed include Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, the president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Rabbi Gail Glicksman and Rabbi Amber Powers, deans of the college; and Rabbi Jack Cohen, former leader of Reconstructionism’s world center, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism.

Other notable signatories:

* The Chief Rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Michael Schudrich.

* Franklin D. Roosevelt’s great-grandson, Rabbi Joshua Boettiger.

* The director of the City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission,
Rabbi Allen I. Freehling.

[For a complete list of the signatories, please call 202-434-8994.]

Other recent developments regarding the Bergson Group:

–The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, in Washington, recently installed a new display recognizing the achievements of the Bergson Group, including a photo of the rabbis’ march.

–More than 130 prominent Israelis, including past and present Knesset Members, cabinet ministers, Supreme Court justices, writers, and artists last year signed a petition to Yad Vashem, urging recognition of the Bergson Group.

–Research by the Wyman Institute revealed that then-Congressman Thomas D. Alesandro, Jr. father of current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was an active supporter of the Bergson Group. In her recent memoir and in speeches, Pelosi said she is “deeply proud” of her father’s link to Bergson.

* * *

ABOUT THE WYMAN INSTITUTE: The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, based in Washington, D.C., is a research and education institute focusing on America’s response to the Holocaust. It is named in honor of the eminent historian and author of the 1984 best-seller The Abandonment of the Jews, the most important and influential book concerning the U.S. response to the Nazi genocide.

The Institute’s Advisory Committee includes Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Elie Wiesel, Members of Congress, and other luminaries. Its Academic Council includes more than 50 leading professors of the Holocaust, American history, and Jewish history. The Institute’s Arts & Letters Council, chaired by Cynthia Ozick, includes prominent artists, writers, musicians, and filmmakers. (For a complete list, please visit www.WymanInstitute.org)

By MAX SOCOL AND SHELLY PAZ

The Green Leaf Graduates, which split from the political party Aleh Yarok, best known for its advocacy of the legalization of cannabis, is making waves with its most recent announcement: a plan to incorporate the Holocaust Survivors Party.

The Holocaust survivors are focused on the controversial issue of their state pension disbursement, which has been weakened by rising demands among the country’s retired workers.

The party accuses the government of misappropriating funds, donated by Germany, that were supposed to be given to Holocaust survivors. The survivors’ party alleges that instead, those monies have been paid in part to thousands of other Israelis who have no connection to the Holocaust, to ease the government’s pension burden.

Yaakov Kfir, the party’s leader, said he joined forces with the Green Leaf Graduates to attract more attention to the survivors’ cause.

“The fact that I am interviewed by so many media outlets indicates that the decision to hook up with the Aleh Yarok graduates was smarter than if I had chosen to go with a larger, more solid party,” Kfir said on Wednesday.

“And that is a shos ['terrific' in Hebrew slang], as the youngsters taught me. The voice of the Holocaust survivors is finally being heard, and this is how I hope to get to the 350,000 Holocaust survivors and their offspring.”

Kfir, a 74-year-old survivor from Petah Tikva, has campaigned for better health care for survivors for 25 years. But after a series of political defeats, he finally chose to get involved in the process directly.

“I have decided that ‘if I am not for myself – who will be?’ It’s time we take care of ourselves, and this might be our last chance to make sure that, despite the fact we had no childhood, we at least reach old age decently and even be allowed to use medical marijuana if the need emerges,” Kfir said.

Michelle Levine, a spokeswoman for the Green Leaf Graduates, voiced strong support for Kfir’s cause. She described the government’s failure to address the concerns of Holocaust survivors as a “national disgrace” and hoped that younger voters drawn to the party would be given additional incentive to vote in order to support the survivors’ cause.

“People who would vote for the survivors right now are all older. [The survivors' party] wants to get younger people involved, like the Pensioners Party did before,” said Levine, referring to the Gil Party’s surprising 2006 success, which was fueled largely by disillusioned young voters.

She was forthright about the Green Leaf Graduates’ intention to use support for the survivors’ cause to further its own agenda of legalizing marijuana and said that the survivors had no problem with the issue.

“They say to us that at their age they don’t see why [marijuana] is an issue,” she continued. “They don’t consider it drugs. They even have friends who have cancer or something who are ashamed to ask for a prescription. Easier access to medical marijuana is something we’re fighting for.”

But despite the Green Leaf Graduates’ electoral expectations, the new partnership has flummoxed many in the Knesset, including the major parties. Labor representative Colette Avital wondered why the Holocaust survivors’ party did not join a party where it “has a better chance.”

“It doesn’t make too much sense to me,” said Avital, speaking to The Jerusalem Post by phone on Wednesday, on her way to a meeting with a group of, among others, Holocaust survivors. “The issues confronting survivors are much too serious to be mixed up with something else.”

Avital claimed that survivor issues were an integral part of the Labor platform and that Labor “would be more than happy to include” the survivors’ party.

“In a way it’s a shame because I’m not sure they’ll even be able to get in,” she said. “It’s a waste of votes. I haven’t got a clue why they aren’t talking [to Labor].”

In a statement issued earlier, Kfir painted a very different picture.

“We, the Holocaust survivors have voted time after time for the same people who go and betray us,” he said, citing a broad feeling among survivors that their concerns are not being taken seriously by mainstream political parties.

“This is why I have decided to turn to the young voters and to convince them to vote for us, so we – their grandparents – get what we deserve: full medical treatments and nursing, if we need it.”

The ceremonies have become a substitute for acting against modern fascists.
By DANIEL SCHWAMMENTHAL | From today’s Wall Street Journal Europe 1/28/09

After yesterday’s Holocaust Memorial Day, I have a request: Let it be the last one, at least outside the Jewish world.

Let’s put an end to the shallow declarations of “Never Again,” which have degenerated into denunciations against long-dead Nazis made from a safe historical distance. This is risk-free grandstanding, which German writer Johannes Gross summed up well: “The resistance to Hitler and his kind,” he once wrote, “is getting stronger the more the Third Reich recedes into the past.”

Holocaust Memorial Day has become an annual ritual in which Europeans promise moral clarity and courage the next time it’s needed. Yet the list of post-Holocaust genocides is long: the killing fields of Cambodia, the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda, the murder of Christians and animists in southern Sudan and the continuing destruction of Muslims in Darfur. While the world yawns, the Islamists in Khartoum are busy with their second genocide.

Nor has the memorial day benefited Jews. Solemn declarations about the evils of the Holocaust have not ended Europe’s booming trade with those dreaming of Israel’s destruction, the mullahs in Tehran. The ceremonies deploring the West’s inaction against the German fascists 60 years ago have become a substitute for action against modern fascists, predominantly Islamist.

Anti-Semitism — and not only when disguised as anti-Zionism — is in vogue again in Europe. To scant media attention, and even scanter government criticism, the shouts of “Death to Jews” have filled the streets of the Continent in recent weeks, as protestors, mostly Muslims, voice opposition to the war in Gaza. Western trade unions and academics have intensified their calls for a boycott of Israel. In Italy, a trade union even called for boycotts of local stores owned by Jews.

The solemn speeches around Europe yesterday mourning those who died in the Holocaust hardly mentioned these developments. Citing the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, the Central Council of Jews in Germany stayed away from yesterday’s official ceremony in the German Parliament.

The United Nations also had a Holocaust memorial service yesterday. Yet just four months ago, the president of Iran was allowed to give an anti-Semitic speech at the General Assembly to enthusiastic applause from many delegations. Although talking about “Zionists,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s use of classic anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish plot for world domination made it clear whom he really was after.

Although they “are miniscule minority,” he said, the Zionists “have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.” And so on. The secretary general of the General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, embraced the Iranian after his hate speech.

That’s the same d’Escoto Brockmann who is calling for a boycott of Israel. It’s also the same man who was scheduled to open yesterday’s U.N. Holocaust Memorial ceremony but backed down after Israel complained. It’s easy to understand why he had wanted to be there: The more crocodile tears people like him spill for dead Jews the easier it is for them to demonize the living ones and avoid being tagged as anti-Semitic. In such hands, Holocaust memorials have become a cover to pound the Jewish state with greater moral authority.

In Europe, there were a few cancellations of yesterday’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day events, along with comments suggesting that Jews are the new Nazis. In Barcelona, a city official told La Vanguardia that “marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right.” People in Lulea, Sweden, said Israel’s war in Gaza left them unable to mourn the six million dead Jews. “It feels uneasy to have a torchlight procession to remember the victims of the Holocaust at this time,” Bo Nordin, a clergyman and spokesman for a local church, told Swedish National Radio. “We have been preoccupied and grief-stricken by the war in Gaza and it would just feel odd with a large ceremony about the Holocaust.”

Trine Lilleng, a Norwegian diplomat — stationed in Saudi Arabia no less — spelled it out more directly in an email that found its way into the Jerusalem Post: “The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany,” she is reported to have written.

The lessons of the Holocaust are straightforward enough but they haven’t been learned, as yesterday’s events show. Let’s stop pretending otherwise and put an end to these phony ceremonies.

Mr. Schwammenthal is an editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe.