Original Article Published On The Jewish Ledger

For Jennifer Kugler, Poland was a logical stop on a physically and emotionally tiring journey which has taken her from her hometown of Glenside, Pennsylvania, to Washington, D.C, to Auschwitz. And she prays she will get to go to Israel next year.

Kugler, a social studies teacher for sixth through eighth graders at St. Catherine of Sienna school in Horsham, Pa., is one of 130 Catholic school teachers who attended the March of the Living. Kugler was accepted to and completed a five-day Anti-Defamation League (ADL) – sponsored program in Washington, D.C. entitled “Bearing Witness.”

The program features both Catholic and Jewish theologians and teachers and is jointly sponsored by the National Catholic Educators Association, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the ADL.

“This program completely tears you apart and puts you back together again,” reports Kugler, as she described an intense week in Washington last July.

“On the first day, we learned the history of anti-Judaism, how it evolved into anti-Semitism, and what the Church did to promote and encourage it,” she explained. “We then learned how the Nuremberg Laws have striking parallels to the Edicts of the Popes from 400 years earlier. Then, they tear you down further by showing you examples of anti-Judaism in the New Testament. Now, you are really in pain.”

Kugler described the rest of the week, which included two trips to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, addresses by Holocaust survivors, a visit to a local synagogue, and a “mock” Shabbat dinner — on Monday.

“Finally, we learned about modern-day anti-Semitism, and the importance of Israel to Jewish people,” she said. “At this point, we feel we wanted and needed to do something. On the last day, we addressed anti-bias education.”

Barbara B. Balser, ADL National Chair, noted that Kugler and other participants in the March of the Living and the “Bearing Witness” program “will be emotionally moved when witnessing firsthand accounts of the Holocaust. [Their experience will] allow them to pass on the memories of this tragedy since the survivors are dying.”

Kugler said she and her classmates feel the “Bearing Witness” Program has been truly transformative. And after experiencing the March of the Living, Kugler said she is eager to return to her students at the St. Catherine of Siena school. “When I was at Birkenau and Majdanek, I felt so helpless and enraged. Where were all the people? I will continue showing my students where hatred can lead. We are all responsible for each other.”

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Original Article Published On The Jewish Ledger

WOODBRIDGE – The Dream Team came to the Jewish Community Center last week. But this team didn’t come to show off their athletic skills; they came for a graduation of sorts.

This Dream Team of teen leaders from 22 Southern Connecticut Conference high schools have spent the year participating in the Diversity Dream Teams: Differences That Make The Difference program. Participants in this program of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) “A World of Difference” Institute met regularly throughout the school year to increase awareness and understanding about diversity and to complete a “diversity action plan” for each member school.

“You have redrawn the color lines, you have stood up!” David W. Maloney, project administrator, ADL trainer, and assistant principal at Branford High School told the group.

Following an “Action Planning Exercise” lead by Debbie Colucci of the ADL’s A World of Difference Institute, the students assembled by school to reflect on the year and to share their action plans.

Students at Wilbur Cross High School listed on their chart such accomplishments as “stop using homophobic terms” and “courage to stick out for other people.”

The East Haven High students wrote on their poster under “What we have learned:” “Tolerance is a key factor in building healthy relationships” and “Working with other diverse groups helped us to overcome prejudices and discrimination.”

Students from Guilford High School engaged in an intense discussion on use of the terms “gay” and “fag” and about racial jokes.

“It’s not okay to say ‘that’s so gay,” one student chimed in. Another student recounted an incident when an African American student, during an argument with another student was told, “It is a privilege for you to even be here!”

In a nod to what they have learned over the past year, the Guilford students listed “Unity Dinner,” “Unity Week” and “Students Speak Up/Out” in their list of activities for the academic year.

“You take a diverse group and bring them together, and they reach a common platform of understanding—it’s amazing,” Maloney explained, watching the groups of students participate in the day’s activities.

Students attending the conference explained the appeal of the Dream Team program.

“It’s great to come together with kids from other schools and hear their different perspectives,” said Mike L’Altrella, a senior at Shelton High School, who notes, “Other than through sports, we don’t have many ways to come together with students from other schools.”

“It’s a great learning experience and a chance to meet people in our own school and out,” added Duy Pham, a junior at Branford High School.

“It was a crash course in diversity,” said Andre Gabriel, a sophomore at Shelton. “You get to meet people from different economic and racial groups. You don’t realize there are multiple ways to solve problems.”

SCC Commissioner Al Carbone praised the group for their participation and remarked, “The key is to bring what you’ve learned back to your schools.”


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Original Article Published on The Jewish Ledger

WARSAW — Why would 15 day school teachers and administrators come to school at 10pm on a Saturday night? Because the staff of the Lauder-Morasha School, under the leadership of principal Helise Lieberman is eager to talk about and to show off their 250-student day school.

Dr. Norman Ravski, co-chair of the New Haven delegation to the March of the Living in Poland, welcomes the late night visitors.

“We are proud to have a strong bond with the Warsaw and Lauder Morasha communities,” reports Ravski, who went on to recount how the special relationship between Warsaw’s Lauder-Morasha School and Woodbridge’s Ezra Academy has unfolded during the past four years. Dr. Henry Spencer, also a Woodbridge resident and Ezra parent, was intrigued when he came across an article about the Lauder-Morasha school in a New York Jewish newspaper several years ago. When Spencer traveled to Poland as part of a genealogical research project, he made a point of stopping at the school.

Upon returning to Connecticut, Spencer shared his experiences at the school with the students at Ezra. Three students, Evan Ravski, Mika Larrison, and Deborah Krieger, who would soon be traveling to Poland and Israel on the March of the Living, were similarly intrigued. When they had an opportunity to visit the Lauder-Morasha school, they wanted to see the school’s Torah which they couldn’t seem to find anywhere. “Why do you have to have such tight security? Is your Torah locked up?” Ravski wondered.

Lieberman answered, “We don’t have a Torah!”

Ravski, Larrison and Krieger were dumbfounded. With the help of Dr. Spencer, the students approached the Ezra staff, board and student body, and requested help in securing a Torah for the Warsaw school. At the time, Ezra owned a kosher Torah and a “pasul” (non-kosher) Torah.

Under the leadership of Shelley Krieger, the Ezra Academy embarked on an extraordinary school and community-wide learning and social actions adventure: the students learned how Torahs are made, what makes a Torah kosher, and they raised nearly $7,000 for the repair of the scroll. A sofer ultimately repaired the Torah, and the entire student body, under the direction of local artist, Jeanette Kuvin Oren, designed and decorated a Torah mantle.

Just after Shavuot, 31 adults from New Haven and several Ezra upperclassmen, traveled to Poland to present the Torah scroll.

“This was perhaps the greatest moment of my ten years at Ezra,” observes Krieger, who described the love and care shown toward the Torah throughout the trip to Poland. “Everyone took turns ‘guarding’ the Torah — on the bus, on the plane [the Torah had its own seat!], at Auschwitz [the Torah couldn’t enter since Auschwitz is considered to be a cemetery], and while touring Poland.

The Torah was presented to the school at the end of the trip, and the delegation was greeted by singing and dancing children who lined the stairways of the Lauder-Morasha school.

Lieberman introduced her staff, who joined the New Haven delegation for a moving Havdalah service and led tours of the impressive school building, a former old-age home whose purchase was financed by philanthropist, former-Ambassador Ronald Lauder. As the group enjoyed Polish pastries, Lieberman commented on the timing of the group’s visit.

“We lend the Torah to the Nozyk Synagogue when necessary (i.e. Sabbaths and holidays when two Torahs are needed). They have to insure that love and care will be shown to the scroll. Just today, the synagogue dedicated a new Torah scroll. Now, we can take our Torah back.”

Lieberman praised the New Haven delegation, many parents of current or former Ezra Academy students.

“The Torah symbolizes a real commitment, a relationship that will go on forever, into the next generation.”


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Original Article Published On The Jewish Ledger

New Haven Federation participates in March of the Living

At Auschwitz-Birkenau, Raisy Sessel of Orange, 12, traveling to Poland and Israel with her mother, Deborah, was struck by the hundreds of shoes confiscated by the Nazis, now in a display case in one of the barracks.

Other cases display human hair, suitcases, combs and brushes and eye glasses. Eric Smith, president of Interfaith Cooperative Ministries and pastor of the Adoni Spiritual Formation Center in New Haven, was struck by the enormous size of the two camps.

Since 1988, March of the Living International has been bringing Jewish high school students from every religious and educational background and every part of North America to both Poland and Israel, over Yom HaShoah and Yom Haatzmaut. This year, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps, adults and teenagers have come on the March of the Living, which retraces the “March of Death” which thousands took from Auschwitz to the gas chambers of Birkenau.

On the long drive to Auschwitz, Pierre-Joachin “Jo Jo” Mubiri of France and Damian Rosset, both students in Professor Praszalowicz’s Polish language and history course at the Jagiellon University in Krakow share thoughts and answer questions about their own knowledge of Jews and the Holocaust.

Polish tour guide, Agneshka Novack told the group that she has personally been to Auschwitz “between 200 and 400 times” with groups of all ages.

“Each time I go, it is as if I am there for the first time.”

In the parking lot of the March of the Living, Connecticut residents are struck by the number of buses – with signs in the window indicating they are from Kiev, Odessa, Boca Raton and Savannah.

Laury Alderman Walker, traveling with her mother, Lucille Alderman, and sisters Susan Buxbaum and New Haven Jewish Federation executive director Sydney Perry, spots a bus from Riga, and is touched by the fact that her family is from that same town.

The New Haven delegation, in bright blue hats and carrying a blue “Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven” banner, joined an estimated 22,000 marchers from nearly 60 countries, including Uruguay, South Africa, Germany, France, the Ukraine and Panama, on the three kilometer walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau. Many clapped as Elie Wiesel, the keynote speaker, and other dignitaries walked past, and marchers seemed touched to see nearly 200 Polish youth, carrying the flag of Poland, joining in the march. Participants, many clad in dark blue “March of the Living” raincoats, walked along the train tracks used 60 years earlier to transport so many to their deaths, pausing

briefly to reflect and to put in the ground mock miniature grave markers with names of relatives killed by the Nazis.

Thirty members of the German parliament, Israeli Knesset members and various dignitaries from around the world were in attendance.

As marchers awaited the start of the formal program, youth from around the globe conversed, played “Jewish geography” and “traded” hats, shirts and buttons/pins. One Israeli teenager was pleased to meet the New Haven delegation – she had just made a successful trade for a sought-after hat, and in the process learned that her next door neighbor in Afula, Ziv Abekassis, had been a young emissary last year to New Haven.

Footage of transports and of emaciated concentration camp victims, and the words “Never Again,” were projected on the large screens. A lucky few were close enough to the stage to see dignitaries up close. Most stood on the large field, muddy from intermittent rain and sunshine of the past few days, far away from the speakers.

Following the march, the delegation drove to the nearby Auschwitz Jewish Center for dinner, a presentation by board member and New Haven resident, David Goldman, and a panel discussion. Upon returning to the hotel, a particularly energetic few explored Krakow, a quaint town reportedly 700-1000 years old and home to 17 universities and 120,000 students.

Krakow to Majdanek

Friday morning began with a 5 a.m wake-up call. The early start allowed the group to experience the long, scenic ride through the Polish countryside, enroute from Krakow to the concentration camp of Majdanek, and on to Warsaw in time for Shabbat. As the group would learn, Polish roads are slow and often times in poor shape. Yellow and purple flowers and black birds were sure signs that spring has arrived in Poland. As the bus passed through Kielce, considered to be a medium sized Polish town, Israeli guide Hannah described a time when such towns had such a high percentage of Jews that the marketplace was closed on the Sabbath.

The bus arrived at last at Majdanek, the labor and concentration camp just outside of the town of Lublin. Before entering the “showers” and gas chambers, Hannah had Raisy read an account of Helena, a girl approximately her age, who survived the showers, but was confused when her mother never came out. As we walked on the wooden crates on the gas chamber floor, mission co-chair Dr. Norman Ravski tells the group of his father’s reaction several years ago visiting a similar gas chamber.

“This is the wood,” Ravski’s father told the group. He remembered the smell and feel of the wood from his days at a camp in Fluxenburg, Germany. The senior Ravski was lucky enough to survive the gas chamber due to what Dr. Ravski called “a fake out” by the Nazis – “they took him to a fake gas chamber to psyche him and the others out-and they survived.” According to Hannah, 360,000 were killed at Majdanek.

In one of the barracks, used to house memorabilia, confiscated items belonging to victims and lists, Lucille Alderman, traveling with three adult daughters comments, “The thing that amazes me is the records. Their precision is sick.” Following a difficult walk through the crematoria where many lit memorial candles, the group witnessed the trenches where 18,400 Jews were killed on November 3, 1943. The ashes of the victims are housed in a famous urn.

Shabbat arrived in Warsaw, ushering in a period of needed calm following three emotionally charged days. Rabbi Sheya Hecht of Southern Connecticut Hebrew Academy, who had earlier taught his fellow bus passengers the history of the Baal Shem Tov and the rise of Chasidism, organized a spirited Kabbalat Shabbat service at the Warsaw Radisson, led by Dr. Michael Kligfeld.

The entire delegation – including people from Savannah, GA, Myrtle Beach, SC, and Berkley, CA, mission chair Bob Naboicheck of West Hartford, and Federation directors from both Hartford (Cathy Schwartz) and New Haven (Sydney Perry) ate Shabbat dinner together, accompanied by such notable community guests as the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Michael Schudrich, Helise Lieberman, principal of the Lauder Morasha School, and Yale Reisner, Genealogical Director of the Jewish Historical Institute, and Israel’s Ambassador to Poland, David Peleg.

Ambassador Peleg shared examples of Israel’s growing diplomatic and economic relations with Poland. He noted that seven top Israeli officials have visited Poland in the past year, and he said, “Twenty-five thousand Israeli tourists visit Poland each year, including nearly every single army officer.” [I was struck by the presence of Elite Coffee packets in each hotel room at the Radisson, and by the Elite coffee dispensers at gas station snack bars throughout Poland.

Peleg informed the audience of a joint effort by the governments of Poland and Israel to monitor and correct references in the media to “the Polish death camps,” noting that they were actually “Nazi death camps on Polish soil.”

Reactions

Milton and Joan Wallack had expected their visit to Poland to be full of

only the horrors and depression of the concentration camps and death camps of Auschwitz, Birkenau and Majdanek.

Instead, both also witnessed renewal and hope.

On Shabbat afternoon, the Wallacks and many from Connecticut attended a panel discussion at the Nozyk Synagogue on Jewish renewal. Chief Rabbi Michael Shudrich, director of the Joint Distribution Committee in Poland, Yossi Erez, and a Polish-Jewish journalist spoke of the rediscovery of Jewish roots among many Poles.

The delegates were entertained by a musical performance by the Tslil Choir, who sang songs in Hebrew and Yiddish. Following a standing ovation, Dr. Wallack, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council in New Haven, spontaneously stood to address the choir.

“Thank you. You have shown us that light comes out of the darkness,” he said.

While many were surprised at how upbeat and positive they felt by certain aspects of their Poland trip, others were happy that their Poland trip was winding down.

Roslyn Lerner felt that coming to Poland was important but said, “I would never come back.”

Martha Weisbart of Orange, also feels she took her “obligatory trip” to Poland and does not plan to return in the future.

“I’m still bothered that they still talk about Jews and Poles as if Jews are separate from the Polish people,” Weisbart said. “In fact, Jews were always part of the Polish people.”

No matter their reaction to Poland, the New Haven participants were all happy to leave behind the concentration camps for Israel, where they experienced Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut.

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