Community-wide Yom HaShoah commemoration program

By Susan L Suarez, President and CEO, Holocaust Museum & Janet G. and Harvey D. Cohen Education Center

The community is invited to attend the virtual 2021 Yom HaShoah commemoration on Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 10 a.m. (EST). The Zoom program will be hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples. Reservations are required to receive the Zoom link. Please visit www.jewishnaples. org to register. The Zoom link will be sent out two hours prior to the start of the program.

While this is the second year the commemoration will be virtual due to COVID-19, the pandemic didn’t interfere with the creation of a special program involving local Southwest Florida Holocaust survivors, middle school students at Temple Shalom and museum educators at the Holocaust Museum & Janet G. and Harvey D. Cohen Education Center. They just used the technology with which we all, by now, have become very familiar — Zoom, Skype, FaceTime, etc.

Over the past few months, students and survivors met virtually to get to know each other. Many thanks to survivors Carla Benninga, Michael Eisenstadt, Rob Nossen and Judit Price for participating in this year’s program. Students also worked remotely with Sam Parish, Director of Operations/Education Specialist at the Holocaust Museum & Cohen Education Center.

The students pursued learning more about the Holocaust, while honoring and remembering those who died during it. They participated in a remote activity centered on a heroine named Irena Sendler and her selfless acts of resistance and rescue. Students heard from Dr. Stuart Mest, the son of two survivors, as he related both his parents’ stories and the impact they had on his upbringing. Then they ‘took’ a one-hour, virtual version of the Museum’s guided tour.

Armed with the knowledge gathered from their conversations with survivors, interactions with the Museum’s Education Department, Dr. Mest and Temple Shalom classes, the students created the “Survivor Interview” project, which will be presented at this year’s Yom HaShoah Remembrance.

Conducting the service will be Rabbis Adam Miller and Ariel Boxman and Cantor Donna Azu of Temple Shalom, Rabbi Ammos Chorny of Beth Tikvah, Rabbi Howard Herman of Naples Jewish Congregation and Rabbi Mark Gross of the Jewish Congregation of Marco Island. A candle lighting ceremony with survivors, children and grandchildren of survivors will also be included.

We hope you will join the community for this virtual observance to honor and remember victims and Survivors of the Holocaust. Again, reservations are required to receive the Zoom link. Please register at www. jewishnaples.org.

EVENT FACTS

Virtual 2021 Yom HaShoah commemoration Sunday, April 11, 2021 at 10 a.m. (EST)

The Zoom program will be hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Naples. Reservations are required to receive the Zoom link.

Please visit www.jewishnaples.org to register.