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March of the Living alumni feature prominently in new ad combatting antisemitism
New Ad Combatting Antisemitism Released by FCAS – Foundation to Combat Antisemitism:March of the Living Alumni Feature Prominently in Moving PiecePlease see link to “Neighbors”, a moving ad about antisemitism that recently screened at the Oscars on Sunday, March 10. The ad is drawn from a true account of an American synagogue that was evacuated after receiving a bomb threat during a Bat Mitzvah. The neighboring Evangelical Church then gave their space for the Jewish congregation to hold the celebration.The director of the 60 second ad is Jon Weiman whose grandfather, Holocaust survivor Ernie Weiss, took part in the 2008 March of the Living. (See excerpt below from Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Remembrance to New Generations about his experience on the March.) The ad also features Rabbi Michael Dolgin and Rabbi Cantor Aviva Rajsky, both of whom participated in past March of the Living programs.The ad was sponsored by the FCAS (Foundation to Combat Antisemitism), dedicated to combating antisemitism through positive messaging and partnerships, founded by philanthropist Robert Kraft. The ad is part of the FCAS “Stand Up to Jewish Hate” campaign.You can see more Stand Up to Jewish Hate’s powerful commercials here: https://www.standuptojewishhate.org/stand-up-videos/“International March of the Living is pleased to support the work of FCAS in its critically important campaign to combat antisemitism and all forms of intolerance”, said Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President, International March of the Living.In the past, as part of International March of the Living’s strategic partnership with the Stand Up to Jewish Hate campaign, every participant on the March was given a 🟦pin on the day of the March and encouraged to post and share 🟦 on social media.The Blue Square emoji is a symbol of solidarity against intolerance. The 🟦 takes up 2.4% of various screens and represents the fact that Jews make up 2.4% of the U.S. population, yet are the victims of 55% of religious-based hate crimes in the United States. The campaign is designed to draw attention to this disparity and empower all Americans to help fight growing antisemitism in the United States and around the world. Blue Square🟦 pins can be ordered here: https://www.fcas.org/pins/Also see:A synagogue bomb threat is dramatized in an Oscars ad by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat AntisemitismBehind the scenes of a new Oscars commercial against antisemitism—primarily filmed in Toronto’s Kensington Market
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Alumni Spotlight: Yehoshua and Jordyn Stauber (’15), Broward County, Florida, USA
Yehoshua and Jordyn Stauber (Broward ’15), Artist and Gallery OwnersThis month we are proud to feature March of the Living alumni Yehoshua and Jordyn Stauber, originally from Broward County, Florida. These two participants not only met each other on the March of the Living, later to marry and form a family, but their experience on the program also influenced their choice to move to Israel. They subsequently opened an art gallery showcasing their photography of the land of Israel. To learn more about the Staubers, scroll down to watch the recording of their private tour at the bottom of this post. The two of us both grew up in South Florida, but in completely separate worlds. Our worlds collided on March of the Living when we attended the program with the Broward County delegation in 2015, and our journey together through life began. Reflecting back on our experience with March of the Living, we have agreed that the most impactful part of the trip was traveling straight from Poland to Israel. Experiencing the horrors of the camps in Poland, together with thousands of others from around the world, brought about a dual feeling: on the one hand – tragic loss, and on the other – tremendous gratitude and pride. By traveling straight afterwards to the Land where this gratitude and Jewish pride shine, the takeaway was clear. To move forward from these horrific times and memories, we as the Jewish people must stand strong in our gratitude and pride for our heritage and our Land that provides us the protection that we so desperately need and deserve. More than anything, the March taught us that we must continue to spread our pride and share our light with the world. For us, “Never Forget” does not mean to dwell on the past, but rather to forge ahead to a brighter future. This life-changing trip propelled us forward to where we are now. Not only did we meet each other on the March of the Living, but it paved a foundation for our lives filled with Jewish pride and love for the Land of Israel.After the March, Yehoshua studied at a Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and Jordyn went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania. We got married in 2018 and shortly after manifested our dream to make Aliyah to Israel. We are now living in Jerusalem together with our two-year-old daughter, Eliana Ruth. Merging our love for Israel and Yehoshua’s passionate creativity, our business Y.A. Fine Art was born. We opened our first gallery in Jerusalem in 2019 showcasing Yehoshua’s breathtaking fine art photography of the Land of Israel. The comment we love the most is: “THIS is Israel?” The answer is always… “Yes!”From the desert in the south to the northern mountain tops, from the coast of the Mediterranean to the majesty of Jerusalem, we have the opportunity to travel the full breadth of the Land and share its wonder with the world through Yehoshua’s art. We recently released our first book, Land of Life, which contains Yehoshua’s growing body of photographs of Israel along with his inspiring written reflections on each piece. Looking back throughout our story together, it is abundantly clear that March of the Living has shaped us into the people that we are today. We are incredibly proud and grateful to continue to march on, proud of our Jewish identity and eager to share the beauty and love of Israel with the world.On August 25, 2021 the International March of the Living hosted a private tour of the Y.A. Fine Art Gallery in Jerusalem which you can view by clicking on the video player below.
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Alumni Spotlight: Haley Deming (’11), BBYO, USA
Haley Deming (BBYO USA ’11), Storyteller and Digital MarketerThis month we are proud to feature Haley Deming, a granddaughter of two Holocaust survivors, and an alumna of the BBYO. Inspired by her experience on the March of the Living, coupled with 2020 being a year like no other, Haley became determined to write and publish her grandmother’s story. In May 2011, when I was a senior in high school, I had the privilege and opportunity to participate in March of the Living through the Jewish youth group, BBYO. As both the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and an active member in my local Jewish community, I was exposed to the atrocities against Jews at an early age. As a teenager, taking a trip as emotionally and physically taxing as March of the Living wasn’t how I envisioned entering adulthood and while it was significant, I quickly moved past it. What I didn’t realize until recently was that this experience had become a defining moment: Padding through the remnants of one of the worst human rights crises concretely solidified my views and put me on an eye-opening path of advocacy for human rights, regardless of race, religion, and abilities.At 17, I walked around Birkenau, Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Treblinka, not by way of a video or audio clip, but with my own legs. And while the trauma of bearing witness to what happened there sometimes right in the heart of a bustling city, pales in comparison to what the victims of the Holocaust suffered, it was immensely painful and personal. Despite that experience, however, I don’t think the weight of my personal responsibility set in until my late twenties.My responsibility as a descendent of survivors, and as a Jew, is to make sure that the world never forgets what really happened. 6 million Jews wrongfully perished at the hands of evil. Society has already shown us that it’s too easy to forget and rewrite history, and much harder to keep the truth, and facts, alive.With the professional skills I’ve developed as a storyteller in digital marketing and communications, along with the gift of my 97-year-old survivor grandmother Rose Lindenberg’s memories, I am honored to share her story as a stepping stone toward my next phase of advocacy against antisemitism, for Holocaust remembrance, and countering hate.While my strongest personal connection is to the Holocaust and antisemitism, this is not just a Jewish story; this is a human story. Similar atrocities have continued to impact other targeted communities around the world, and while I am not so naive to think I have a solution, I do know that through educational storytelling, active listening, and speaking up, we can work toward change and ‘tikkun olam’ (repair the world).Read Haley’s blog »
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Alumni Spotlight: Erik Hirschhorn (’15), Mexico City, Mexico
Erik Hirschhorn (Mexico ’15), FilmmakerThis month we are proud to feature Erik Hirschhorn, an alumnus from Marcha de la Vida Mexico. Inspired by his experience on the March of the Living, Erik went on to direct and produce a short Holocaust film, entitled Standpoint, to serve as testimony and witness to future generations about what he experienced. Growing up Jewish in Mexico City, my roots and heritage were always very engrained in my family traditions; the history of my people were constantly reinforced at school and in synagogue. I lived a very normal life where everyone I knew and interacted with was also a part of my community. When I was 16 years old, I decided to leave my home and travel to the United States where I had the opportunity to attend an Arts boarding school for high school in order to learn filmmaking. In 2015, my junior year of high school, I knew what my old classmates back in Mexico were about to experience the March of the Living. I approached my old school in Mexico as well as some directors from March of the Living Mexico and made a request to travel together with my old classmates to the 25th March of the Living. My high school agreed to let me travel with the caveat that I make up all of the lost work, and also put together a presentation regarding my experience to my classmates upon my return. One of the most important things I got from the trip was perspective. Previously, I imagined Auschwitz as a place out of this world. But being inside the camp, looking around, in real-time, was an experience that still chills my body. It’s as real as the room where you are sitting right now. Time travels just as fast, and the laws of physics perform just like anywhere else. It’s a place built by humans. The actions and intentions that existed there can’t be measured in anything else but the feeling of loss. You can’t do anything but imagine the thousands and thousands of lives that walked through those doors into the camp and left, stripped away from everything, including, their life. I walked in one person and walked out another. It took me some time to understand and collect the pieces my soul had broken into and make them into something bigger and brighter. Today I recognize that the trip transformed me into someone more compassionate and understanding. I stopped seeing life as a given, and more like an opportunity. The first thing I knew after coming back from this trip was that I needed to use my art and medium to express my emotions. I knew that I needed to create something bigger than myself that could serve, eternally, as a piece of evidence and testimony. This work would not only serve as testimony of the atrocities that happened, but would also help make sure that, today, in the 21st Century, there will be people to carry on the message of remembrance and “Never Again.” Click on the video player to watch the trailer I wrote and directed a short-film called Standpoint. It is about of a Jewish ballerina trying to escape Nazi-occupied Poland to get to American Ballet auditions in Prague in order to save her family from the hands of war. Standpoint went on to complete a very successful festival run and got multiple awards in international film festivals. When I look back on the March of the Living, of course, I remember the atrocities I learned about, but what stays with me most is the feeling of community and love for all those people who were there to march and remember. Most importantly I take one thing with me: we must celebrate life.
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Alumni Spotlight: Jori Epstein (’12, Staff ’17), Dallas, Texas, USA
Jori Epstein (Dallas, Southern Region ’12, Staff ’17), BiographerThis week we are proud to feature Jori Epstein, an alumna from the Dallas community, who attended the March of the Living with the Southern region, along with Holocaust survivor Max Glauben. Inspired by her experience on the March, Jori went on to become Max’s official biographer. His memoir, The Upstander, will be released to the public next week. When I traveled on March of the Living at age 17, the enormity of the camps overwhelmed me. I couldn’t process such atrocities. Existential questions numbed me. I never considered that I would return on the March five years later, much less while researching a biography.God works in mysterious ways. I vividly remember our final day in Poland when my classmates and I gathered on the musty floors of a wooden barrack in Majdanek. Max Glauben, our Dallas delegation’s Holocaust survivor, shared his testimony. This was the concentration camp to which he was deported—the camp in which his mother and brother were killed. Max explained a key moment of labor ingenuity that helped save his life. “I’m not sure I’ve ever told anyone that before,” Max said April 22, 2012.My responsibility as a witness crystallized.In 2016, Max and I first broached the idea of writing his memoir. He had just received a fresh batch of wartime records from Europe. I pored over his collection then interviewed Max, his children, his grandchildren and students from his dozen Marches.The Upstander will be released March 30. Infused with raw emotion and vivid detail, historical records and Max’s poignant voice, his memoir relays the harrowing violence and dehumanization Max endured. We explore Max’s mischievous childhood and teen years as a go-to Warsaw Ghetto smuggler. He journeys from displaced person to American immigrant, revealing how he ached as he dared to court love and rear children. For decades, he bottled up his trauma. Then, thanks to opportunities like the International March of the Living, Max realized he could transform his pain into purpose. The Upstander guides readers through the experience of traveling with Max on March of the Living. March of the Living laid the foundation for the most meaningful collaboration of my life. “I’ve become fascinated by the knowledge we’re fortunate enough to have access to,” I journaled from Majdanek on April 22, 2012. “Today I felt like all I wanted to do and should do was not leave Max’s side because his stories and insights are incredible.” Nine years later, publishing The Upstander ensures Max will never leave my side. His messages will never need to leave yours, either.“I feel an obligation to be a witness,” my journal continues. “I don’t want to forget.” Join Jori and write a personal message to be placed on the tracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau: https://nevermeansnever.com
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Alumni Spotlight: Victoria Milstein (’18), Mid Atlantic, USA
Victoria Carlin (Mid Atlantic '18), SculptorThis week we are proud to feature Victoria Milstein, an alumna from the Mid Atlantic delegation of the March of the Living. Inspired by her experience on the March of the Living Victoria went on conceive and create North Carolina's first Women's Holocaust Monument. As artists we are the canaries in the coal mines – we are the truth sayers and the cave painters.I attended the March of the Living to Poland and Israel in 2018 with Rabbi Fred Guttman, senior Rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Greensboro, North Carolina. Rabbi Guttman had assembled several dozen adults and teens from Greensboro and other mid-Atlantic regions to attend the March together. One day on the journey we visited the infamous women’s camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. As we walked through the women’s section of the camp, and I heard and saw the horrors of the journey of the women and children, my life was changed forever. It was as if the victims were calling out to me to witness their suffering and reveal to the world that they were still there. In that moment I saw my sisters, Jewish women. I couldn’t “un-see” what I had seen – I felt their presence and knew that I would be, in some way, bound to their story. I again felt the same emotion when visiting the pits in Poland where thousands were slaughtered. Several months after returning home from the March, I came across a photo, taken by a Nazi soldier as “exhibition tourism,” of a group of women huddled together moments before their execution in Liepaja, Latvia. In the photo we see the strength and innocence of generations of Jewish women moments before they were murdered in 1941. They stand arm in arm looking straight at us with grace, humility and spiritual defiance. Their only crimes were that they were Jews. Inspired by this photo, I am now creating a Monument to the memory of those brave women and children. The Monument will be North Carolina’s first Women’s Holocaust Monument and is entitled “She Wouldn’t Take Off Her Boots” in honor of all women victims. My hope is that each time one views the Monument through the camera that will form part of the sculpture, one will see and become witness to exactly the opposite of what the Nazi photographer intended to document. We will see their humanity and the viewer will in that act bear witness. This Monument is the first undertaking of a new organization I co-founded with my twin sister Elizabeth Alberti, the Women of the Shoah/JewishPlacemaking. Our mission combines art and social practice to enable communities to reflect, honor and learn from the plight of the women and children who perished in the Shoah. It inspires and catalyzes public and private partners to build monuments and create special community spaces to educate and transform viewers’ perspectives on the Shoah and teach lessons wrought from anti-Semitism, racism and genocide. The initiative will use art as a vehicle for Holocaust education. It was important to me that as the United States takes down monuments that no longer demonstrate and celebrate its values that we put up monuments to reflect what is important to us. This is why the city of Greensboro unanimously voted to accept this monument and erect it in one of its premier public parks. I believe this will serve to garner support from cities across our nation to erect additional Women’s Holocaust Monuments.
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Alumni Spotlight: Danielle Yablonka (’19), Miami, USA
Danielle Yablonka (Miami’19), Artist/ActivistThis week we are proud to feature Danielle Yablonka, an alumna from the Miami Leo Martin March of the Living. Inspired by her experience on the March of the Living, Danielle, an artist, went on to create pieces inspired by her journey to Poland and Israel as well as create new initiatives on campus for Israel engagement. My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. I had the opportunity to stand and bear witness to the atrocities that my family and millions of Jews experienced when I attended the March of the Living in 2019 with the Miami-Dade region. When I went on this trip, it really hit close to home especially when we went to Lodz, where my family was from. I had the opportunity to hear the testimonies of numerous Holocaust survivors, which touched me greatly considering there are not so many left on this earth. This experience motivated me to ask many questions upon my return home. My great uncle was the last living survivor of my family who sadly passed away before the trip, but it left me yearning for more answers. Because of my Jewish network and the March of the Ling, I was inspired to share my thoughts and feelings through the form of art. Through my art, I seek to educate others from a visual medium. I started painting to educate through the eyes. I also began expanding my love for Judaism through activism and developed an interest in politics. This semester, with the support of FAU Hillel International, I will be founding an Israel Political Club called OwlPac. This club will serve as a safe space to openly learn and discuss topics related to Israel on a political spectrum through conversation, events, and workshops. Going on the March gave me first-hand experience that I could not have gotten in a physical classroom. It has given me the ability to formulate what happened and cultivate those feelings into art. My experiences today have been inspired in many ways by my passion for Israel and experience with Miami’s March of the Living. I am a light that will never burn out.
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Alumni Spotlight: Jan Burns (’12), BJE LA Adult Delegation, USA
Jan Burns (BJE LA Adults ’12), AuthorThis week we are proud to feature Jan Burns, an alumna from the BJE LA Adult Delegation in California. Inspired by her experience on the March of the Living, Jan went on to author a book compiling the stories of the survivors who accompanied her on her March of the Living experience. I traveled to Poland on the March of the Living with the BJE Los Angeles Adult delegation in 2012, inspired by my daughter who had made the trip two years earlier as a high school senior. I was excited and terrified to go. I felt a push and pull between wanting to hear, see and be a witness to the Holocaust but also a fear of doing so, not knowing what kind of emotional impact it would have on me. The most powerful impact of my journey was my encounter with the survivors I met on the March. They inspired me with their willingness to share their stories and the life lessons they gained from those experiences. After returning home I wanted to find a way to keep the experience of the March alive, both for myself and for the students from the LA delegation. I came up with the idea of interviewing the survivors from our trip for a book as a way of preserving and sharing their stories. The following year I published March of the Living ~ Our Stories, a collection of their stories created from my interviews. I hope the book, gifted to the LA BJE delegates, will provide a means for them to share their experiences on the March and the survivor stories they hear, with their children and grandchildren, enabling future generations to read these first-hand accounts. March of the Living ~ Our Stories was the first piece of writing I’d ever published and the experience opened the door to a new area of creative expression for me. I have since had several memoir stories published. Having written a book has also afforded me the opportunity to speak about the Holocaust and the March in schools and synagogues in California, Arizona, and London. In this way I have become a witness for the next generation.
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Alumni Spotlight: Orit Brener (’17), Argentina
Orit Brener (Yeshurun Torá, Argentina '17), Founder and Project Manager, Remember UsThis week we are proud to feature Orit Brener, an alumna from Yeshurun Tora and March of the Living Argentina. Inspired by her experience on the March of the Living, Orit went on to found the organization Remember Us, dedicated to preserving the memory of the victims of the Shoah. I never expected to travel to Poland at all but at the age of 16, I won a full scholarship to attend the March of the Living with my school, Yeshurun Tora, in Buenos Aires.On that trip, in 2017, the first place we visited was the Warsaw Jewish cemetery. This cemetery is different from others, not just because of the fact that it has been affected by many earthquakes but because each headstone carries a specific symbol that alludes to an attribute of the person the headstone belongs to. It was amazing that, in some way, we were able to get to know characteristics of people who died thousands of years ago, not just by their names or age.At some point, we stopped at an open field.I asked our guide: “Why is there so much empty space? They could have rebuilt the graves that were affected by nature disasters.” “These are mass graves,” he answered. “At the time of the Shoah they didn’t have enough time to give each person the grave they deserved.” I felt so unsettled. These people have no memory or legacy – no headstone or name nor date. I yearned to know who were resting there, at least their names, but I couldn’t because nobody knew. We continued the amazing journey that is the March of the Living in both Poland and in Israel and then returned to Argentina. The whole program was something incredible but I couldn’t stop thinking about those people in the cemetery, and their families who didn’t survive to remember their legacy. This is how Remember Us began, a project that intends to shine a light on the 6 million Jewish souls who perished in the Shoah by remembering each one of them. We implement this through our webpage, in which we provide a name and the story of a Shoah victim.During the year we organize different events and workshops, especially for the youth. One of our biggest annual events is “Marchando por sus Vidas” (Marching for their Lives), a march organized by Remember Us, together with March of the Living Argentina and the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum, at the same time that The March in Poland is held.In 2019, more than 650 participants arrived to our first March, among them, representatives from the Argentinian government, the Poland and Germany Embassy as well as Holocaust survivors. Each person received a name from our database and marched in the name of that victim, having, at least for one day, someone to remember him. Despite the era of Coronavirus, we continue, stronger than ever, inspiring and spreading the importance of remembrance and our role in it.The March of the Living is not just a trip; it’s a possibility to open one’s eyes for what’s important in life.
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