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Strengthening Jewish Identity
New Multi-year Program for
Russian Speakers
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When it became clear that only one-
quarter to one-third of all the Jews
murdered during the
Shoah in the FSU
were commemorated in Yad Vashem’s
Central Database of
Shoah Victims Names,
Boris Maftsir understood the enormity of
his challenge. Maftsir, who in 2006 joined
Yad Vashem's project to document the names
of Jews killed in the Nazi-occupied areas of
the former USSR, developed a program to
collect names of victims from regions where
for decades, commemoration, research and
documentation had been forbidden.
“It was only with the disintegration of
the USSR in 1990 that the first opportunities
for reviving the memory of the Shoah arose,”
explains Maftsir. For someone whose career
has included the production of close to 40
movies about the Holocaust, it was clear that
the cinematic medium was an ideal way of
transmitting the importance of Holocaust
remembrance. “I drew upon my experience as
a filmmaker to create a documentary trilogy
about memory," explains Maftsir. “They
reflect the tremendous efforts we are making
to document the names of the victims, and
the importance of remembrance to us as a
nation as well as to the countries in which
the Holocaust took place.”
The three documentaries allow a glimpse
into the painful recesses of memory: Names
and Remembrance (20 min.) accompanies
a group of ghetto and concentration camp
survivors living in Israel during a visit to
Yad Vashem in December 2007; Zhitomir – A
Jewish Story (20 min.) tells the story of Genya
Sokolovskaya who, at the age of 10, escaped
the liquidation of the ghetto in Zhitomir, west
of Kiev; and The Palevich Brothers’ Memorial
Day (33 min.), features Friedrich and Boris
Palevich talking about their childhood in the
Slutsk ghetto in Belarus, its liquidation, and the
murder of their family members. The movies
are in Russian with subtitles in Hebrew and
English.
“The trilogy is available for viewing on
the Internet,” says Maftsir. “The films provide
information about the project, which we hope
will further its reach across Russian-speaking
communities worldwide.”
The author is Manager of the Shoah Victims’
Names Recovery Project.
educators and students, activities in community
centers and working with Holocaust survivors
and WWII veterans, Holocaust education will
be intensified throughout the community.
Another key aspect of the new program is
the establishment of a special chair at Yad
Vashem's International Institute for Holocaust
Research, dedicated to advancing research of
the Holocaust in the Former Soviet Union. In
the near future, Yad Vashem plans to launch the
production and presentation of two Russian-
language traveling exhibitions related to the
Holocaust; a large-scale archival acquisition
project within the FSU pertaining to the
Holocaust in the area; and a new database and
online presentation of 75 stories in Russian
regarding the Righteous Among the Nations
in the FSU.
On 12 June, the Advisory Board and
Professional staff of the Genesis Philanthropy
Group came to Yad Vashem for a board
meeting and the launch of the new program.
Participants attended a special ceremony in the
Hall of Remembrance in the presence of Israel’s
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign
Affairs Avigdor Liberman; Israel’s Minister of
Public Affairs and the Diaspora Yuli Edelstein;
Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner
Shalev; Holocaust survivors; and IDF soldiers.
After the ceremony, a plaque recognizing the
support of the GPG was unveiled.
Names Recovery: A Filmmaker’s Take
By Cynthia Wroclawski
■
Lithuanian educators at a Yad Vashem seminar, June 2009
11
12
by Yifat Bachrach-Ron
Kaddish
The Israel Philharmonic Performs Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3
with
Samuel Pisar
■
In the presence of President of Israel
Shimon Peres, Yad Vashem hosted a special
concert on 1 June given by the Israel
Philharmonic Orchestra: Leonard Bernstein’s
“Kaddish - Symphony No. 3” with the libretto
“A Dialogue with God,” written and narrated
by Holocaust survivor Dr. Samuel Pisar. The
concert was sponsored by Lily Safra, President of
the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation,
and supported by the Ministry of Education with
the assistance of the Marc Rich Foundation and
the Alexander Charitable Foundation in fond
memory of Zvi Alexander.
Maestro John Axelrod, soloist Danna Glaser
(soprano), narrator Samuel Pisar, the Tel Aviv
Chamber Choir and singers from the New Israeli
Vocal Ensemble and the Ankor Choir performed
Bernstein’s “Kaddish” with Pisar’s text for the
first time in Israel. This unique event, held in
partnership with the Center of Organizations
of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, was attended
by hundreds of Holocaust survivors and other
distinguished guests.
The monumental symphony “Kaddish”
was first heard in Tel Aviv in 1963. In 2001,
Holocaust survivor and world-renowned peace
advocate Samuel Pisar composed a new text
for the symphony, which he called “A Dialogue
with God.” The world premiere of Bernstein’s
“Kaddish” symphony, accompanied by Pisar’s
text, was performed by the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, conducted by Axelrod, at the 2003
Ravinia (Illinois) Festival of Arts, and has
since been performed around the world to
international acclaim.
“A Dialogue with God” is influenced by
Pisar’s own biography as a survivor of Auschwitz
(see p. 13). “For me, the performance reaches
its climax when I recount a heart-wrenching
lullaby about how loving, caring and merciful
is our God – the lullaby that my beloved
grandmother used to sing to me before her
voice was silenced in the ovens of Treblinka,”
says Pisar. “At that moment, I feel as if I am
saying kaddish for her, for my family, for my
people… For the symphony’s luminous finale,
all the other voices and instruments on the stage
join me in a mounting crescendo for universal
tolerance, reconciliation and peace between the
hereditary enemies of history.”
“There is nowhere more fitting for this
important event than here in Jerusalem,” said
President Shimon Peres to the audience. “To
remember with pain and to hope with belief –
this was and will remain our destiny.”
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev also
addressed the crowd: “The performance of
‘Kaddish’ with Pisar’s accompanying text is
an expression of the human need to artistically
convey a cry from the heart,” he noted. “In the
aftermath of the Shoah, such cries have been
channeled through a wide range of art forms,
including prose, theatre, cinema, dance, drawing
and sculpture, as well as music and poetry, two
forms of aesthetic expression so effectively
integrated in ‘Kaddish’… the hills of Jerusalem
resonate with the sound of a stirring, profound
kaddish — a kaddish which is simultaneously
personal, national and universal.”