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Art as Witness: The Work and Remarkable Survival Story of Esther Lurie

May 6, 2024 By Shay Pilnik | Public Event video | Video Lecture | Yom Hashoah

The survival story of celebrated artist Esther Lurie (1913-1998), the only Israeli artist to win the prestigious Dizengoff Prize for Drawing twice in her career, was beyond remarkable. After she made aliyah and established herself as a prominent artist in young Tel Aviv, Lurie was caught up in the claws of the Hitlerite monster while visiting her sister. From that point on, she was driven by two motivations—to survive the Kovna Ghetto and several labor camps, and to bear witness to Nazi crimes through a series of brilliant, clandestine sketches and illustrations.

Does the Holocaust Play an Outsized Role in Contemporary Jewish Identity?

May 2, 2019 By Edna Friedberg | Commentary | Yom Hashoah

I am a Jewish historian—and that is a deliberately ambiguous label. In one reading of that phrase, I am a historian of Jewish people and their experiences. But I am also proudly Jewish myself and as such not neutral about my subjects. Jewish history is personal for me, as is my daily work at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. When I began to work at the Holocaust Museum in 1999, I was wary that I would contribute to what some see as an unhealthy obsession with Jewish victimization.

Slivers of Memory (Yom Ha-sho’ah V’-ha-gevurah)

May 2, 2014 By Samuel Barth | Commentary | Yom Hashoah

Several decades ago, many ceremonies commemorating the Shoah attempted to tell the entirety of the story, with numbers that defied comprehension and broad-sweeping trends of history that submerged the experience of individuals in the story of a world run amok. In more recent years, I have observed that the experience and testimonies of individuals have become more prominent, perhaps serving as holographic slivers that represent the wider context. As survivors of the Holocaust are fewer in number each year, we turn to the writings, art, songs, and recordings born out of those years.

Yom Hasho’ah: Documents From the JTS Library and Songs by Johanna Spector

Apr 28, 2014 By Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event audio | Yom Hashoah

Dr. Johanna Spector (1915–2008), who taught Ethnomusicology at JTS, was a Holocaust survivor who documented Jewish music from around the world. This special Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration will highlight her life and work, as well as The JTS Library’s Johanna Spector Archives and Holocaust-related materials.

When Theology Fails

Mar 17, 2009 By Arnold M. Eisen | Commentary | Shemini | Yom Hashoah

There is a fearful symmetry to the three chapters that make up this week’s parashah; symmetry made all the more fearful because the harmonies of theme and structure in Sh’mini contrast so mightily with the awful events it describes.