Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat lights one of the memorial candles at the Yom Hashoah Community event. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
More recently, though, he has worked tirelessly as a specialist in international law to bring reparations to Holocaust survivors from Germany\u00a0 and to point out instances where Jewish estates had been looted of art and valuables or denied insurance claims because no premiums were submitted during the months or years they were incarcerated in concentration camps. Eizenstat’s work as one of the first principals involved in the United States Holocaust Museum led to his selection this year as the keynote speaker at the Community-Wide Holocaust Memorial Program by the Holocaust Memorial Committee.<\/p>\n
In his introduction of Eizenstat, Rabbi Ed Paul Cohn of Temple Sinai and one of the rabbinical advisers to the Holocaust Memorial Committee called Eizenstat “a mensch, a scholar, a patriot and a great American Jewish person, whose life truly epitomizes what it means to be a public servant.” Eizenstat’s commentary that followed did not disappoint.<\/p>\n
His opening remarks were directed at giving a historical background to the anti-Semitism that began centuries ago,culminating in the mid-Twentieth Century series of events now known as the Holocaust. According to Eizenstat, the Shoah killed “fully one third of the total Jewish population of the world. In 1939 there were 17 million Jews in a world of two billion,” he cited. “Today there are only 12.1 million Jews in a world of seven billion.”<\/p>\n
Eizenstat made an impassioned plea to the many schoolchildren in the audience at the ceremonies to keep these facts in mind. “The Holocaust wouldn’t have been possible without Hitler,” he reminded them, but the lessons of history Hitler learned from the Avion Conference and the ill-fated S.S. St. Louis ship that was turned away from both Cuba and the United States sent undeniable signals to him, Eizenstat said. “What signal did Avion and the St. Louis send to Hitler?” he posited. “It was that Jews were dispensable; they were not a priority.”<\/p>\n
Some 60 years after the end of the war, the questions that remain for Americans is what can we do in the aftermath of the Holocaust?, Eizenstat questioned. “The first is we have to do as much as we can to provide justice to the survivors,” he said. “There are in the world about 500,000 survivors and of that 500,000 over 90 percent in Central and Eastern Europe live in poverty.”<\/p>\n
According to other figures he provided, Eizenstat also stated that 35 percent of Jewish survivors living in both the Jewish state of Israel and the United States also live in poverty. “In New York City where my wife and I have organized a (benefit) concert, a recent survey says that 50 percent of theme live in poverty or close to the poverty line,” he continued. “that should be unacceptable to us.”<\/p>\n
Eizenstat said that one of the biggest concerns to Holocaust survivors today is to ensure they have a decent livelihood. Another is health care. He claimed that annual negotiations have brought about $550 million slated for home care, pharmaceuticals and socialization. “But it is a drop in the bucket,” he complained.<\/p>\n
“The third way we can honor the memory of those who died is to combat anti-Semitism and those who are against the Jewish State,” he said. Eizenstat pointed to a number of campaigns being waged against prominent Israeli business interests in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.<\/p>\n
The fourth way we can respond to these challenges is to assure the continuity of the Jewish people and that, Eizenstat suggested, might be the most important. “We are facing a whole range of threats internally and externally,” he admitted.<\/p>\n
This means supporting Israel. “The United States is the ballast and defender of freedom and democracy and tolerance around the world and Israel is its only ally,” Eizenstat exclaimed. “I want to underscore that: its only ally.”<\/p>\n
While the ambassador credited a global reliance in the marketplace by many different countries that has made the world a safer place for Israel, the Arab revolution in Egypt and the resultant rise of the Muslim Brotherhood to power as well as the civil war in Syria are making Israel feel less secure.<\/p>\n
Also, Iran’s continuing its pursuit of nuclear weaponry is also of prime importance, he said. “2013 will be the decisive year,” Eizenstat professed. Scenarios he suggested were a negotiated settlement on one extreme or a war on the other. “I can assure you the Saudis are not going to stand still if Iran gets a bomb,” he averred.<\/p>\n
In closing, Eizenstat examined what he considers alarming trends for the Jewish community. These include declining birth rates in all but the Orthodox segment of Jewry and the rise of intermarriage within the Reform and Conservative movements. “We have to open our institutions fully and completely to intermarried couples, encourage them to raise their kids as Jewish and talk to them about the beauty of Judaism,” Eizenstat insisted.<\/p>\n
“We have an obligation that there is Jewish continuity in this world,” he concluded.<\/p>\n
The program began with the procession of the survivors followed by the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner” by Temple Sinai Cantor Joel Colman and the singing of “Hatikvah” by Louis Lederman, the son of survivors Abe and Toby Lederman of blessed memory.<\/p>\n
Cathy Glaser, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, and local president Betty Lazarus acknowledged members of the Donald Mintz Youth Leadership Mission, who represented several local high schools on their trip to Washington, D.C. These included Deborah Amann from Metairie Park Country Day School, Alan Lianas and Anastasia from International High School, Erin Howard and Alfred Joseph III from Robert Lusher Charter High School, David Miranda from Brother Martin High School, Mariette Pena from John Ehret igh School, Shannon Ray from Xavier Preparatory High School, Daniel Silbert from Isidore Newman High School and Emily Steele from McGehee High School.<\/p>\n
Yom Hoshoah Educator of the Year Suan Ary lights a candle on the menorah. (Photo by Alan Smason)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Susan Ary, a teacher at Lusher Charter Middle School accepted the Yom Hashoah Educator of the Year Award from Holocaust survivor Anne Levy and Henry Rosenblat and Ruth Loeffelholz, the children of Holocaust survivors Ralph and Gertrude Rosenblat of blessed memory.<\/p>\n
Accepting the award, Ary said to Levy “Anne I am in awe of you. I wanted to thank you for the courage and strength you showed when you shared your experiences,” she said. “You’ve had a profound effect on our students and me.”<\/p>\n
Ary thanked her principal for the opportunity to teach her students, but also had high praise for them. “The questions you asked,\u00a0 your willingness to learn and your drive to grappel with such a heavy subject as 11- and 12-year-olds is pretty amazing,” she gushed.<\/p>\n
The latter portion of the program involved several of the honorees, surviors and offspring of survivors lighting a special Holocaust menorah crafted by Isak Borenstein of blessed memory with six candle holders signifying the six million lost Jewish souls claimed by the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
A prayer service followed a moment of silence led by Rabbi Uri Topolosky and the singing of “Ani Ma’amin” (“I Believe”) by Touro Synagogue Cantor Jamie Marx.<\/p>\n
The service led by survivor Joseph Sher in which he read a special version of El Maleh Rachamim, a prayer for victims of the Holocaust,\u00a0 and the recitation of the names of all the New Orleans area survivors by Roslyn and Neal Morris preceded the closing prayer by Rabi Yonah Schiller of Tulane Hillel.<\/p>\n
Richard Cahn, the chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Committee, opened and closed the program.<\/p>\n
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