Pesses holds her final Yom Hashoah Memorial
With her term of office as JCC Jewish enrichment director nearing its end, Debbie Pesses will be handling her final Yom Hashoah Community Memorial event this Sunday evening, April 7, beginning at 7:00 p.m. The powerful event will be opened by the procession of the few remaining survivors of the Holocaust that claimed 11 million victims, six million of them Jews and 1.5 million of them Jewish children.
The six-tiered Holocaust menorah with the central Mogen David designed by Isak Borenstein of blessed memory. (Photo by Alan Smason)
Featured speaker at this year’s event will be Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, the Chief Negotiator of the Holocaust Claims Conference (HCC), who was selected by the Yom Hashoah Community Memorial Committee to talk about his work receiving reparations from Germany. The HCC was organized to advocate for Holocaust victims’ rights and to secure reparations
The local Yom Hashoah Committee is composed of survivors and community leaders, like chairman Richard Cahn, who advise Pesses. It is her responsibility to organize the annual event, which focuses on the horrors of the Shoah and the tenacity of the Jewish victims who came to New Orleans to live their lives as members of the Jewish community here.
Beginning with the administration of President Jimmy Carter, Eizenstat has held senior positions in three Presidential administrations. He was Carter’s Domestic Policy Advisor and later served first as Deputy Treasury Secretary for President Bill Clinton and, later, as Clinton’s U.S. Ambassador to the European Union.
Eizenstat also serves as the chairman of the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI). He recently authored a new book, “The Future of the Jews,” which documents issues facing the global Jewish community and the Israeli people. Eizenstat will be signing copies of his book following the program.
Keynote speaker Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat (Photo courtesy Stuart Eizenstat)
Sixth grade language arts teacher Susan Ary, an instructor at Robert Mills Lusher Middle School has been selected as this year’s recipient of the 8th annual Educator of the Year Award. According to Pesses, “the award recognizes those individuals and schools that best personify a commitment to tolerance through the inclusion of Holocaust education in their curriculum.”
The regional Anti-Defamation League (ADL) will also recognize a number of outstanding teens who have been selected to be part of the Donald Mintz National Youth Leadership Mission sponsored by the ADL. The teens meet their peers in Washington as part of the National Youth Leadership Mission and utilize the resources of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s to foster understanding of the events of the Holocaust and to teach the important lessons of combating hate, bigotry and intolerance. This will also be regional ADL director Cathy Glaser’s last official duties with the program. She also announced her forthcoming resignation a few weeks ago.
The living local Holocaust survivors begin the program with a candle lighting ceremony commemorating the six million Jewish victims by lighting a special six-tiered wooden menorah hand crafted by survivor Isak Borenstein of blessed memory. Later, a moving Yizkor ceremony led by survivor Joseph Sher will close the night’s program as victims honor and remember their loved ones and deceased Holocaust survivors.
Guests will peruse an extensive set of photographs and the exhibits about the New Orleans survivors, which will be on display in the Mintz Auditorium and additionally in the JCC lobby. Many of these photos were taken, collected and mounted by local lawyer and photographer John Menszer.
The Yom Ha’Shoah Memorial event is free and open to the public. A dessert reception will follow the program
