Grapevine, May 2, 2024: Holocaust Remembrance Day and Eurovision – Israel News

For years, Tova Teitelbaum, a Haifa-based teacher, tried unsuccessfully to convince Yad Vashem to recognize her late father, Bratislava-born Jonas Eckstein, as a hero who saved fellow Jews during the Holocaust. However, despite numerous survivors in Israel who could testify to the risks Eckstein took, Yad Vashem’s response was always the same. Recognition for heroic salvation was reserved for non-Jews, not Jews.

In 2009, Eckstein’s story was published in The Jerusalem Post. It was seen by Alan Schneider, the executive director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem. He decided to honor Eckstein’s memory in 2014, during the annual ceremony of the B’nai B’rith – Jewish National Fund honoring Jews who had saved Jews. The event was attended by the Ambassador of the Slovak Republic, who was very proud that Eckstein had been one of his compatriots.

Not long after, Yad Vashem changed its policy and began honoring Jewish rescuers as well. But the fact is that B’nai B’rith has been doing this for almost a quarter of a century, and as a follow-up to this, in 2019, it initiated The Jews Saving Jews Forum within the framework of the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute for Holocaust Research. There were and are many more such heroes than is generally believed. Throughout the centuries, and especially with regard to the Holocaust, history has depicted Jews as victims. That was indeed the case, but among the Jews of Europe and in the Allied armies there were exceptionally courageous and conscience-driven Jews whose heroic deeds deserve recognition.

This year’s ceremony will take place on Monday, May 6 at 10am at the Bnai B’rith Martyr’s Forest near Moshav Kesalon. At the top of the forest stands an impressive monument of the Scroll of Fire in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered or killed during the Holocaust. The sculptor is Nathan Rapoport, who created the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising monuments on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto and on the Yad Vashem Ghetto Square in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Speakers at the ceremony include Italian Ambassador Sergio Barbanti, Director of the Education and Community Department of KKL-JNF Sar-Shalom Jerbi, President of the B’nai B’rith World Center Dr. Chaim Katz, Brigadier General. Gihad Hasan of the Police Border Guards, and Holocaust survivor Sarah Jackson, who saved young people at the Supernova Festival on October 7.

During the ceremony, the Jewish Rescuers Citation will be presented to 13 Jewish rescuers who served in France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy and Poland.

Pedestrians walk past the flags for the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden, May 1, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/Tom Little)

Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Eurovision Song Contest

■ Coincidentally, Holocaust Remembrance Day and the opening of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden, are just one day apart. During World War II, Sweden remained neutral and was thus a refuge for Jews and others fleeing the horrors and devastation of war. Many Polish Jews remained in Sweden after the war, and in some cases their children and grandchildren are still there. Sweden’s Jewish community numbers about 20,000 people and is the largest in Scandinavia.

Since World War II, people from Arab countries have also found it better to live in Sweden, and today make up just over 5% of the total population, meaning there are significantly more Arabs than Jews in Sweden.

Malmö is known as an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hotbed, which is why in October 2021 it was the venue for a global conference entitled Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism.

The conference, co-organized by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the Council of Swedish Jewish Communities and the Jewish Community of Malmö, was attended by the heads of state and government and representatives of some fifty countries.

Attempts were made to implement the discussed plans and make promises, but even before October 7, 2023, the situation had become worse rather than better.

This coming week will see many discussions – especially in the Jewish world – about heroism and resilience during the Holocaust, and during and since October 7.

Another chapter in heroism will be played in Malmö by Eden Golan, Israel’s representative at the Eurovision Song Contest. Despite threats to her life, she has not backed down and will proudly carry the Israeli flag. Reports indicate that she did very well during rehearsals and nothing disturbed her concentration.

Despite the general ill will against Israel and the strong political flavor of the Eurovision Song Contest, despite denials by the European Broadcasting Union, it is possible that honest viewers will vote for the song and the singer and temporarily put aside any negative feelings they may harbor towards Israel will put. .

Aviv Geffen performs for soldiers

■ Singer and composer Aviv Geffen was from the bad boy of the Israeli entertainment community, refusing to serve in the IDF and trying to convince others of his generation to do the same. He has changed his attitude and developed into a responsible adult who made peace with Yitzhak Rabin when he was prime minister. Geffen was one of the performers at the peace meeting in Tel Aviv, immediately after which Rabin was assassinated.

Since then, Geffen has performed in Judea and the West Bank and more recently has made a number of pro-bono appearances for wounded soldiers, especially those hospitalized after October 7.

Next month, in recognition of his contribution to Israeli society, Geffen will receive an honorary doctorate from Bar Ilan University (BIU).

In the letter sent to him by BIU President Prof. Arie Zaban, Gefen was informed that the award “recognizes the honorable values ​​that have guided you on your creative and moral artistic and cultural path, and the work you do for the betterment of Israeli society. .”

Zaban added: “During this particularly complex year, Bar-Ilan University would like to recognize the extraordinary ability and courage to invite all of us and our country to rise up and love one another, and to lead and to exert influence through actions that affect our people and our country. our nation, both in the present and in the future.”

The awarding of the honorary doctorate will take place on June 3, in the context of the annual meetings of the BIU Supervisory Board.

Demonstrations on American campuses

■ AWARDS FOR Israelis and other outstanding achievers who happen to be Jewish are not as newsworthy as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel riots on college campuses across America and therefore receive less attention.

Unfortunately, the major Israeli media now pays more attention to Israeli students and faculty at American universities than to burning local issues such as the return of the hostages.

From an emotional perspective, this implies a gradual loss of interest, but in the absence of concrete developments it is difficult to keep the story going, while physical and verbal attacks on Israeli professors, teachers and students are considered newsworthy. This is especially true of well-known figures from American society, such as Tel Aviv-born award-winning computer scientist and philosopher Prof. Judea Pearl (who has held leadership positions at UCLA), who came to worldwide attention in January 2002 when his journalist son Daniel , who worked for The Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, on February 1.

This past week, in an interview with Yediot Aharonot, Judea Pearl attributed the pro-Palestinian demonstrations at UCLA to the many huge donations the university receives from Qatar. The university administration thought that if pro-Hamas students could express their anger, they would get it out of their system and then there would be peace. But last Sunday there was a counter-demonstration by pro-Israel students, and since then there has been an exchange of physical and verbal violence. According to public opinion, the university does not want to irritate Qatar, which, among other things, finances university projects and provides numerous scholarships.

If this is indeed the reason, it could appear that Arab philanthropy to American higher education institutions far exceeds the billions of dollars collectively donated by Jewish billionaires.

Jewish day school reunion postponed

■ ALUMNI OF Mount Scopus College, Australia’s oldest communal Jewish day school, who were looking forward to a reunion in Tel Aviv on May 20, will have to wait another six months. The event has been moved to November 11, which coincides with the date of the armistice at the end of the First World War, declared on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. Australia’s Mount Scopus College is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. It started as a nursery school and a few primary school classes and has grown into a huge educational facility with three campuses. Thousands of Jewish children have honed their Jewish identity thanks to Mount Scopus, and hundreds of them live in Israel, including graduates of the first two or three matriculating classes. Some of these include Louise Israeli (nee Goulburn), Daniel Lew, Susan Yellin (nee Friedman), Pinchas (Peter) Medding and many other alumni, some of whom graduated only two or three years ago and went to college in Israel.

In some cases, ten or more alumni from the same Mount Scopus class living in Israel meet several times a year, but all-inclusive reunions are rare. The most recent was in January 2023, when 400 alumni living in Israel gathered with hundreds of current students and alumni living in Australia. The gathering, supplemented by a sumptuous dinner, was the largest gathering of Australians ever in Israel, including the large number of Jewish and non-Jewish Australians who came in 2017 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Beersheba. by Australian and New Zealand forces, leading to the Balfour Declaration a few days later.

Mount Scopus pioneered more than a dozen other Jewish day schools in five of Australia’s six states.