B’nai B’rith International has proudly been the official North American sponsor of the Yom Hashoah program “Unto Every Person There is a Name” for 26 years. In 2015, we once again carried that mantle, along with a combination of other programming to make for an inspiring Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Communities across the continent came together on or before Yom Hashoah, the 27th day of the month of Nissan on the Jewish calendar. Programs started on April 12 and will run through April 28, reading the names of the victims of the Shoah and where and when they were born and died. These observances honor more victims each year, as the Shoah Victim’s Names Recovery Project seeks and uncovers additional information.

The program is a worldwide memorial project that began in 1989 and is coordinated by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, in consultation with the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoys the official auspices of the President of the State of Israel, the Hon. Reuven Rivlin. This year’s theme was “Seventy Years Since the End of WWII: The Anguish of Liberation and the Return to Life.” The program, including thematic materials is developed by an international committee and B’nai B’rith International is represented by the B’nai B’rith World Center Director Alan Schneider, giving B’nai B’rith not only the honor of implementing the program, but having a hand in the planning stages as well.

The program has become an integral part of community observances across the country. These observances are generally held in public spaces such as shopping malls or downtown office plazas during the lunch hour, to be especially visible for the entire community. Often, people will stop to see what is happening and ask if they can read names too. Teachers bring students as part of their learning experience about the Holocaust. 

“B’nai B’rith International is proud to have such strong Yom Hashoah programming. It’s important work to ensure we always remember, and for 26 years now, we’ve done an excellent job with ‘Unto Every Person There is a Name,’” B’nai B’rith International President Allan J. Jacobs said. 

In addition to community observances, for the seventh consecutive year, B’nai B’rith partnered with the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) fraternity for its “We Walk to Remember” campaign held on more than 130 campuses throughout the United States, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom. AEPi members walk silently across campus wearing a “Never Forget” sticker and also participate in “Unto Every Person There is a Name” programming. At many campuses, the ceremonies extended beyond B’nai B’rith and AEPi with numerous Jewish student groups participating. 

A particularly poignant iteration of “We Walk to Remember” was held on Vanderbilt University’s campus in Nashville, Tenn., where AEPi’s fraternity house was vandalized with swastikas spray-painted in the basement and elevator in March. Hundreds gathered not only to remember those lost in the Holocaust, but also to directly respond to the face of bigotry on campus.

“We came here together to prevent anything similar to this from happening again. And to educate everyone in Vanderbilt, the Nashville neighboring community, and the people that this reaches across the country and internationally that us as AEPi members, [we] as Vanderbilt students and Jews will not stand for things like this,” AEPi Chapter President Joshua Hyman said before the program commenced. 

The combination of the two powerful programs has created a lasting impact on campuses across the globe. It demonstrates that young people on campus understand the importance of remembering and have taken on the responsibility to tell the story of the victims of the Holocaust. 

Another example of the two programs coming together to create an atmosphere of solidarity and remembrance occurred on Georgetown University’s campus in Washington, D.C. Participants walked silently around campus, ending at the statue of Jan Karski. Karski was a Georgetown history professor and member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was among the first people to alert the Western world of Nazi atrocities against Jews.

“It was a really powerful moment with the walk ending in front of the Karski statue,” B’nai B’rith Assistant Director of the International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy Sienna Girgenti said. “To have everyone joining in reciting names, poems and prayers—it was a true embodiment of what ‘Unto Every Person There is a Name’ and ‘We Walk to Remember’ strive to create on campuses and communities around the country.”

B’nai B’rith provides programming materials and support with the generous sponsorship of Kurt and Tessye Simon, of blessed memory. 

“It’s a big responsibility sponsoring such a meaningful program as ‘Unto Every Person There is a Name’ for an entire continent,” B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin said. “It’s serious responsibility to remember those who were lost in the Holocaust. Between ‘Unto Every Person There is a Name’ and our yearly efforts honoring Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the Shoah, B’nai B’rith diligently works to ensure those lost are not forgotten.”

On the morning of April 16, the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL-JNF) held a unique joint Holocaust commemoration ceremony dedicated to the heroism of Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the Holocaust. Taking place at the Martyrs' Forest “Scroll of Fire” Plaza with about one thousand people in attendance, the program memorialized Rabbi Moshe Shimon Pessach (1869-1955), an outstanding rabbinic and communal figure who served for 63 years as rabbi, including later in life as chief rabbi of Greece. Pessach initiated and orchestrated the rescue of his community during the German occupation, efforts that led to the survival of 74 percent of the Volos Jews—an extraordinary achievement in a country where 85 percent of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust—and led a partisan unit against the Germans. The program saw its highest attendance in its 13-year history and was reported on in dozens of print, broadcast and digital media outlets in Hebrew, English, Greek and Spanish.

The B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL-JNF) will hold for the 13th consecutive year a unique, joint Holocaust commemoration ceremony on Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah) on April 16—the only event dedicated annually to commemorating the heroism of Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the years of torment in Europe. Some 200 border patrol cadets—who will provide an honor guard—and some 200 high school students will participate in the ceremony together with Jewish rescuers and survivors. The ceremony will take place at the Martyrs' Forest “Scroll of Fire” Plaza at 10:00 a.m. local time.

This year’s event will memorialize Rabbi Moshe Shimon Pessach (1869-1955), an outstanding rabbinic and communal figure who served for 63 years as rabbi, including later in life as chief rabbi of Greece. Pessach, the scion of a long line of towering Sephardic rabbinic figures in Greece, shepherded the Volos Jewish community of approximately 1,000 people through tumultuous times. Fiercely loyal to his country and to his community, Pessach initiated and orchestrated the rescue of his community during the German occupation, efforts that led to the survival of 74 percent of the Volos Jews—an extraordinary achievement in a country where 85 percent of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust—and led a partisan unit against the Germans.  

On Sept. 30, 1943—Rosh Hashanah—Pessach was summoned to the headquarters of the German military governor who demanded that he submit within 24 hours a list of all the Jews in the city and their assets, purportedly for determining the amount of food rations needed to sustain them. The astute rabbi had no intention of playing into the hands of the Germans and instead embarked on a series of actions to rescue his community, at great risk to himself and his family. Pessach was able to extract a three-day extension for submitting the list and immediately found his friend Archbishop Joachim Alexopoulos, the metropolitan of Demetrias and the bishop of Volos, to ask for his help in discovering the Germans’ intentions. Alexopoulos contacted a man with whom he was friendly at the German consul in Volos and was told in no uncertain terms that the Jews must leave Volos before the stated deadline.

Alexopoulos informed Pessach of the warning and handed him a letter of introduction addressed to the clergymen in villages surrounding Volos, urging them to protect the Jews in every way possible. Through the rabbi’s intervention, and with the help of the mayor, municipal officials and the chief of police, the Greek underground spirited all but 130 Jews (who were later arrested, deported and murdered)  into hiding in the surrounding remote mountain villages over a three day period.

Alexopoulos died in 1959 and was recognized in 1977 by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Gentiles at the initiative of the Volos Jewish community.

The rabbi's escape gave the signal for the rest of the community to go into hiding and they were all accommodated in the villages. The Germans put a bounty on Pessach’s head, and two of his sons who taught Jewish studies in nearby towns were captured by the Germans and murdered. His wife died while they were in hiding. Pessach eventually established a unit of partisans that rescued allied soldiers and fought the Germans. For these actions, he was decorated both by King Paul of Greece and by the commander of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean.

After the war, Pessach returned with 700 members of the community to Volos and engaged in efforts to rebuild the devastated city. In 1946 he was elected chief rabbinic count judge and chief rabbi of Greece, titles he held until his death.

In April 1955, Volos was hit by a devastating earthquake. The aged rabbi was forced to live in a tent, later forfeiting his house in order to build a new synagogue in the same spot, and he died on Nov. 13. In recognition of his contribution to Greek Jewry, Pessach and his wife Sara were reinterred in 1957 in Jerusalem beside Chief Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, and his extensive library was brought to Israel and is archived at the Ben-Zvi Institute.

Pessach will be represented at the ceremony by his grandson Moris Eskenazi and great-grandson Dr. Ilias Pessach. Guests of honor will be Greece Ambassador to Israel Spyridon Lampridis, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and President of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece Moses Constantinis. Also speaking: KKL-JNF Chairman Effi Stenzler and B’nai B’rith World Center Chairman Dr. Haim V. Katz.

During the ceremony a “Jewish Rescuers Citation” will be posthumously conferred by the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ) and the B’nai B’rith World Center on Rafi and Tamar Benshalom, Yitzhak and Judith Herbst, Moshe Weisz, Moshe Weiszkopf, Shmuel Arie Schwartz, all of whom were members of the underground Zionist youth movement in Hungary during World War II, and Yaacov (Jacko) Razon, a Greek-Jewish boxer who helped other Jews survive at the Auschwitz, Buna and Buchenwald concentration camps.

Since the establishment of the Jewish Rescuers Citation in 2011, some 100 awards have been presented to rescuers who operated in France, Germany, Holland, Hungary and Slovakia.

The event will be held at the Martyrs' Forest—a joint KKL-JNF and B’nai B’rith project which memorializes the victims of the Holocaust in six million trees planted in the picturesque Jerusalem Mountains near Moshav Kesalon. At the pinnacle of the forest stands the “Scroll of Fire” by the renowned sculptor Nathan Rappaport, which invokes the destruction of the Jewish people in the Holocaust and their redemption in the State of Israel in a moving base relief. The event will commence with personal testimonies by Holocaust survivors to classes of soldiers.

The phenomena of Jewish rescue and the instructive stories of thousands of Jews who labored to save their endangered brethren throughout Europe are yet to receive appropriate public recognition and resonance. Many who could have fled chose to stay and rescue others; some paid for it with their lives. With great heroism Jews in every country in occupied Europe employed subterfuge, forgery, smuggling, concealment and other methods to ensure that some Jews survived the Holocaust in Europe or assisted them in escaping to a safe heaven and by doing resisted the Nazis’ death camps. The few rescuers who are still alive are sometimes reluctant to recount their stories, satisfied in the knowledge that they were able to overcome the German tormentors and their collaborators.

Considering that many of the rescuers were young at the time of their activity, the organizers of the ceremony view it as especially important to expose Jewish youth to the stories of the f Jewish rescuers during the Holocaust as a model for Jewish solidarity and courage.

The program schedule is as follows. All times are Israel Standard Time:

09:00-09:30     Personal testimonies by Holocaust survivors to soldiers in the Martyrs' Forest
09:45              Coalesce in “Scroll of Fire” Plaza
10:00              Siren peal and ceremony commencement 
11:00              Ceremony conclusion
11:00-11:30     Personal testimonies by Holocaust survivors to students in the Martyrs' Forest


The press is invited. For further information please contact Alan Schneider, director, B'nai B'rith World Center +972525536441; bbrith@012.net.il.

Join a leading Israeli tour guide as he escorts you to Mount Zion and its famous sites without leaving your home. 

During the previous two weeks B’nai B’rith International and its World Center in Jerusalem have enabled members, supporters and B’nai B’rith senior housing communities to experience the wonders of Israel live thanks to a new virtual touring program. B’nai B’rith invites you to join us for the third and final installment of this program.

The virtual tour will take place Wednesday, March 25, at 10 a.m. ET and will put you on the ground as you explore all the historic landmark Mount Zion has to offer, including King David's tomb, the grave of Oskar Schindler, a panoramic view of Hinnom Valley, the Chamber of the Holocaust and the Zion Gate.

The B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem has been broadcasting tours for two weeks from Israel’s capital using breakthrough live streaming technology, allowing viewers thousands of miles away to experience the epic story and inspiring sites of Jerusalem. 

In the first tour residents at B’nai B’rith senior housing facilities, along with B’nai B’rith members and supporters around the world enjoyed an up-close and personal glimpse of the Old City of Jerusalem. History could be found at every turn, whether it was the Western Wall, the various markets around the city or even quiet alleyways.

Last week’s installment took viewers to Mount Herzl to visit its memorials, cemeteries, the National Garden and museums, as well as a trip to the Bible Lands Museum to explore the ancient cultures of the region.

The program will give viewers an unedited, live view of sites that people from all over the world flock to see. This provides a unique opportunity for those who have not yet visited Israel.

The streaming technology will also allow viewers to text questions to the hosts while the show is in progress for more in-depth explanations and a better understanding of the country.

This is a unique experience that is open to anyone who would like to participate.

To join the tour, click here. 

Check out part one of the first tour through the Old City of Jerusalem below and click here to view parts two and three.

The second installment will be available for on demand viewing soon.

B’nai B’rith LiveTourism is a project of the B’nai B’rith World Center and is produced by LiveGiving—a company that specializes in live streaming over the internet and provides an interactive platform allowing viewers to text questions during the tour.

B’nai B’rith International is the largest national Jewish sponsor of federally subsidized housing for the elderly in the United States with 42 buildings in 27 communities. B'nai B'rith has made rental apartments available for senior citizens with limited incomes since 1971.  

Image via Flickr

Residents at B’nai B’rith senior housing facilities, along with B’nai B’rith members and supporters around the world will experience the wonders of Israel live without leaving their homes thanks to a new virtual touring program launching March 11.

The B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem will broadcast tours from Israel’s capital using breakthrough live streaming technology, allowing viewers thousands of miles away to experience the epic story and inspiring sites of Jerusalem.

The program launches March 11 at 10 a.m. ET with a three hour tour, hosted by a leading Israeli tour guide who will take viewers on an excursion to some of Jerusalem’s most historically and religiously significant sites.

The program will give viewers an unedited, live view of life in Israel's capital and the sense that they are right there with the guide. This provides a unique opportunity for those who have not yet visited Israel.

The streaming technology will also allow viewers to text questions to the hosts while the show is in progress for more in-depth explanations and a better understanding of the country.

This is a unique experience, offered only to members and affiliate-institutions of B'nai B'rith.

This broadcast will serve as a pilot for future broadcasts featuring other parts of Israel.  

To join the tour, visit: http://bnaibrith.livetourism.tv/live_events.php

B’nai B’rith International is the largest national Jewish sponsor of federally subsidized housing for the elderly in the United States with 42 buildings in 27 communities. B'nai B'rith has made rental apartments available for senior citizens with limited incomes since 1971.  

Trip Marking 50 Years of Israeli-German Relations Initiated by World Center

One of the world's leading women's soccer teams, FFC Turbine Potsdam, will visit Israel on January 18-23 to mark 50 years since the establishment of German-Israeli diplomatic relations. B’nai B’rith World Center Trustee and B’nai B’rith Frankfurt Lodge President Ralph Hofmann initiated the visit.

The team’s trip will be a milestone for women's soccer in Israel. It will provide an opportunity to improve the sporting level, while also increasing interest in women's soccer and improving sporting ties between the two countries. The Israel Ministry of Culture and Sport, the German and Israeli Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Embassy of Germany in Israel, the Netanya municipality, the Israeli Embassy in Germany and the Israel Football Association have partnered with B'nai B'rith to realize this ambitious project.

Turbine Potsdam is a top team in the women’s Bundesliga, the professional soccer league in Germany, and is one of the leading teams in Europe. Founded in 1971 in what was then East Germany (GDR), Turbine Potsdam won the GDR league six times in the 1980s. Since reunification, the Turbine Potsdam has claimed the league title in 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2012. They won the German Football Federation (DFB) Cup in 2004, 2005 and 2006, and won the UEFA Women's Cup in 2005 and UEFA Women's Champions League in 2010. Turbine Potsdam also took home the DFB Hall Cup in 2004, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2013 and 2014. A number of team players served on Germany's under-20 national team that won the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup this year in Canada. Several are also members of the German national team. At home the team enjoys a large devoted fan base. Bernd Schroder, who serves as a volunteer, has coached the team for the entirety of its 43 years of existence.

The team's visit will include an official friendly match with the Israeli national under-19 team, training clinics and visits to significant national and historical sites including Jerusalem's Old City, Masada and Yad Vashem. The visit was coordinated by the B'nai B'rith World Center in Jerusalem—the official presence of B'nai B'rith International in Jerusalem and its public affairs arm in Israel.

Nearly thirty players and professional staff will participate in the visit, in addition to two representatives of the German television station RBB.

The press is invited to cover the training clinic on January 19 at 15:30 at the Israel Football Association's National Team Training Center in Shefayim and the friendly game on January 20 at 18:00 at the Herzliya Municipal Stadium in Herzliya, in the presence of Israel's Minister of Culture and Sport Limor Livnat, German ambassador to Israel  Andreas Michaelis and other dignitaries.

For further details please contact Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem, at 02-6251743, 052-5536441 or by email at bbrith@012.net.il.

B’nai B’rith International, the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jews who Rescued Fellow Jews During the Holocaust (JRJ) was honored to confer the joint Jewish Rescuers Citation on Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn, a rescuer who operated in German-occupied Hungary.

The citation was presented to Rubinsztejn on Nov. 6 at the Riverdale YM-YWHA in the Bronx, N.Y., with her family, friends and community present. But there was a special guest in attendance as well: Meir Brand, traveling from Jerusalem to attend, was rescued by Rubinsztejn when he was 7 years old, scrounging for food on the streets of Budapest in the spring of 1944.

“This is a great moment for me as this citation is awarded to Berta who of all people most deserves it,” Brand told the audience before Rubinsztejn was presented with the citation. “I am standing here only because of what Berta has done for me which allowed me to raise a wonderful and prosperous family.”

The citation ceremony opened with Riverdale YM-YWHA President Bradd Gold and CEO Deann Forman addressing attendees, followed by Rabbi Avi Weiss from the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and Rabbi Steven Exler, who led the  memorial prayer in memory of the victims of the Shoah.

A representative of New York State Assemblyman Jeffery Dinowitz and New York State Sen. Jeffrey Klein issued a proclamation from New York State, and delivered thoughtful words and congratulations to Rubinsztejn. Documentary filmmaker Gaylen Ross spoke too. Ross was responsible for bringing Rubinsztejn’s story to life in her documentary “Killing Kasztner” and ultimately nominated her for the citation.

The citation was presented to Rubinsztejn by B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin, who recounted her harrowing story and the work of other Jewish rescuers who have received the citation.

“We know that Berta is here today to represent an important part of the Shoah—those who are here to tell the story and be the eye witness to this horrible event in Jewish history—to make sure we never forget those who were lost and those who have lived to keep this memory alive,” Mariaschin said. “I am honored to be here to be part of this tribute to Berta and make this presentation in person on behalf of B’nai B’rith International.”

Rubinsztejn, 92, was born in Poland and fled with her family into still unoccupied Hungary where Jews were not yet being rounded up. She made her way to Budapest where she joined the Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror. Rubinsztejn assumed a Gentile identity and would covertly plan and carry out various operations, including weapons smuggling. As Rudolf Kastner—a leader of the Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee—negotiated with the Nazis in the summer of 1944 the departure of a trainload of Jews from German-occupied Hungary to neutral Switzerland. The goal of Habonim Dror was to put as many orphaned children onto the train as possible. One of these children was Brand.

Brand was smuggled with two young cousins into Hungary in August 1943 after his parents sensed that the liquidation of the ghetto they had lived in for two years was near. After a three-week hike to the Slovakian border, Brand arrived in Budapest and was abandoned. Posing as a Gentile, he lived on the streets for nine months, scrounging for food and sleeping in bombed-out buildings. When Rubinsztejn found him in his battered state in April 1944, she instinctively knew he was Jewish and took him home, nursing him back to health. In June 1944 Rubinsztejn put herself and about 20 Jewish children—including Brand—on the Kastner train.

Rubinsztejn dedicated herself to Brand’s recovery throughout the trip—including a terrifying and life-threatening incarceration in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp—until they arrived in Switzerland. The two made Aliyah in 1946.

Rubinsztejn emigrated from Israel to the United States in 1960, where she currently resides with her family. She was very involved with many organizations including the Bronx Democratic Party, and counts former New York City mayors Abraham Beame, Ed Koch and David Dinkins along with  former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo among her acquaintances. She was active in the Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale, in Riverdale, N.Y., and still visits the Riverdale YM-YWHA every day where she organizes the monthly "Café Europa" gathering of Holocaust survivors.

“The most important outcome of all your efforts Berta, and of which I'm forever in your debt, is that I was able to arrive safely in Israel, the only one of my whole family,” Brand said. “Together with my wife Hana I have raise a wonderful family of three children and nine grandchildren.”

The Jewish Rescuers Citation was established in 2011 by the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jews who Rescued Fellow Jews During the Holocaust (JRJ) and B’nai B’rith World Center to set right the historic record—that thousands of Jews were active in rescue efforts throughout Europe, putting their own lives at risk in order to save other Jews from deportation, hunger and death at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. To date nearly 100 citations have been presented to rescuers who operated in France, Germany, Holland, Greece and Hungary. 

“We are proud to honor these two Jewish heroes and gratified that through our decade-long efforts there is growing acknowledgement that their recognition as models for Jewish and human solidarity is long overdue,” Director of the B'nai B'rith World Center and a founding member of the JRJ Committee Alan Schneider said in advance of the ceremony.

Member of the European Parliament and newly appointed Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Israel Fulvio Martusciello, a Christian Democrat from Italy, visited Israel this week for the first time at the invitation of B’nai B’rith International. Joining Martusciello on the trip was MEP and previous delegation chair Bas Belder, a European Conservative from the Netherlands.

The two day visit was prepared in tandem by the B’nai B’rith International EU Affairs Office in Brussels and the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem. The delegation met with the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi; MK and Chair of the Economic Affairs Committee Avishay Braverman; MK and Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Zeev Elkin; and MK and Chair of Knesset Lobby for the Struggle Against Anti-Semitism Shimon Ohayon. The delegation also met with the Head of the Bureau of the European Division of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Shmuel Revel. Major issues raised during the meetings included EU-Israel relations, the Iranian threat and the latest on anti-Semitism throughout Europe.

The delegation also visited Yad Vashem and the Old City of Jerusalem.

“Unfortunately people don’t know what they are talking when they talk about Israel,” Martusciello said. “This visit was an eye opener for a country that I always have the will to visit.” During the meetings Martusciello mentioned the importance of Holocaust education in Europe and, in particular, the need for accurate information about the real situation in Israel.

World Center Director Alan Schneider and Director for EU Affairs Nuno Wahnon, who accompanied the MEPs on the visit, noted the importance of having leading EU political figures dealing with EU-Israel relations visit Israel early in their tenure. The visit laid the foundation for a future cooperation between B’nai B’rith and the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Israel.