Songs of Peace Concert

The Ragazzi Boys Choir presents

Songs Of Peace

Sunday, June 14, 2009
5 pm

Burlingame United Methodist Church
1443 Howard Ave.
Burlingame, CA 94010

Tickets: $25 Reserved $15 General $12 Seniors $10 Students

Ticket Order Form — download and mail or FAX back

The Ragazzi Boys Chorus concert, Songs of Peace, will feature illustrated selections from I Never Saw Another Butterfly by Charles Davidson along with traditional Jewish classical and folk music accompanied by a Klezmer band.

Charles Davidson’s I Never Saw Another Butterfly, is based on poems by children imprisoned in the Terezin Concentration Camp during the Holocaust of WWII. “The ghetto of Terezin (Theresienstadt), located in the hills outside Prague, was an unusual concentration camp in that it was created to cover up the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Billed as the ‘Fuhrer’s gift to the Jews,’ this ‘model ghetto’ was the site of a Red Cross inspection visit in 1944. With its high proportion of artists and intellectuals, culture flourished in the ghetto – alongside starvation, disease, and constant dread of transports to the death camps of the east. Every one of its inhabitants was condemned in advance to die. Of the 15,000 children deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, 100 survived – none under the age of fourteen.” (Quoted from the book, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” by Hana Volavkova)

Considering the circumstances, listeners will be amazed at the variety of moods, from wistfulness to playful celebration of the small pleasures of the moment. Audiences will be inspired by the triumph of these children’s life force even in the face of tragedy.

In addition to the illustrated selections from I Never Saw Another Butterfly, Ragazzi will also sing both folk and composed songs by Jewish composers and music celebrating peace and reconciliation.

Yom HaShoah 2009 Around the Bay

This Yom HaShoah remember the lives of the 6 million Jews and 5 million others who perished in the Holocaust, the struggles of the survivors and the lessons it has to teach us around the SF Bay Area.

Commemorate and Observe with Your Bay Area Community:

Poland awards dozens for saving Jews during WWII

From the JewishGen blog and AP

Dozens of Poles were awarded medals Monday for risking their lives during World War II to save Jews from the Holocaust.President Lech Kaczynski awarded state medals — many posthumously — to around 70 people from across Poland. First lady Maria Kaczynska presented them to the people or their relatives in a gala ceremony at Warsaw’s National Theater.

Among those awarded was Zofia Brusikiewicz, 81, whose parents hid 13 Jews in an apartment in Warsaw and Irena Gut-Opdyke, whose dramatic story is narrated in a one-act play, “Irena’s Vow,” that opened Off Broadway in September.

Gut-Opdyke hid 12 Jews in the basement of an SS officer’s house, where she served as a housekeeper. She died, aged 85, in 2003 in New York, where her family recently received her medal.

Poland was the only country under Nazi occupation where helping Jews was punished with summary execution of the entire family.

Most of the recipients are already among the 6,000 Poles holding the title of the Righteous Among the Nations from Israel’s Yad Vashem. They were largely found thanks to testimony deposited with the institute.

About 3.5 million Jews, or 10 percent of the country’s population, lived in Poland before World War II. Most were killed in death camps, like Auschwitz-Birkenau, that the Nazis built when they occupied Poland between 1939 and 1945.

Around 200,000 survived, but many left for Israel or other countries amid anti-Semitic purges of the 1960s. Jewish life is being slowly rekindled since Poland shed communism in 1989. (Source: AP)

Click here for the entire article

Silicon Valley Jewish Community Yom Hashoah Observance

Legacies of Compassion:
Memories of Human Kindness During Times of Despair

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

7:00 p.m

Congregation Sinai

1532 Willowbrae Avenue
San Jose, CA 95125

Be part of the community as we come together for a moving Yom Hashoah Observance:

“Legacies of Compassion: Memories of Human Kindness During Times of Despair.”

This event is co-sponsored by CRAGSJ (Cantorial-rabbinic associal of Greater San Jose) Congregation Beth David, Congregation Sinai, Congregation Shir Hadash, Temple Emanu-El, Congregation Ahabat Torah, and the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley

If you are interested in participating in the service, please contact congregationsinai@gmail.com. Ways of participating include (but aren’t limited to) reading a poem, reading something you’ve written, escorting survivors, reading a short story. Young Adult participation and attendance is encouraged.

In Honor of the 69th Anniversay of Kristallnact

November 9 and 10, 1938 in Germany (parts of Austria too) Jewish homes, shops, towns and villages were ransacked and burned by the Nazi’s. It became know as the Night of Broken Glass or Kristallnact. Many were beaten to death. In honor of those and others here’s a moving video of “Where Can I Go?” Sung by Steve Lawrence in English and Yiddish.