Education – Page 13 – tangential travel

September 7, 2017September 7, 2017

Don’t Give Up Hope!

We have reached the next phase of our Partisan Song project: Don’t Give Up Hope.

In April 2018 we will commemorate 75 years of the Partisan Poem, Zog Nit Keynmol, written by Hirsh Glik, aged 20, in the Vilna Ghetto in 1943.

This anthem is sung around the world at Yom Hashoah ceremonies on Holocaust Remembrance and Heroes Day.

Glik’s poem of hope, heroes and resistance is the legacy of the Partisans and the Survivors. We must continue to honour it!

It is still mostly sung in the original Yiddish with the result that many, especially the younger generation, do not understand the meaning, inspiration and context of the poem.

We have found the solution for this!

While there is no need to change the language we traditionally sing it in, we have created a site where we can read and study the words in our own language and understand Glik’s inspiration, and its context.

The poem is now available in 23 languages:

HEBREW, ENGLISH, LITHUANIAN, POLISH, BELARUSIAN, RUSSIAN, GERMAN, SPANISH, CZECH, DUTCH, ITALIAN, RUMANIAN, FRENCH, SWEDISH, PORTUGUESE, NORWEGIAN, JAPANESE, FINNISH, SWISS GERMAN, AFRIKAANS, GREEK, SLOVAKIAN AND THE ORIGINAL YIDDISH

http://elirab.me/words/

Here is a message for educators and those who wish to embrace the legacy of the partisans and survivors :

Share the following with students and your contacts:

Study the poem with learners, recite it and ask them to do the same.
Help them to record and make a creative video of their rendition. Students are excellent at this.
Post it on social media – YouTube, Facebook, WordPress, Dropbox, WhatsApp, Google Drive etc. Set a deadline before 27 January 2018, the International Holocaust Remembrance day (Auschwitz Liberation Day).
Email the address of the posting to eli@elirab.com so that we can share the videos on that date.
Examples can be found here: http://elirab.me/poem/

Organise students and friends into groups to make a second video, singing the song in a language or languages of your choice, in time for posting before Yom Hashoah on 11 April 2018.
Examples here: http://elirab.me/videos/

The outcomes for both educators and learners participating in this free project include:

Understanding the meaning, inspiration and context of the Partisan poem;
Having a greater appreciation of poetry;
Learning some Yiddish;
Singing the anthem;
Being creative;
Connecting with other groups of teachers and learners;
Honouring the legacy of the partisans and survivors; and
Being inspired!

This is an updated video on the project so far:

For more details of our work since January, please visit the website: http://elirab.me/zog-nit-keynmol/

Here is a message from Phillip Maisel, 95, survivor and friend of Hirsh Glik:

August 27, 2017August 27, 2017

75th Anniversary of the Partisan Song

We are planning a series of worldwide events leading up to the 75th anniversary of the Partisan Song next April.

This 4 minute interview with Phillip Maisel below highlights the importance of the Partisan Song, and the role of our youth in keeping alive the legacy of Hirsh Glik’s poem of hope!

Phillip, 95, was a friend of Hirsh Glik, and one of the first to hear this poem recited in the Vilna Gheto in 1943

I visited the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne: www.jhc.org.au

and Mount Scopus Memorial College: www.scopus.vic.edu.au

where I presented my Partisan Poem and Song Project to leading Jewish educationalists and oulines the plans leading up to Yom Hashoah.

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At the Jewish Holocaust Centre

With Sue Hampel, Ricki Mainzer, Anne Gawenda, Edwin Glasenberg, Phillip Maisel & Freydi Mrocki

With Sue Hampel, Ricki Mainzer, Anne Gawenda, Michael Cohen, Phillip Maisel & Freydi Mrocki

My presentation (slides):

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B3a8s3c3IdK_S0VtMkdlTU4za2s?usp=sharing

The videos are mostly here – http://elirab.me/timeline/

With Amanda Castelan-Starr, the Jewish Studies Curriculum Co-ordinator

This is the full 27 minute interview with Phillip:

Freydi Mrocki reciting the Partisan poem at the Jewish Holocaust Centre.

Video: Emmanuel T Santos.

New resources found in the NYPL

Reprinted from Radical Yiddish with permission of Joel Schechter.

Yuri Suhl Article from 1953 – a must read!

More details on the program to follow!

July 20, 2017July 23, 2017

Alli – The Last of her Generation

Meet Alli Bak Itzkowitz

Only 3 hours 15 minutes from Perth to Sydney, but 15 and a half hours to Dallas!

I left Perth at 5:15 am and arrived in Dallas at 2pm the same day. A 13 hour time change!

A nice and warm 38C – 100F day in Dallas.

My first time here, and the first time I’m meeting my Texas family.

I was met at the Dallas – Fort Worth Airport by Gene Itzkowitz, my second cousin on our mothers’ sides. Gene and his wife, Vicki are hosting me here in Dallas.

This must be Texas!

Here is my relationship chart to Alli, my mother’s first cousin and the last of her ZELDIN generation. They never met.

Allis’ paternal Bak grandparents – Leib and Naomi

Alli’s family. The mother Sonia in the front

My mum, Ray and my grandfather Socher Zeldin

Gene & Vicki with their daughter, Marny and her husband Cody

Alli is a Holocaust Survivor and has her testimony recorded at USHMM as well as the Spielberg Foundation.

The USHMM link is here:

Oral history interview with Alli Itzkowitz – Collections Search – United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Source: collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn506601

July 18, 2017July 18, 2017

A POSTHUMOUS LETTER TO Hirsh Glik

(Inspired by Irene Lilienheim Angelic’s letter to Leonard Cohen)

18 July 2017

Hirsh Glik

Dear Hirsh

“Zog Nit Keynmol” is Yiddish for “Never say…. that you have reached the end of the road”. These are the opening words to the poem that you wrote in the Vilna Ghetto during the horrendous times for Jews in 1943.

Yet your poem contains words of hope, heroism and inspiration for the partisans and the inmates of your ghetto. When you read “Zog Nit Keynmol” on the street corner to your friend Rachel Margolis, she matched it to the music of the 1938 Russian march by the Dmitri and Daniel Pokrass.

The song was soon sung in the ghettos and camps of Europe. It has been sung as a stirring anthem or hymn every year for 73 years since, by Survivors and others at Yom Hashoah ceremonies throughout the world. It has been translated into many languages.

The song is so well known but not necessarily well understood. Perhaps it is because it has been mostly sung in Yiddish, a language which is no longer spoken as it was in your time!
I established the Partisan Poem & Song project in February this year after I was asked by King David High Schools in Johannesburg, South Africa to address their 1000 high school students about the meaning, inspiration and context of the Partisan Song.

Our goal is to increase the understanding of the song’s powerful and positive message and, at the same time, create a bridge between your generation which originally sang it and future generations – creating continuity while there are still Holocaust Survivors among us.
To achieve this, school choirs are invited to learn the song in a language/s of their choice, to record their performance and post it on our dedicated website, to create a video tapestry of remembrance.
Within a few weeks of the project’s launch in February this year, World ORT, the world’s largest Jewish education and vocational training non-governmental organisation, operational in 37 countries, adopted the project. In their pilot, ten ORT schools in the Former Soviet Union submitted videos. These were compiled into a single video, sung in different languages, in time for Yom Hashoah.

We are now building resources to help students analyse and understand the song as you originally wrote it, namely as a poem. We have found 17 different language versions, making this a truly international program from its outset.
Yad Vashem has a resource for Teaching The Holocaust Through Poetry, using the poem “Refugee Blues” by famous British poet W H Auden. It was written in 1939, six months before war broke out, about Jewish refugees and not specifically about ghettos or camps.
Your Poem sits perfectly alongside Refugee Blues as the most important resource of a poem written in the ghetto during the Holocaust.

Mervyn Danker, a retired school principal based in San Francisco, has set up an outline of a study guide for teachers to use when teaching your poem or the song.

World renowned authorities such as Shirl Gilbert, are interested in the progress of this project, and educational NGOs in Poland, Lithuania, Austria and Poland are keen to participate.

Phillip Maisel, 93, a volunteer at the Holocaust Centre in Melbourne, Australia, is our direct link to you as he was your good friend, and was one of the first to hear your poem!

To watch the video and to read more, please visit our home page:

Zog Nit Keynmol

Menu Please watch this short video and join an inspiring project: From World ORT: Quote World ORT With each Yom HaShoah the number of Survivors dwindles making the challenge of engaging new gene…

Source: elirab.me/zog-nit-keynmol/

I will keep you posted as to how the project is growing.

Regards

Eli Rabinowitz
Perth, Australia

The direct link to the YouTube video is here:

July 15, 2017July 15, 2017

London

Arrival in London at Stanstead Airport

A visit to Google, DeepMind & Neil

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Neil

St Pancras Station

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St Pancras railway station – Wikipedia

St Pancras railway station (/seɪnt ˈpæŋkrəs/ or /sənt ˈpæŋkrəs/), also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus located on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Pancras_railway_station

The British Library

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Leizer Ran

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Take a photo of your locker!

British Library – Wikipedia

Coordinates: 51°31′46″N 0°07′37″W / 51.52944°N 0.12694°W / 51.52944; -0.12694

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Library

On the Tube and the Trains

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Flowers by Geraldine Auerbach

Memorial in Baker Street Tube

Meeting people

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Stefan, Sadler, Shoshana, Cecile & Daniel

The Wiener Library

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Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide – Wikipedia

The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide (German pronunciation: [ˈviːnɐ ]); is the world’s oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, its causes and legacies. Founded in 1933 as an information bureau that informed Jewish communities and governments worldwide about the persecution of the Jews under the Nazis, it was transformed into a research institute and public access library after the end of World War II and is now situated in Russell Square, London.[2]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiener_Library_for_the_Study_of_the_Holocaust_and_Genocide

The West End

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Hype Park Corner

West End of London – Wikipedia

The West End of London (commonly referred to as the West End) is an area of Central and West London in which many of the city’s major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings and entertainment venues, including West End theatres, are concentrated.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_of_London

Selfridges

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Selfridges, Oxford Street – Wikipedia

Selfridges is a Grade II listed retail premises on Oxford Street in London. It was designed by Daniel Burnham for Harry Gordon Selfridge, and opened in 1909.[1] Still the headquarters of Selfridge & Co. department stores, with 540,000 square feet (50,000 m2) of selling space,[2] the store is the second largest retail premises in the UK,[1] half as big as the biggest department store in Europe, Harrods.[2] It was named the world’s best department store in 2010,[3] and again in 2012.[4]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfridges,_Oxford_Street

Hammersmith

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Natalie Rabinowitz

Westminster

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Westminster Abbey

St Albans

First Bunnings in the UK. Bunnings was started in Perth, Australia. Ten minute walk from Neil

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Sausage Sizzle

Around the Nunnery

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Go Fly A Kite

The Town

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Bicycle Rack at Station

Reading Material

Read the character names on these pages – amazing coincidence – Roly Poly Bird saves Jill! Roly Poly is what the grandkids call me!

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St Albans – Wikipedia

St Albans /sənt ˈɔːlbənz/, /seɪn … / is a city in Hertfordshire, England, and the major urban area in the City and District of St Albans. It lies east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, about 19 miles (31 km) north-northwest of London, 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Welwyn Garden City and 11 miles (18 km) south-southeast of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north, and it became the Roman city of Verulamium. It is a historic market town and is now a dormitory town within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Albans

Back to Australia – Dubai

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Flying somewhere!

July 7, 2017July 8, 2017

From Keidan to Ra’anana to Orlando

Kedainiai June 2017

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Original article in Lithuanian

http://www.rinkosaikste.lt/naujienos/aktualijos/gimnazistams-kdainietik-akn-turinio-ydo-paskaita

Source: www.rinkosaikste.lt/

Google Translated

with a little help from me!

Gimnazistai – kėdainietiškų Jewish Roots Lecture

Akvilė KUPČINSKAITĖ – 19:00 June 13th. 2017

“Atžalyno Gymnasium was visited by a Jewish guest from Australia, who has kėdainietiškų roots. Eli Rabinowitz met with the academic staff at the high school, attended project activities and visited the Kėdainiai Regional Museum.

Report

The guest to Kėdainiai was invited by Atžalyno High School English teacher Laima Ardavičienė. Since 2012, Laima has been working on a project in which high school students learn in more detail about the history of the Jewish community in our country. Every year, the high school is visited by Eli Rabinowitz and they share their experiences and insights. The project is carried out in English, so that students not only broaden their minds, but also enhance their English language skills.

This year the theme was Jewish holidays. When we celebrate Christmas, Jews celebrate the Chanukah festival. Eli Rabinowitz arranged a virtual conference and introduced the festival. Guests who come to Lithuania continue the story of the other traditional Jewish holidays.

The Modern generation does not have time to read long stories. Eli Rabinowitz

Not for the first time

Eli Rabinowitz has visited Kėdainiai each year since 2012. The first time was to to search for his ancestors. In his opinion, Jews should actively search their roots. According to Eli, 95 percent of South African Jews came from Lithuania. Eli has travelled extensively throughout Central and Eastern Europe and has recorded traces of Jewish culture here, taking many pictures and videos. Since 2011, he has taken 18000 photos, using these images in slideshows, which is a good format to convey his experience to the younger generation.

“Young people do not have time to read or hear long stories. Students all over the world prefer stories in short video clips, and other multimedia material “, – said Eli Rabinowitz.

Partisan Song – Vilna ghetto

Earlier this year Eli Rabinowitz was invited to present his project to a large South African high school. There, the students sang the Partisan Song in Yiddish, but did not understand the meaning of this song and the inspiration behind it.

“The song was written in 1943 in the Vilna ghetto by a 20-year-old Jew, Hirsh Glik, who was later killed. It has since then become the anthem of the Holocaust Survivors and is sung regularly. I want this song to spread to young people, so that they recite, sing and understand the meaning”- says Eli Rabinowitz.

The song has also been translated into Lithuanian. A student at Atzalyno recites it as a poem, with a viola playing in the background and images of old Kedainiai.

“To know one’s history is important for us all, because if you do not know where you come from, you do not know where you are headed”, – says Eli Rabinowitz wisely.

12 June 2017

Litvak Roots Lecture in Ra’anana

On June 12th, Eli Rabinowitz spoke in Ra’anana on “In the Footsteps of Zalman Tzoref: Tracing 200 Years of Litvak Family History and Legacy”. The presentation followed Zalman Tzoref’s life. He left Keidan, Lithuania and traveled to Jerusalem where his mission was to rebuild the Ashkenazi community in the Old City. In 2012, Eli returned to the town and re-established his family connections with Tzoref’s birthplace.

Eli Rabinowitz is involved in a wide range of Jewish community activities, including filming events, research, education, arranging exhibitions and lecturing on Jewish cultural heritage and family history.

Orlando Florida 26 July 2017 5pm – 6:15pm

In the Footsteps of Zalman Tzoref: Tracing 200 Years of Litvak Family History and Legacy
Venue: Walt Disney World Swan Resort
Room: Swan 2
At the last two IAJGS conferences a movie about Tzoref was shown. This presentation follows in the movie’s and Tzoref’s footsteps and goes beyond! In 1811, Avraham Shlomo Zalman Tzoref, inspired by the Vilna Gaon, left Keidan, Lithuania for Jerusalem where his mission was to rebuild the Ashkenazi community in the Old City. Tzoref was murdered in 1851, but the story certainly does not end there. We reflect on Tzoref’s life and achievements through his 20,000 strong Salomon descendants, who for 200 years have made their mark as part of his enduring legacy. In 2011, exactly 200 years after Tzoref left Keidan, I return to the town, now called Kedainiai, and re-establish my family connections with his birthplace. Within a few years, I have become active in building bridges in this town in a most unusual way!

July 6, 2017July 17, 2018

Back to Warsaw

Zamenhof in the streets

Zamenhof in the cemetery

Partisans with Michael Leiserowitz

Warsaw Cemetery

Jewish Cemetery, Warsaw – Wikipedia

The Warsaw Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and in the world. Located on Warsaw’s Okopowa Street and abutting the Powązki Cemetery at 52°14′51″N 20°58′29″E / 52.24750°N 20.97472°E / 52.24750; 20.97472, the Jewish necropolis was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectares (83 acres) of land. The cemetery contains over 250,000 marked graves[1], as well as mass graves of victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. Many of these graves and crypts are overgrown, having been abandoned after the German invasion of Poland and subsequent Holocaust. Although the cemetery was closed down during World War II, after the war it was reopened and a small portion of it remains active, serving Warsaw’s small existing Jewish population.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Cemetery,_Warsaw

At the JCC with Romi Rutovitz

JCC Warsaw

Jewish Community Center

Source: www.jccwarszawa.pl/?LangId=2

A quick return visit to Polin

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Friends

Wojciech Konończuk with his new book. In 2011 Wojciech influenced me to visit Poland for the first time!

Michael & Ruth Leiserowitz at the German Historical Institute.

Ruth is a professor of history at Humboldt University in Berlin and Deputy Director at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw. Michael is the German and Hebrew speaking guide at Polin Museum in Warsaw.

Their Jews in East Prussia Facebook site.

https://www.facebook.com/Jewsineastprussia/

With Jakub Petelewicz, Director of Education at Forum For Dialogue

Forum for Dialogue | Forum Dialogu

Inspiring New Connections

Source: dialog.org.pl/en/forum-for-dialogue/

June 19, 2017

Back To Vilnius

The restoration of the Geliu synagogue

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Renovation of Synagogue on Geliu Gatve starts in Vilnius

The Lithuanian Department of Cultural Heritage confirmed on July 21, 2015, the renovation of the synagogue on Geliu Street in Vilnius has starte…

Source: www.baltictimes.com/renovation_of_synagogue_starts_in_vilnius/

People I met

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Ingrida Vilkienė

Fania Brancovskaja at the Yiddish Institute

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Lara Lempert is the head of the Judaica Center at the National Library of Lithuania. Her field is the cultural history of the European Jewry, more specifically – Jewish classical texts and their integration in Jewish education in various settings; Jewish book and press; and day-to-day life of Lithuanian Jewry.

Part of the exhibit

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22–23 May 2017: Opening of the Judaica Research Centre – Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

A national cultural institution that collects, organizes and preserves the written cultural heritage of Lithuania, forming a fund for Lithuanian and foreign documents relevant for Lithuanian science, education, culture and economy, and provides library information provision services to the public.

Source: www.lnb.lt/en/news/2187-22-23-may-opening-of-the-judaica-research-centre

More from the Library

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The Old Cemetery

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Jewish cemeteries of Vilnius – Wikipedia

The Jewish cemeteries of Vinius are the three Jewish cemeteries of the Lithuanian Jews living in what is today Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, which was known to them for centuries as Vilna, the principal city of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Two of the cemeteries were destroyed by the Soviet regime and the third is still active.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_cemeteries_of_Vilnius

The Vilnius Jewish Library

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Vilniaus žydų viešoji biblioteka

Vilniaus žydų viešoji biblioteka – vienintelė Žydų kultūros sklaidoje besispecializuojanti biblioteka visoje Lietuvoje.Our library is the only one in Lithuania which specifies in spreading Jewish culture in various forms

Source: vilnius-jewish-public-library.com/en/

Jewish Scenes in Vilnius

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The Museum of Genocide Victims – Jewish themed exhibits

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The Museum of Genocide Victims

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Museum of Genocide Victims – Wikipedia

The Museum of Genocide Victims (Lithuanian: Genocido aukų muziejus) in Vilnius, Lithuania was established in 1992 by order of the Minister of Culture and Education and the President of the Lithuanian Union of Political Prisoners and Deportees. In 1997 it was transferred to the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. The museum is located in the former KGB headquarters across from the Lukiškės Square, therefore it is informally referred to as the KGB Museum.[1]

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Genocide_Victims