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Jewish Journal

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November 9, 2009

The British Dare to Determine Who is a Jew

Leave a Comment / Uncategorized /

Every once in a while, a story comes along so jolting that it is scarcely believable. One such story appeared in The New York Times, of all places, this past Sunday, about how the Jews’ Free School in London has been ordered to admit a child whose mother had a non-orthodox conversion after the child’s parents sued.

I will not enter here into the ongoing and bitter divide in England between orthodox and progressive Jews. It was a battle that I witnessed and worked hard to mend through countless essays and public forums over the 11 years that I lived in the United Kingdom. Less so will I address here the very pressing questions of Jewish status as determined by conversion on the part of Judaism’s three major branches. I am a passionately orthodox Jew who is equally passionate about Jewish unity. Our divisions must indeed be addressed and healed. But this shocking story in Britain raises something far more pressing that is of equal concern to orthodox and non-orthodox alike.

What is mind-boggling is that a British court of appeals, which ruled against the school, said that the Jewish community’s ancient tradition of deciding Jewishness through parenthood is ethnically based, discriminatory, and therefore unlawful.

“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. Whether the reasons were “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist makes it no less and no more unlawful.” In an astonishing ruling, the court said that if the child practiced Judaism, then he is Jewish. But to base the decision on his parents was an unlawful emphasis on ethnicity, rather than on religious faith. One can immediately understand the implications for Jews who are not at all observant. Presumably the British government would not consider them Jews.

Now, let’s put aside for a moment the unbelievable infringement of government on the affairs of a religion and focus instead on the court’s rationale. If you are living in Britain, you become a citizen automatically if your parents are British. Even if you don’t behave particularly British, or hate the country of your birth, the UK cannot take away your passport. Likewise, if you’re an American living abroad, your children automatically acquire American citizenship. I should know because six of my nine children were born in Britain, and even though only one of their parents was American, and was living in Europe to boot, they automatically became Americans.

Even if you never celebrated the Fourth of July or have ever heard of Abraham Lincoln, you and your children are as American as George Washington himself. So is it really that difficult for British judges to understand that peoplehood is conveyed through a parent? The Jews are first and foremost a people and only secondarily a faith. We were the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob before we received the Torah at Mt. Sinai and began practicing Judaism’s tenets.

Peoplehood comes first and is completely independent of any kind of religious affirmation. Jewishness is not something that can be lost and it is not something that can be renounced. In this sense, Judaism is radically different from Christianity, which requires a conscious act of affirmation.

While there cannot be atheist Christians, there are plenty of atheist Jews. I am gobsmacked that a British court is challenging this. In my 11 years living in Britain, I never heard anything so outrageous. This ruling constitutes a legal assault on the very integrity of the Jewish religion as practiced in Britain and is a watershed moment in modern Jewish history. And with all the recent stories of British academics seeking to bar their Israeli counterparts from conferences and the rise of anti-Semitic incidents in the British Isles, it will only further cement world opinion that Britain is a country that is becoming hostile to Jews.

Being a people does not make us a homogenous ethic group. There are black Jews and white Jews, European Jews and Asian Jews. Converts of every ethnicity can of course join us at any time. But in so doing they are not adopting a faith but a people. They do not become merely practitioners of the Jewish fait but part of the Jewish family. A convert is transformed from an outsider into a Jewish brother or sister. But the process must of course have standards. To be a British citizen is not an arbitrary act. It takes approximately 10 years of residency. Likewise, my Australian wife’s naturalization as an American citizen took many years of residency and required passing a test of American knowledge. Now just imagine how absurd it would be if the United States told Britain to alter its residency requirements, or vice versa, and you can begin to understand the chutzpa of British judges trying to alter the identity requirements of a three-and-half thousand year faith that is the precursor of Christianity.

Next week, my organization This World: The Values Network will sponsor the first-ever conference on Jewish values. It will feature some of the world’s leading Jewish personalities, including Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, Yeshiva University President Richard Joel, Alan Dershowitz, Dennis Prager, Michael Steinhardt, AIPAC president David Victor and Marianne Williamson. Among of our religion’s principle values are community and peoplehood. For thousands of years, dispersed throughout the world, Jews have always looked out for one another. You could turn up in any city, and, regardless of level of observance, you would be invited to someone’s home for the Sabbath and made to feel like family, even though just moments before you were a complete stranger. In light of this outrageous British legal challenge to this time-honored principle of Jewish peoplehood, we will be adding an entire plenary devoted to explicating the special Jewish value of identity and peoplehood and hope that it will assist British Jewry in knowing that they are not alone in this critical battle.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network. To register for The Jewish Values Conference, taking place in NYC on Nov. 17 and 18, go to www.thisworld.us.

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JWW in Congo: If Only We Knew the Answer

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

by Diana Buckhantz

I was haunted by their faces. Renee with deep scars carved into what was once a beautiful face, eyes with a depth of sorrow I had never before witnessed and hands pink where her flesh was burned off. When the Interahamwe came, they burned her house after seven men raped her. She ran back inside when her eldest son slipped through her hands. As she clutched him in her arms the burning house fell down upon her. Her youngest son had already been killed by the militiamen.

This is only the beginning of her story. The degradation, misery and cruelty that Renee endured are unfathomable. Over and over people abused her while others refused to help. Then suddenly a man appeared and gave her shelter and arranged for her medical care.

Then there was Sabine, her belly filled with the child of one of the many men who raped her repeatedly over three weeks. She is eighteen years old and was captured by the Interahamwe when she was seventeen. She is alone at the Heal Africa hospital waiting for the birth of her child. She has no money and no education. She does not know how she will take care of her child.

Sabine was being held as a “wife” to the Interahamwe. One day she was sent to the market to buy milk. There a woman she had never met before devised a plan to help her escape. The next day this stranger paid for her to get to Goma and the Heal Africa hospital.

Sitting next to these women as they tell their stories is their counselor. She holds their hands and rubs their chests when they can no longer speak because the pain is too fresh and too great.

As I listen to these women and try to understand these unspeakable acts of cruelty, I struggle also to reconcile the conflicting morals of our society. When a society is in chaos, when people are desperately trying to survive, how is it that some are able to set aside their own safety to help someone else?  Where did the woman who helped Sabine find the courage to risk her life for a stranger?  What made the man who helped Renee stand up to an angry mob and give shelter to a poor, deformed woman in the street?  Why do the women we met at Heal Africa Hospital who counsel the women and dedicate their lives to improving the health and safety of other women do so?

Over and over we hear stories of such unspeakable atrocities, while at the same time we meet people doing such selfless courageous works.  History has shown us this dichotomy before.  Certainly, the Christians who hid Jews during the Holocaust is one obvious example. I find these examples hopeful but I wish I could answer the question of what makes the difference.  How do some end up perpetrators, while others end up as rescuers?  How do some end up as bystanders while others end up as relief workers in remote, desolate and dangerous places like this?  If only we knew the answer.

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It Takes a Retirement Village for This Israel Bar Mitzvah

Leave a Comment / Bar & Bat Mitzvahs, Israel /

It was a bar mitzvah for the ages — or, rather, the aged.

A handful of residents from an Ohio retirement community visited Israel for a 12-day mission culminating in a group bar mitzvah in Jerusalem’s Old City.

For some of the octogenarians at Cedar Village in Mason, near Cincinnati, it was their first bar/bat mitzvah.

“I never dreamed this could happen to me,” said Ethel Regberg, 86, who was among those celebrating their first bar/bat mitzvah. Her husband, Paul, 87, had a bar mitzvah, too.

The Regbergs were among nine residents, one family member and 13 staff members who went on the Cedar Village B’nai Mitzvah Mission to Israel last month. The average age of the residents was 86; the oldest participant was 96.

In a ceremony broadcast live on the Internet, allowing friends and family to watch, the residents and four staff members had their b’nai mitzvah at Robinson’s Arch.

Dressed in their best attire, the celebrants chanted and sang prayers, and recited passages about creation from the Book of Genesis. They were called in groups to the Torah; one by one their Hebrew names were called and each read a verse in Hebrew.

story continues after the jump

Residents and staff members of Cedar Village gather in front of the Knesset in Jerusalem during their 12-day B’nai Mitzvah Mission trip to Israel, Oct. 18, 2009. Photo courtesy Cedar Village

“I felt like I was reborn,” Regberg said.

Each celebrant also read a prepared d’var Torah, sharing thoughts and emotions. Following the religious ceremony, the participants went to the Western Wall to tuck prayer notes into the ancient wall’s cracks.

Aside from the bar/bat mitzvah ceremony, the group also visited sites in Jerusalem, Masada, the Dead Sea, the Golan Heights, Tel Aviv and the Sea of Galilee — though at a slower pace than most trips to Israel.

“There were plenty of rest stops and breaks in the activities,” said Rachel Festenstein, Cedar Village’s director of marketing and community outreach.

Before the trip, organizers said, residents got into shape with daily exercise regimens to promote cardiovascular health and endurance.

“We had to take a lot of walks around the grounds of Cedar Village,” said one resident, Blessing Sivitz, 89, who celebrated her first bat mitzvah in Israel. “We had to change our speeds, pretend like we were marching, and climb and descend stairs.”

Each staff member on the mission was assigned a resident to look after individually. One staffer was a registered nurse who managed the medications.

Walkers and wheelchairs were brought along, but participants said no one fell ill on the trip or could not meet the mission’s physical challenges.

“We were tired but well taken care of,” Sivitz said. “I felt healthy the entire trip.”

It was Cedar Village’s second mission to Israel in two years and coincided with the retirement community’s own bar mitzvah.

“What better way to celebrate and commemorate our 13th year than with the idea of bar or bat mitzvah,” said Carol Silver Elliott, Cedar Village’s CEO and president.

Two rabbis who traveled with the group, Ruth Alpers of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Gerry Walter of Cedar Village, put together a special service for the b’nai mitzvah celebration with a prayer booklet that included the d’var Torah written by each bar or bat mitzvah.

A festive luncheon and tree plantings at the Jewish National Fund forest around Jerusalem followed the ceremony.

Despite their years, the Cedar Village residents hardly let up during the trip.

At Masada, after ascending to the top on a cable car, residents made their way through the dusty exhibits using wheelchairs and walkers. On the Sea of Galilee, participants danced on a moving boat. And they safely navigated the uneven cobblestone streets of cities such as Jerusalem and Zichron Yakov.

When help was needed, such as at the Dead Sea, staff provided assistance.

“With challenges like cobblestone streets and unfamiliar places, we want to guarantee that our residents stay healthy,” Elliot said.

The mission also included stops tailored to the interests of staff members, who were mostly Christian. The group visited the Christian Quarter of the Old City, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and Christian archeological sites.

“This leg of the trip helped us to understand the various faiths and traditions that all originated here in Israel,” Elliot said.

The group also visited Netanya, a sister city to Cincinnati, where participants surprised the children of Bet Elazraki Children’s Home with handmade blankets and plush toys.

Back in Cedar Village, the group plans to screen slide shows of their trip to inspire more mitzvah missions to the Jewish state.

“The trip was a dream come true,” Regberg said. “And the grandchildren got plenty of souvenirs!”

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Reform leader urges followers to adapt Jewish dietary practice

Leave a Comment / Judaism, United States /

When Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, delivers his Saturday-morning sermon at the group’s biennial conference, he sets the movement’s priorities for the coming two years.

His message this month in Toronto: Let’s eat like Jews.

He was not asking Reform Jews to observe kosher laws. Rather, acknowledging America’s increased interest in food choices in general, and pointing to Jewish values concerning stewardship of the earth, sustainable agriculture and treatment of workers, Yoffie urged Reform Jews to develop consciously Jewish and ethical food policies for themselves and their congregations.

“This is not about kashrut,” he said as he outlined the main points of the Reform movement’s new Green Table/Just Table Initiative. “We need to think about how the food we eat advances the values we hold as Reform Jews.”

That, he said, is how Reform Jews can eat food that is “proper and appropriate”—the literal meaning of the Hebrew word kosher.

Among Yoffie’s specifics: Eat 20 percent less red meat; it’s good for the environment and for your health, he said. Plant synagogue gardens. Join community-supported agriculture programs. Pay attention to how meat animals are raised and how food workers are treated. Develop a consciously Jewish dietary policy for your synagogue. Eat slower and together, suggesting that synagogues hold regular communal Shabbat meals.

“Above all,” Yoffie said, “let’s avoid the temptation to do nothing.”

For much of its history, the Reform approach to Jewish dietary practice was standoffish at best. In its founding Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, Reform Judaism declared Jewish rituals of dress and diet outmoded, including kashrut. But over the past generation or so, hostility toward these observances has lessened, particularly among younger Reform Jews.

A 2007 movement survey of 14,000 Reform activists and clergy revealed that 58 percent of those older than 40 brought shellfish into their homes, compared to 39 percent of the younger crowd. Forty-three percent of the older group ate pork at home, compared to 29 percent of those 39 and younger; and 16 percent of younger Reform Jews ate only kosher-certified meat, compared to 9 percent of their elders.

“The younger generation is more ritually comfortable across a wide range of practices, from kashrut to prayer,” said Rabbi Daniel Freelander, senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Cautioning that the new focus was not about kashrut, Yoffie referred to last year’s scandals at the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant.

“We do not accept the authority of the kashrut establishment, and its problems are for others to resolve,” he said.

Some Reform Jews who do not keep kosher think their institutions should.

An unpublished survey in 2000 of Reform synagogues in North America revealed that 10 percent have a kosher kitchen. Kosher-style policies are much more prevalent: 80 percent do not permit pork or shellfish in the building, and nearly half do not serve milk and meat on the same dishes.

Deborah Cohn, a member of Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in Highland Park, N.J., says her congregation “is doing more and more to accommodate people who keep kosher.” Non-dairy creamer is served with meat meals, and catered events have a vegetarian option or are completely vegetarian.

“There are always people who object and say, ‘We’re Reform,’ ” she said. “Those are usually the older members.”

Some Reform Jews believe the growing embrace of Jewish ritual represents a betrayal of core Reform principles.

“Kashrut is a visceral issue for many Reform Jews—in the negative sense,” Yoffie said. “It has been seen by many Reform Jews historically as something we rejected—ritual without ethical content.”

Harold Eichenbaum, 70, of Temple Beit Torah in Colorado Springs is one of many older Reform Jews who feel under siege. He complains that not only are pork and shellfish not permitted in his synagogue, there is now a move to make the kitchen kosher.

Eichenbaum says he comes from a long line of activist Reform Jews, none of whom kept kosher.

“It’s part of being a Reform Jew,” he said. People “think you have to be kosher to be true Jewish people. I disagree.”

Largely for this reason, Yoffie said, he was careful not to promote kashrut in his talk. While a guide to Reform Jewish dietary practice that has appeared on the Union for Reform Judaism Web site for the past two years presents kashrut as one of the options Reform Jews might consider in developing a conscious dietary practice, it is noticeably absent from the Green Table/Just Table initiative.

“My central objective was putting food issues on our religious agenda, and in our movement, kashrut is not the vehicle to open that discussion,” Yoffie told JTA. “I intentionally put the focus on the ethical and communal dimension, which is central to who we are. If I’d talked about kashrut it would have had the opposite impact.”

Reaction to the initiative was generally positive.

“I think the recommendations are well founded,” said Michael Holberg, president of Congregation Sha’arai Shomayim in Mobile, Ala.

Holberg groaned when Yoffie first mentioned cutting back on red meat, but Holberg seemed more persuaded once Yoffie explained his position.

“I’m not in favor of advocating not eating meat, but a reduction not only has health benefits, it’s a wise Jewish decision,” Holberg said.

Sha’arai Shomayim planted a synagogue garden last year, one of a growing number of Reform congregations to do so.

Irene Rothschild, president of Congregation Emanu-El Israel in Greensburg, Pa., says she’s been encouraging her synagogue to adopt ecological practices, such as long-life light bulbs and recyclable dishware, but hadn’t made the same Jewish connection between environmentalism and food consumption.

“Food has not been a focus in our congregation, but after listening to him, I think I can push for it now,” she said.

In a conference workshop on Jewish dietary practice, Rabbi Mary Zamore of Temple B’nai Or in Morristown, N.J., said the Reform movement needs to reclaim and redefine kashrut rather than shy away from the term.

Kashrut, she said, is more than the laws outlined in halachah, or Jewish law, but can be understood “as a wholeness, a ‘shlemut,’ ” she said, using the Hebrew word.

“When we talk about kashrut, we are asking: What is our Jewish relationship to our food? The person who fasts on Yom Kippur or who eats matzah on Passover is functioning within the world of kashrut. Dayenu,” she said, using the Hebrew word for enough. “It’s a wonderful thing to celebrate. We can use our Reform approach to Judaism and mix the best of our tradition with trends in the modern food world.”

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Rocket from Gaza lands near Sderot

Leave a Comment / Israel /

A Kassam rocket fired from Gaza landed on the outskirts of Sderot.

An Islamic group with connections to al-Qaida, the House of Lions of Mujahadeen in Palestine, claimed responsibility Monday for a rocket fired into Israel late Sunday night, the Xinhua news agency reported.

No injuries or damage were reported.

The Color Red alert was sounded in Sderot and nearby communities shortly before midnight.

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Netanyahu: “Seize the moment” for peace

Leave a Comment / General Assembly, Israel /

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for the immediate resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians.

“Let us seize the moment to reach an historic agreement; let us begin talks immediately,” Netanyahu said, appealing to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in his speech Monday in Washington to the Jewish Federations of North America.

Netanyahu repeatedly called on Abbas to drop Palestinian preconditions; the Palestinian leadership wants Israel to institute a total settlement freeze as a precondition for talks.

Netanyahu chided the Palestinians for turning aside what he and the Obama administration have suggested is an “unprecedented” offer to freeze some settlement while allowing for “natural growth” and building in Jerusalem. “No Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity,” he said.

Netanyahu did not mention earlier Israeli preconditions, including leaving off the table for now Jerusalem and refugee issues, and a refusal to deal with Hamas, the terrorist group in control in Gaza.

However, he went further than he has in the past in outlining what he means by saying he wants the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.

“What does the Jewish state mean for the Palestinians?” he said. “It means that they must recognize that the fantasy of flooding Israel with refugees is gone, that they give up irredentist claims to the Negev and the Galilee, and that they declare irrevocably that the conflict is finally over,” he said.

This latest formulation omits a demand for an explicit recognition of Israel as Jewish, which is what Palestinian negotiators have until now resisted. Palestinian negotiators have said that such a recognition is not theirs to make; they also worry it would prejudice the rights of Israeli Arabs.

The call for an immediate resumption of talks appears to supersede the recent call by Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to set aside for now talk of a two-state solution.

Netanyahu said once again the outcome of such talks would be a Palestinian state, albeit one that is demilitarized.

Netanyahu also lavished praise on President Obama, who sustains strong support among American Jews but who is unpopular in Israel.

The Israeli prime minister thanked Obama for opposing efforts in the United Nations to advance the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel of war crimes during last winter’s Gaza war, for sustaining the U.S.-Israel security relationship, and for leading international efforts to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Obama was due to address the GA in Washington on Tuesday, but canceled to attend a memorial service in Texas for victims of the shooting rampage at a military base in Fort Hood last week.

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Chavez: Ahmadinejad to visit Venezuela

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

Hugo Chavez expects Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit Venezuela by the end of the year, the Venezuelan president said.

Chavez made the announcement concerning Iran’s president, a key ally, on his weekly television and radio broadcast “Alo Presidente” while flanked by Iran’s ambassador to Venezuela, Amad Sobani. Chavez visited Ahmadinejad in Tehran in September.

Venezuela has deepened its ties with Iran in recent years, exchanging official visits and signing numerous agreements to cement economic, political and military cooperation. Both nations are strident critics of the United States and Israel.

“Iran is attacked like us by the empire,” Chavez said during the program, referring to the United States. “We are accused of exporting terrorism, but they are the killers.”

Iran’s spreading influence in South America is causing concern both in the United States and Israel. The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Latin America subcommittee, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), recently convened a meeting on the topic.

Israeli President Shimon Peres is expected to raise those concerns during an official visit to Brazil and Argentina, which are home to the largest Jewish populations in South America.

Israel has not had diplomatic relations with Venezuela since January, when Chavez kicked out the Israeli delegation to protest Israel’s war with Gaza.

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Hezbollah pressures school into pulling Anne Frank

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

Hezbollah pressured a private school in Beirut to drop from its curriculum a textbook containing excerpts of “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

The English-language school, which asked not to be identified, caved to pressure after Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station ran a segment railing against the school for including the posthumously published Holocaust memoir in its lessons, the French news agency AFP reported.

Hezbollah, which Israel and the United States consider a terrorist group, called the diary’s inclusion part of “an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education.” 

Attorney Naim Kalaani, a member of a committee to ban Zionist products, told Al-Manar the use of the book in a school constituted a violation of Lebanon’s penal code and “tantamount to a step toward normalization” in ties with Israel. Hezbollah could not be reached by the station for comment.

The Paris-based organization Aladdin’s Project, which fights Holocaust denial and was first to translate Anne Frank’s diary into Arabic, issued a statement condemning Hezbollah’s “intimidation campaign.”

The American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors denounced what it called a disgraceful act as a “twin blow against decency. It is a blatant expression of Holocaust denial, and an assault on one of the great works of modern literature and civilization.”

This marks the second time in a month Hezbollah has pressured a school into censoring information it dislikes. In October, International College, one of Lebanon’s most renowned private schools, agreed to put opaque stickers over pages of a textbook that named Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations.

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Netanyahu: Abbas, let’s relaunch peace talks now

Leave a Comment / Israel /

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday addressed thousands of North American Jews at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, where he urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to relaunch peace talks immediately.

“We should not place preconditions for holding talks, such preconditions have never been set in 16 years,” Netanyahu said, referring to the Palestinian demand that Israel completely halt construction in West Bank settlements before talks can resume.

“No Israeli government has been so willing to restrain settlement activity as part of an effort to relaunch peace talks,” the prime minister added, addressing Abbas by name and saying “let us seize the moment, let us relaunch peace talks immediately.”

Read the full story at HAARETZ.com.

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German synagogue vandalized as Berlin Wall’s fall marked

Leave a Comment / United States, Worldwide /

A new synagogue in Dresden was vandalized on the eve of the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht and as Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In response to the vandalism, Germany’s top Jewish leader said the country must find ways to remember both events.

According to police reports, an outer wall of the synagogue’s community center was marked with large, black swastikas and hate slogans sometime late Saturday night. Police are investigating the crime as likely having right-wing extremist roots, reports said.

The synagogue, which was dedicated in November 2001, supposedly is guarded around the clock, as are virtually all Jewish institutions in Germany.

The vandalism took place on the eve of the 71st anniversary of the Kristallnacht anti-Jewish pogrom, when hundreds of synagogues across Germany and Austria were destroyed.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, suggested in a statement Monday that the synagogue vandalism may have been overlooked because of the celebration of the wall’s fall.

“Anti-Semitism and incitement of hate in Germany remain a serious problem,” she said, noting that Germany has counted about 550 anti-Semitic crimes in the first half of 2009.

“Of course, people should rejoice” at the freedom represented by the collapse of the east-west barriers 20 years ago, said Knobloch, who saw the aftermath of the November 1938 pogrom as a child and survived the war in hiding.

“But we also must not forget that the November pogrom of 71 years ago presaged the opening of the gates to Auschwitz,” she said. “There must be a way found in the future to remember both historical events appropriately.”

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