History &amp; Nostalgia

Philly's Jewish Archives Center Set to Merge With Temple U. Next Year

By:

Aaron Passman, JE Feature

After 36 years, the Philadelphia Jewish Archives Center is getting ready to say goodbye. Well, sort of. "We're not closing, because that gives the idea that we're going under, never to be seen again," said president Carole Le Faivre-Rochester. "As a center that's true, but as an archive that's not true at all." Beginning early next year, the archives will...

History & Nostalgia

Battleship Acts as a Floating Exhibit

On a vessel that's seen war sits a display on the Holocaust

By:

Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg

A new exhibit about the Holocaust on the Battleship New Jersey lets visitors view images of the atrocities that occurred more than 60 years ago in Nazi-occupied Europe and, by its conclusion, challenges viewers to ponder more modern-day genocides that still rage around the world. The multimedia display, "The Holocaust and Genocide: The Betrayal of Humanity," was put together by...

History & Nostalgia

Silent No More: Deaf Survivors Reveal Their Stories

By:

Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg

To survive the Holocaust, the Jews had to battle near-impossible conditions -- hunger, filth, disease, ceaseless work, endless brutality. The fact that many made it until liberation was often a matter of sheer luck, as countless survivors have testified over the years since the end of World War II. But if it was difficult for the majority of people, how...

History & Nostalgia

'We Are All Children of the Same God'

Traveling exhibit depicts Pope John Paul II's ties to the Jewish people

Twenty-one years ago, two religious leaders of different faiths met, and history was made. On April 13, 1986, Pope John Paul II was welcomed to Rome's central synagogue by Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi of Rome. It was the first time a pope had ever visited a synagogue. In a new exhibit, now on display at the Kimmel Center for...

History & Nostalgia

Poems Echo History, and Hazards, in Israel

By:

Michelle Mostovy-Eisenberg

Whether she looks north or south from the windows of her house in the Galilee, echoes of history come alive, explained poet Rachel Tzvia Back, who also noted that she is reminded daily of all that has transpired in the hills she now calls home. The cycle of violence in the region is brought vividly to life in the poems...