Fundraising efforts are underway to bring IDF soldiers traumatized by their military service to Highland Park and Edison as part of the Peace of Mind program, run through Metiv, the Israel Psychotrauma Center. The undertaking to raise $60,000 to bring the unit to the area in the fall is a joint initiative of synagogues of various denominations in those communities. Peace of mind is a therapeutic intervention in which groups of 15-20 IDF veterans who served together in a high-risk combat unit are hosted by a community for a week. During that time, with the help of two therapists they process their combat experiences in a space where the can work through their trauma. This is the sixth year the community has hosted a unit through the program.
Host communities agree to pay their expenses and house them. Being able to break from their daily routine and receive a warm welcome helps in their healing process as does being able to talk freely with therapists and each other. Past participants have reported an increased sense of social support and daily function as well as a lessening of depressive symptoms.
For more information, contact Natalie Aloyets Artel at naloyets@yahoo.com or (732) 535-0928. To make a tax-deductible donation go to https://www.jgive.com/new/he/ils/collect/donation-targets/97629/amount.
The Henry Ricklis Holocaust Memorial Committee and Human Relations Council of Monroe will hold its annual Yom HaShoah observance on Sunday, April 28 at 2 p.m. at the Monroe Township Senior Center. This year’s theme will be Honoring the Holocaust and Remembering our Survivors. It will feature local survivors Paul Beller and Bill Schwimmer as keynote speakers and Judith Sherman reading her original poetry. A precession of Holocaust survivors with Monroe High School students, a candle-lighting ceremony and a Monroe High School student winner of the Holocaust essay contest will read her work.
Rabbi Shmuel Polin of Congregation Etz Chaim-Monroe Township Jewish Center will introduce speakers and recite Kaddish. Mayor Stephen Dalina will read a proclamation and address rising antisemitism.
Beller was one of 50 children brought by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus in 1939 from Vienna to the U.S. The couple arranged for visas and foster families for the 5-14 year-olds.
The 100-year-old Schwimmer left Dresden in 1938, but ended up in an internment camp in England. He arrived in the U.S. in 1947.
For information contact Elizabeth Rothman at (908) 461-6390 or busnar1@yahoo.com.
Join Congregation Neve Shalom in Metuchen on Sunday, April 28, at 11 a.m. when it will present a Passover program “filled with hope and joy” featuring the music of African Jews. The program to be presented via Zoom will feature the Abayudaya Music to the World Chior and Orchestra Concert performing traditional Jewish liturgical songs in Hebrew, Swahili, and Luganda to an African beat and music. The concert for the Abayudaya, who mostly live in Uganda, is being sponsored by Achvah: The Partnership for Abayudaya Rights in support of its efforts to send 10-12 Abayudaya young adults to Israel to present their case for recognition as authentic Jews to the Israeli public. This would allow those who wish to do so to make aliyah and become citizens of their homeland and permit the Abayudaya to send their youth on Birthright trips. They are currently not recognized by Israel’s ministry of the Interior.
For information, call the synagogue (732) 548-3338.
After having an intense emotional response to an encounter with a rescued Czech Holocaust Torah photographer Sheila Pallay spent more than three months traveling through the Czech Republic visiting the synagogues that once housed these scrolls and documenting the remnants of Jewish life in those communities after the Shoah. That excursion resulted in a collaboration with Julius Mũller on a book, “Life Beyond the Shadows, The Legacy of the Czech Torah Scroll and the Renewal of Jewish Life in Czechia.”
