Monday April 23, 2018 – Grade 7
Remembering Tragedy, Remembering Life
On a day during which our city of Toronto was swept by the tragedies on Yonge Street, Holy Blossom Temple’s Grade Seven class endeavoured to learn about the foremost of Jewish tragedies – the Holocaust, or Shoah in Hebrew.
Yesterday evening – April 23 – students visited the Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Education Center on Bathurst Street, their purpose being to enlarge their understanding of what catastrophically befell the Jewish communities of Europe in the years before and during World War Two. We observed photo exhibits, listened to an informative lecture, and participated in a remarkable technological activity allowing us to engage in a ‘virtual conversation’ with a survivor of the Holocaust.
One cannot overstate the importance of studying the Holocaust. Such study impels us to remember for all time this tragedy of tragedies. And such study impels us to remember life: the lives of those forsaken – and the lives we all too easily take for granted today.
May we continue to learn and to remember. And may the memories of those who died yesterday on Yonge Street be for blessings.
Rabbi Bill S. Tepper
