Holocaust Memorial Day 4/9/10

Today we discussed Jews in the 20th Century as a benign approach Holocaust Memorial Day. There is one  Holocaust survivor who attends the group, and the focus for the day allowed all participants to engage in sharing thier family's story of the past century. The theme also created a dialogue if anyone wanted to discuss their experiences in the Holocaust.  We looked at the book by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin called "The Golden Land" about the Jewish immigration to the United States.

The art portion of this discussion involved creating a picture frame by collaging images  from this book. The copies for collaging included: Yiddish playbills from early off Broadway shows, the original poem found of the Statue of Liberty written by Emma Lazurus, old flyers for English classes for new immigrants, and The Declaration of Independence and Constitutution translated into Yiddish and Hebrew.
 Participants engaged in the diacussion and shared many stories about their family histories. The topic of the Holocaust came up, but did not dominate the discussion.