Featured Stories tagged with "Holocaust"

On April 19, Touro College had the honor of hosting Dr. Simone Alter-Muri, Ed.D, ATR-BC, ATCS, L.M.H.C., for an enlightening lecture on the art of the Holocaust. This lecture was originally scheduled for March 1but was cancelled due to snow in Dr. Alter-Muri’s hometown. Extraordinarily, though, its final date was even more appropriate. The lecture, “Reviewing the Past to Empower the Future,” sponsored by the Art, Psychology, and History clubs, and arranged by Professor Grenadir, ended up taking place on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) which also so happened to be the exact anniversary of the first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – April 19, 1943.

Each week in the Warsaw Ghetto, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889-1943), known as the Aish Kodesh, delivered Divrei Torah to his followers and fellow citizens. Despite the mounting horrors, Rabbi Shapira urged his followers to remain steadfast in their faith and drew lessons of strength from the weekly Torah portion. Realizing that he might not survive, Rabbi Shapira gave the copies of his sermons to the Jewish historical society Oneg Shabbat, who buried it underground. Despite offers to spirit him out of the ghetto and later, a work camp, Rabbi Shapira refused and was killed with his followers in 1943.