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Abba Kovner, Hero and Witness
August 1, 2021
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11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK
7 PM LISBON • 9 PM JERUSALEM
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Abba Kovner was the leader of the Partisan resistance fighters in Vilna during World War II. He made aliyah in 1947 and became a celebrated Israeli poet. In 1961 he was a star witness during the trial of Adolf Eichmann. He is one of the great Jewish figures of the twentieth century.
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SEE THE TRAILER
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THE SCHEDULE
⇒ July 30-August 2, watch Aviva Kempner‘s celebrated film Partisans of Vilna on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register.
⇒ Sunday, August 1 at 2:00 p.m. US Eastern Time, tune into the program with our distinguished panel of guests. A link will be provided to all who register.
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MEET THE PANEL
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Michael Kovner is the son of Abba and Vitka Kovner and is a celebrated Israeli painter. He was born in Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh in 1948. During his military service he fought alongside Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and other future national leaders. In 1972 he moved to New York to study art with Philip Guston at the New York Studio School, returning in 1975. In 2015 the Abba Kovner Museum opened at Givat Haviva, and Michael worked to restore the office and living room of Abba Kovner. He wrote and illustrated the graphic novel Ezekiel’s World, based on the life and work of Abba Kovner. Michael says of his father: “My father was a resistance fighter, a partisan, a poet, and an historian. His many-sided personality exerted a strong influence on all who surrounded him.”
Prof. Dina Porat is the author of The Fall of a Sparrow, the Life and Times of Abba Kovner (Stanford University Press, 2010, winner of National Jewish Book Award), Vengeance and Recompense are Mine — the Yishuv, the Holocaust and Abba Kovner’s Avengers Group (2019) and numerous other books. She is Professor Emeritus of Modern Jewish History at the Department of Jewish History, Head of the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, and holds the Alfred P. Slaner Chair for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University. Since 2011 she has served as Chief Historian of Yad Vashem.
Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, who will moderate, headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous, Sheltering the Jews, Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust and The Righteous Among the Nations. He teaches at Stern College and Touro College and serves on the Board of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. Thanks to his efforts, there is now a square named for Aristides de Sousa Mendes as well as a street named for Raoul Wallenberg, both in Jerusalem. He is a member of the B’nai Brith committee in Israel honoring Jewish rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust.
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Registration for this program is closed.
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This program is co-presented with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.
