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X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Sousa Mendes Foundation
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DTSTART:20190101T000000
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210815
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210816
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210622T052845Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210813T064101Z
UID:19660-1628985600-1629071999@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Shalom Uganda
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n7 PM LISBON • 9 PM UGANDA\nxxxxx \nLearn about a small Ashkenazi Jewish community that settled in the African country of Uganda after World War II. With no rabbi or Jewish infrastructure\, this community of twenty-three families formed a cohesive group that celebrated all Jewish festivals together and upheld their Jewish identity. There is also a small but vibrant indigenous Jewish Ugandan community that survived persecution under the regime of Idi Amin and that survives to this day. Meet representatives of both communities. \n \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nJanice Masur was born in Eritrea\, spent her childhood in Uganda\, and attended university in New Zealand—all countries where Jewry was barely visible on the Jewish diaspora spectrum. She is the author of Shalom Uganda: A Jewish Community on the Equator. Today\, Masur feels strongly rooted in her Jewish community in Vancouver\, Canada\, where she lives with her husband. The author\, a retired physiotherapist\, has also held a photographic exhibit in 2019 entitled “Shalom Uganda” and has spoken in London\, England\, Toronto and Seattle\, Windhoek\, Namibia and Vancouver. She delights in sharing the historical stories of her Jewish community.  \n \nRabbi Gershom Sizomu is the rabbi\, spiritual leader and Rosh Yeshivah of the Abayudaya Congregation in Uganda. The first Jew from Sub-Saharan Africa to be ordained at a conventional rabbinic college\, he obtained a bachelors degree in education from the Islamic University of Uganda in 1999 and was ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles in 2008. In 2016 Rabbi Sizomu became the first Jew in Uganda to be elected to a five-year term as a Member of Parliament where he represented the people of Bungokho County. He is also a musician and wrote most of the songs in the Grammy-nominated album Music from the Jewish People of Uganda. \n \nRobert Jacobvitz\, who will moderate the program\, serves on the Sousa Mendes Foundation Board and chairs its Advisory Council. For ten years he directed the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater East Bay\, and it was in this capacity in the 1980’s that he began championing the cause of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In 2005 he received the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Humanitarian Medal from the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He wrote a seminal article on Aristides de Sousa Mendes that can be read at this link.x \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nRexx
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/shalom-uganda/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210808
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210809
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210626T034037Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210806T060008Z
UID:19658-1628380800-1628467199@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Woman of Valor\, Mildred Fish-Harnack
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 8 PM BERLIN\nxxxxx \nMildred Fish-Harnack was the only American citizen executed on the personal orders of Adolf Hitler. Born in Milwaukee\, she was a member of the anti-Nazi resistance group in Berlin known as the Red Orchestra.  Learn about this brave woman of valor whose story remained hidden for decades and is now coming to light. \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ August 6-9\, watch the PBS documentary Wisconsin’s Nazi Resistance — The Mildred Fish-Harnack Story on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, August 8 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\n. \n \nAnne Nelson is a prize-winning author who has written extensively about human rights and freedom of expression. Her 2017 book\, Suzanne’s Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris\, told the story of Suzanne Spaak and her extensive network to rescue Jewish children from deportation to Auschwitz. It was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards. Her previous book\, Red Orchestra\, described a leading anti-Nazi resistance network in Berlin\, and was an Editors’ Choice at The New York Times. Her current work\, Shadow Network\, deals with the political crisis in the United States today. \nStefan Roloff is an independent artist and filmmaker whose artwork and installations are shown worldwide in museums and galleries. In 1997 he began to work on his documentary film The Red Orchestra. The film is a portrait of his late father\, Helmut Roloff\, an anti-Nazi resistance hero. It was nominated for Best Foreign Film in 2005 by the Women Critics Circle. For the first time it told the true story of the “Red Orchestra\,” a resistance group that was slandered during the cold war by secret services and historians as a Communist spy network. For this film\, Roloff received a New York City Media Arts grant from the Jerome Foundation. He also wrote a book in German\, Die Rote Kapelle (Ullstein\, 2002). Photo: Eva Mueller \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \n\n 
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/woman-of-valor-mildred-fish-harnack/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210801
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210802
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210617T234331Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210801T202558Z
UID:19644-1627776000-1627862399@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Abba Kovner\, Hero and Witness
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n7 PM LISBON • 9 PM JERUSALEM\nxxxxx \nAbba 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.\n \nxxxxx \nSEE THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\n \n  \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ 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. \n⇒ 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nMichael 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.” \nProf. 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.  \n \nDr. 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. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/abba-kovner-hero-and-witness/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210725
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210726
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210625T211259Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210723T060004Z
UID:19596-1627171200-1627257599@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Salud y Shalom: American Jews in the Spanish Civil War
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nIn the 1930s\, nearly 3\,000 Americans embarked for Europe to join the democratically elected Spanish Republic in its effort to repel a military coup led by Francisco Franco. Franco had the support of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.  Nearly one-third of the Americans who went to Spain to fight fascism were Jews. This program presents their story. \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ July 23-26\, watch the film The Good Fight on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, July 25 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nDr. Gina Herrmann\, who will moderate\, is Professor of Romance Languages and Judaic Studies at the University of Oregon. She is the author of Written in Red: The Communist Memoir in Spain and editor and co-author of Spain\, The Second World War and the Holocaust. Her new research focuses on cultural memory and literary engagement with French concentration camps of WWII and the mosaic of victims and administrators whose experiences in these camps constitute a laboratory of 20th century migrant and refugee internment. She is a member of the ALBA Executive Committee. \n \nDr. Joseph Butwin is recently retired from the English Department at the University of Washington where he also taught courses on Jewish-American Literature and Culture at the University’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. In the early 1990s he interviewed 40 Jewish veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. He is currently preparing transcripts of these conversations for publication in Spain and the United States under the title Salud y Shalom: American Jews in the Spanish Civil War\, 1936-1939. Selections from these interviews along with audio cuts can be seen and heard at this link. \n \nNancy Wallach is an award-winning art educator who will speak about her father\, Hy Wallach\, a volunteer fighter in Spain who served for many years as the treasurer\, as well as corresponding secretary\, of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. She is a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA) Board of Governors. At a program organized by the Burgos Anti-Fascist Committee around the exhumations of the mass graves and prisons in Burgos\, Spain\, she provided testimony as to her own father’s incarceration at the fascist concentration camp for International Brigade prisoners at San Pedro de Cardena.  \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \n\nxxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA).
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/salud-y-shalom/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210718
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210719
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210624T012516Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210718T190824Z
UID:19656-1626566400-1626652799@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Let my people go! The Rescue of Soviet Jewry
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nThe rescue of Soviet Jewry in the 1970s and 80s was a vast project involving grassroots initiatives working in partnership with the organized Jewish community and government officials. Meet Jerry Goodman\, the founder and Executive Director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry\, and other activists who struggled on behalf of refuseniks trapped behind the Iron Curtain.  \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\n  \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ July 16-19\, (optional) rent/watch the film Refusenik on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, July 18 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANELISTS\nxxxxx \nJerry Goodman\, left\, was the founding executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry\, a national agency established to coordinate the grassroots efforts of American Jews on behalf of refuseniks. He co-established the organization in 1971 and directed it until 1988. Goodman acted as a consultant to the U.S. Congress in creating the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and helped the passing of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment\, a 1974 provision in United States federal law intended to restrict U.S. trade relations with USSR. He was one of the coordinators of the 1987 Freedom Sunday for Soviet Jews\, the largest human rights national manifestation for Soviet Jews in the history of the Soviet Jewry movement. \n \nBorn in the Soviet Union\, Semyon Pinkhasov\, right\, immigrated to the United States in 1976. After his arrival in the United States\, he coordinated the campaign to rescue the famous pianist and Soviet refusenik Vladimir Feltsman. A championship fencer\, Pinkhasov was the Fencing Coach for U.S. Pan American\, Olympic\, and Maccabiah Teams. Later he became a documentary filmmaker specializing in stories of individuals who act heroically in the face of totalitarianism. One such film is With God Against Man telling the story of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. His inspiration derives from the interplay between the various aspects of his background\, including sports\, politics and the arts.  For more information see www.semyonpinkhasov.com. \nAttorney Dorit Perry serves on the HIAS Board of Directors. She served as Chief Legal Counsel for HIAS in Rome in 1989-90 and assisted in the mass migration of 42\,000 Soviet and Iranian Jewish refugees. She has practiced international and corporate law and and led global initiatives at Intel Corporation. She has served on the Adjunct Faculty of Santa Clara University Law School and Leavey Business School. She has been appointed to the California State Bar Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution and is a Fulbright Specialist. She is a graduate of Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California\, Berkeley. \nRobert Jacobvitz\, who will moderate\, serves on the Sousa Mendes Foundation Board and chairs its Advisory Council. In the 1980s he traveled to Russia to meet refuseniks on behalf of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. At that time he directed the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater East Bay\, and it was in this capacity that he also began championing the cause of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In 2005 he received the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Humanitarian Medal from the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He wrote a seminal article on Aristides de Sousa Mendes that can be read at this link. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with HIAS. \n \nxxxsss
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/let-my-people-go-the-rescue-of-soviet-jewry/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210711
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210712
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210620T160505Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210711T220017Z
UID:19652-1625961600-1626047999@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Weapons of the Spirit
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nPierre Sauvage‘s acclaimed film Weapons of the Spirit tells the dramatic true story of the area of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon\, France\, where as many as 5\,000 Jews may have been sheltered by some 5\,000 Christians during World War II. This is a story Sauvage was born to tell: born in Le Chambon as a hidden child in 1944\, he returned to the village as an adult to probe and recount this unique “conspiracy of goodness.” \nxxxxx \n“Astonishing. Olympian. Emotionally wrenching. Bulging with profound questions of morality\, responsibility and religion.”\n– Desmond Ryan\, The Philadelphia Inquirer \n“An absolutely extraordinary story. Could not be more timely… and yet in a hundred years it is likely to be timely still.” \n– Tom Shales\, The Washington Post \n“An inquiry into the nature of goodness and a personal odyssey.  Moving and provocative.  Enormously uplifting.  What an extraordinary story.”\n– David Ansen\, Newsweek \nxxxxx \nTHE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ July 9-12\, watch Pierre Sauvage‘s film Weapons of the Spirit on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, July 11 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program to watch an interview of the filmmaker by Bill Moyers from the 1980s along with highlights from a recent interview.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nTHE FILMMAKER\n  \nPierre Sauvage\, an Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker\, is one of a pioneering handful of experts on rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust — “righteous Gentiles” — and contends that they still have much to teach us. Born into hiding in Le Chambon\, France\, Sauvage was four when he and his parents moved to New York City in 1948\, his parents choosing to hide the fact that they were Jewish. Described by Tablet magazine as “a filmmaker of rare moral perception\,” Sauvage is the President of the Chambon Foundation. In addition to Weapons of the Spirit\, his films include Not Idly By — Peter Bergson\, America and the Holocaust\, Yiddish: the Mother Tongue\, and We Were There: Christians and the Holocaust.  \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \nThis program is presented in partnership with the Chambon Foundation.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/weapons-of-the-spirit/
CATEGORIES:Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210613
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210614
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210515T010355Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210613T200144Z
UID:19585-1623542400-1623628799@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:The Rescuers
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n7 PM LONDON • 9 PM JERUSALEM\nxxxxx \nWhat is the mystery of goodness?  This question is at the core of the film The Rescuers by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael King who examines the stories of a dozen diplomat rescuers during the Holocaust. The film follows Stephanie Nyombayire\, a young Rwandan anti-genocide activist\, and Sir Martin Gilbert\, the renowned Holocaust historian\, as they travel across 15 countries and three continents interviewing survivors and descendants of the diplomats. A powerful and important film!\n \nxxxxx \nSEE THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ June 11-14\, watch Michael King‘s film The Rescuers on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, June 13 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nEmmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael King has produced\, directed and written films for three decades. He is an Adjunct Professor of Film at Arizona State University\, The Sidney Poitier New American Film School. His film Rapping with Shakespeare examines how an inner city English teacher used hip-hop and rap to help his students access the works of Shakespeare. King holds film degrees from the University of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Academy of Arts. He is currently developing the Rescuers Last Chance project — to tell the stories of all 35+ diplomats recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. King is a member of the Directors Guild of America. In 2009\, he was awarded Switzerland’s Carl Lutz Medal of Freedom. \n \nJoyce D. Mandell\, the Executive Producer of The Rescuers\, is a successful businesswoman and philanthropist who is actively involved in civic\, arts and cultural organizations. She and her son\, Bruce\, have a long-time relationship with film director Michael King. She is past President and Chairman of the Board of the Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center\, the first woman to serve in those positions\, and presently serves as a Trustee for the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford. She is also involved in the Koby Mandell Foundation\, whose goal is to help Israeli families cope with the emotional and psychological trauma that affects victims of terrorism. \n \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving 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. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with the Carl Lutz Circle.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/the-rescuers/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210606T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210606T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210503T231026Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210606T225807Z
UID:19570-1622995200-1622998800@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Ben Ferencz\, World War II Veteran and the Last Surviving Prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials\, Interviewed by Dr. Yael Danieli
DESCRIPTION:Special D-Day program! Benjamin Ferencz was the Chief Prosecutor for the United States in the Einsatzgruppen Case\, which the Associated Press called “the biggest murder trial in history.” Twenty-two defendants were charged with murdering over a million people. He was only twenty-seven years old\, and it was his first case.   \nAfter Ben graduated from Harvard Law School in 1943\, he joined an anti-aircraft artillery battalion preparing for the invasion of France. As an enlisted man under General Patton\, he fought in most of the major campaigns in Europe. As Nazi atrocities were uncovered\, he was transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch of the Army to gather evidence of Nazi brutality and apprehend the criminals. Ferencz was sent with about fifty researchers to Berlin to scour Nazi offices and archives. In their hands lay overwhelming evidence of Nazi genocide by German doctors\, lawyers\, judges\, generals\, industrialists\, and others who played leading roles in organizing or perpetrating Nazi brutalities. All twenty-two of the defendants whom Ferencz put on trial were convicted. Thirteen were sentenced to death. The verdict was hailed as a great success for the prosecution. Ferencz’s primary objective had been to establish a legal precedent that would encourage a more humane and secure world in the future. \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ June 4-7 watch the film Law\, Not War: Ben Ferencz’s Fight for Justice ($2.99 rental) on your home device. A link to the amazon rental page will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, June 6 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the conversation. Dr. Yael Danieli will introduce her interview with Ben Ferencz\, recorded specially for this program. Following the interview\, she will be joined by Professor Jennifer Trahan\, Clinical Professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs\, to answer any questions on the Nuremberg trials\, reparations\, or the crime of aggression. A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE DISTINGUISHED INTERVIEWER\nxxxxx \n \nDr. Yael Danieli\, a clinical psychologist\, victimologist and pioneer traumatologist\, is the founder of the International Center for Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma. Founder/Director of the Group Project for Holocaust Survivors and their Children since the mid-1970s and an expert on reparative justice\, she has published\, consulted\, and received awards worldwide\, including in South Africa\, Rwanda\, Bosnia & Herzegovina\, and Northern Ireland. The Danieli Inventory for Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma allows scientifically valid assessment and comparative international study. She participated in creating all international instruments on behalf on victims’ rights and optimal care. In 2008 she was appointed Advisor on Victims of Terrorism for the office of the UN Secretary-General.  \nxxxxx \nJOINING THE PROGRAM FOR THE Q&A\nxxxxx \n \nJennifer Trahan is Clinical Professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs where she directs the Concentration in International Law and Human Rights and teaches International Law. Her book Existing Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes was published in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. She is on the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association. She has served as an amicus curiae to the International Criminal Court on the appeal of the situation regarding Afghanistan\, and serves on the Council of Advisers on the Application of the Rome Statute to Cyberwarfare. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with the International Center for the Study\, Treatment and Prevention of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/ben-ferencz-prosecutor-at-nuremberg/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210530
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210531
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210503T175426Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210528T060007Z
UID:19559-1622332800-1622419199@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Sousa Mendes Remembered
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nOn this Memorial Day program we honor the memory of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes with a panel featuring former Congressman Tony Coelho\, who was instrumental in bringing justice for this hero in his home country of Portugal\, and two granddaughters of Sousa Mendes: Sheila Abranches-Pierce and Angelina Mendes Muetzel. The program will be moderated by Robert Jacobvitz\, a pioneer in the effort to have Sousa Mendes recognized for his action to save Jews and other refugees from the Holocaust. \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ May 28-31 (optional) watch the film Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story ($6.99) on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register\, with film rental instructions. \n⇒ Sunday\, May 30 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the free presentation by our distinguished panel. A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nThe Honorable Anthony “Tony” Coelho is a former six-term United States Congressman from California\, and House Majority Whip\, the third most powerful position in the House of Representatives. It was thanks to his intervention in the Sousa Mendes case as a Portuguese-American leader that Portugal finally reversed its punishment of the Holocaust rescuer and declared him a national hero. He was the primary author and sponsor of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the last 30 years. In 2018\, Mr. Coelho founded The Coelho Center for Disability Law\, Policy and Innovation at Loyola Marymount University. \n \nSheila Abranches-Pierce (right) is a granddaughter of the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes and his wife Angelina. Her father John Paul\, their 14th child\, was instrumental in the effort to have Portugal recognize Sousa Mendes as a national hero. She is a former Board member of the Sousa Mendes Foundation and has been active in telling her grandfather’s story since the 1990s. Born and raised in the East Bay\, she spent 27 years working in the banking industry in New York before moving home to California to marry her high school sweetheart. Over the years\, she has enjoyed the privilege of representing the Sousa Mendes family at various events in the tri-state area\, Portugal\, France and California.   \n \nAngelina “Gigí” Mendes Muetzel (left) is a granddaughter of Aristides and Angelina de Sousa Mendes. Her father was Carlos Francisco Fernando\, their 11th child. Gigí attended school in the US\, Mexico\, Portugal and England. She has participated along with her family in various Sousa Mendes events in CA\, Mexico\, the United Nations in NY\, and the European Parliament in France. She also has shared her grandfather’s story with local media and different groups. She is now retired and living with her husband Duane at their ranch in Oregon. They have two daughters María\, AmyLea and a grandson Joaquín\, who is the light of her life.  \nRobert Jacobvitz\, who will moderate\, is a Board member of the Sousa Mendes Foundation and Chair of its International Advisory Council. He is a graduate of Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work and holds an MSW in Community Social Work. For ten years he directed the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater East Bay\, and it was in this capacity in the 1980’s that he began championing the cause of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. He wrote a seminal article on Aristides de Sousa Mendes that can be read at this link. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/sousa-mendes-remembered/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210523
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210524
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210327T034542Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210523T200015Z
UID:19261-1621728000-1621814399@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Mendelssohn\, the Nazis and Me
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n7 PM LONDON\nxxxxx \nFelix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy pianist and composer who was famous from a young age. Born into an illustrious Berlin Jewish family (his grandfather was the theologian Moses Mendelssohn who began the assimilation of Jews into German society)\, Felix was baptised Lutheran\, along with his siblings\, at the age of seven\, in part because at that time Jews in Germany did not have full civil rights. For the rest of his short life (he died at age 38)\, Mendelssohn strove to unite the two religions in his music\, continuing what his grandfather had begun. He became one of Germany’s most beloved composers\, and millions of brides have walked down the aisle to his Wedding March. One hundred years later the Nazis came to power\, banned Mendelssohn’s music in Germany and re-classified his (mainly Lutheran) descendants as Jews\, threatening their lives. One of these descendants\, the filmmaker Sheila Hayman\, decided to tell her family’s story on screen. Her wide-ranging and fascinating film is about the madness of labels and the unifying power of music. \n\n \nWATCH THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n \n  \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ May 21-24\, watch Sheila Hayman‘s film Mendelssohn\, the Nazis and Me on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, May 23 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nSheila Hayman has written and directed films for the BBC\, ARTE\, Beijing TV and others\, winning a BAFTA and Time Out Documentary Series of the Year\, and a Robert Kennedy award. She has been UK Young Journalist of the Year\, the BAFTA/Fulbright Fellow in Los Angeles\, a columnist for The Guardian\, and is a Director’s Fellow of the MIT Media Lab. She has also worked with the UK NGO Freedom from Torture on behalf of refugees. Mendelssohn\, the Nazis and Me was nominated for the Grierson Arts Documentary of the Year. She is now working on a film about Fanny Mendelssohn\, her conflicted relationship with her own extraordinary talent\, and the part Felix played in its suppression. \n \nR. Larry Todd is Arts & Sciences Professor at Duke University. His books include Mendelssohn: A Life in Music\, described as “likely to be the standard biography for a long time to come” (New York Review of Books)\, and Fanny Hensel: The Other Mendelssohn\, which received the ASCAP Slonimsky Prize. A fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and National Humanities Center\, he edits the Master Musician Series (Oxford University Press). As a pianist\, he has recorded the complete cello/piano works of the Mendelssohns for JRI Recordings. Among his recent books are Discovering Music and\, with co-author Marc Moskovitz\, Beethoven’s Cello: Five Revolutionary Sonatas and Their World. \nLily E. Hirsch is an expert on Jewish musical life under the Nazi regime. She is a Visiting Scholar at California State University\, Bakersfield. Previously\, she taught as Assistant Professor of Music at Cleveland State University. She holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Duke University and is the author of A Jewish Orchestra in Nazi Germany: Musical Politics and the Berlin Jewish Culture League\, Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment\, Anneliese Landau’s Life in Music: Nazi Germany to Émigré California\, Weird Al: Seriously\, and\, as co-editor\, Dislocated Memories: Jews\, Music\, and Postwar German Culture\, winner of the American Musicological Society’s Ruth A. Solie Award. She is working on a study of humor in music as well as a book about the connection between music and insult. \nxxxxx \nWe have a generous benefactor for this program who is offering sponsored tickets to those who need it. Thank you to our benefactor!xxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/mendelssohn-the-nazis-and-me/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210516
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210517
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210313T201604Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210517T052126Z
UID:19233-1621123200-1621209599@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Spy Princess -- The Story of Noor Inayat Khan
DESCRIPTION:Books available! We are offering signed and inscribed copies of the best-selling historical thriller Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan by Shrabani Basu in conjunction with this program. Price: $18 + shipping. \n\n\n\n\nxxxxx \nxxxx\nABOUT THE AUTHOR\n  \nShrabani Basu is a journalist and best-selling author. Her books include The Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle\, George Edalji and the Case of the Foreigner in the English Village\, For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front 1914-18\, Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (now a major motion picture)\, Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan\, and Curry: The Story of the Nation’s Favourite Dish. She is the founder and chair of the Noor Inayat Khan Memorial Trust which campaigned for a memorial for the World War II heroine in London. It was unveiled by Princess Anne in 2012. 
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/spy-princess/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210509
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210510
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210325T193541Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210507T060505Z
UID:19249-1620518400-1620604799@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Faye Schulman\, Partisan and Photographer
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nThis Mother’s Day program remembers the brave partisan Faye Schulman\, whose photographs are the only visual record of the resistance action of the Polish partisans. The program is co-presented with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF) and will be moderated by Mitch Braff.\n \nxxxxx \n\n\n\n\n\n \nBOOKS AVAILABLE — PERFECT FOR MOTHER’S DAY!  \nxxxxx \nGet yours today! We are offering books by Joanne Gilbert and Faye Schulman in conjunction with this program. A rare opportunity!  For details and to order yours\, click here. \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ May 7-10\, watch Shelley Saywell‘s film Out of the Fire on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, May 9 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our distinguished panel of guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx\n \nShelley Saywell\, director of Out of the Fire\, has directed and produced twenty independent documentary films. She has won an Emmy for Investigative Journalism\, two Best Canadian Documentary Awards at Hot Docs International Festival\, and her feature documentary A Child Century of War was shortlisted for an Academy Award. WIFT presented her with the Creative Excellence Award in 2010. Saywell is the author of Women in War and contributing editor to Ourselves Among Others.  She has written for The Huffington Post\, Chatelaine\, Women’s World\, and other publications. She is currently writing a memoir. Her website is: www.bisharifilms.com \n \nAuthor Joanne D. Gilbert was profoundly affected by the stories told by her grandmother\, who had been able to leave Vilna\, Lithuania before the Nazis destroyed the Jewish community there. Joanne became dedicated to finding and celebrating the truth of Jewish heroism during the Holocaust. Her books Women of Valor: Polish Jewish Resisters to the Third Reich (2018) and A Victory for Miriam! The Little Jewish Girl Who Defied the Nazis (2019) have received outstanding reviews. Her next book is Women of Valor: German\, French\, & Dutch Resisters to the Third Reich. She is currently developing a walking tour of the Jewish Resistance in Paris. \nMitch Braff\, founder of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF)\, will moderate the discussion. Over the past 20 years\, in collaboration with a committed staff and board\, he has built JPEF into a world-renowned organization\, impacting more than one million students and over 20\,000 educators annually through the history and life lessons of the Jewish partisans. JPEF’s innovative educational materials are used by Holocaust\, social studies\, English\, and Jewish studies educators everywhere. JPEF is recognized as one of the most innovative Jewish organizations in the world\, and its online learning platform is a model for both Jewish and secular education. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.xxxxx \nThis program is co-presented with the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. Photo credit of Faye Schulman with a rifle:  JPEF/A Partisan’s Memoir\, Second Story Press\, p. 115.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/faye-schulman-partisan-and-photographer/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210502
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210503
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210325T194643Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210904T201024Z
UID:19202-1619913600-1619999999@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Captain Barros Basto\, the Portuguese Dreyfus
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n7 PM LISBON • 9 PM JERUSALEM\nxxxxx \nArtur Carlos de Barros Basto was a captain in the Portuguese military who was discharged as a Jew despite having been raised as a Catholic. Descended from a family forcibly converted during The Inquisition\, he rediscovered his Judaism and underwent a formal conversion. Then he built the largest synagogue in the Iberian peninsula in order to attract other “conversos” to reclaim the religion of their ancestors. A remarkable story!  \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ April 30-May 3\, watch Luis Ismael‘s film Sefarad on your own (available on Amazon Prime). \n⇒ Sunday\, May 2 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nInacio Steinhardt was born in Lisbon\, Portugal in 1933 and made aliyah in 1976. He co-authored with Elvira Mea a biography of Captain Barros Basto and authored many articles in several languages. He is a retired journalist representing the Portuguese News Agency LUSA in Israel. He was given a “lifetime achievement” award from the Institute for the Research of Judaism in Spain and Portugal of Natanya College in Israel. He was President of the Israel-Portugal Friendship Association. In 2002 he was decorated by the President of Portugal as Commander of the Order of Merit. \n \nDara Jeffries (left)\, a dual-national who splits her time between the United States and Portugal\, will speak about Jewish life in Porto today. She chairs the Supervisory Board of the Jewish Community of Porto\, of which she has been a member since childhood. She speaks at international film festivals and conferences about the Community’s films\, museums and educational programs. Dara holds a Masters in languages from Oxford University\, a Portuguese Law degree and a US Law degree\, and is a practicing attorney.  \nMariana Abrantes (right)\, who will moderate the panel\, is the Board Treasurer of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. Coming from a village in central Portugal\, she studied Economics at UC-Berkeley and earned an MA from Princeton. After training and working in Chase Manhattan Bank\, she returned to Portugal\, where she worked at the European Investment Bank. She also served in the Ministries of Transport and Health\, and on the Boards of international investment funds and the Fulbright Commission Portugal. She is a dual Portuguese-US citizen. \n \nJeannette V. Fischer (Cookie) (left) will speak about Samuel van den Bergh\, her great-grandfather from the Netherlands. He was an active benefactor of Captain Barros Basto and supported the construction of the Porto synagogue. Cookie grew up in Peru of European parents. She has lived and worked in the US\, Asia\, Europe\, Mexico\, South America\, Cuba and Israel. Her Dutch mother escaped from Bayonne\, France\, June 22\, 1940 on a sardine schooner with a visa issued by Aristides de Sousa Mendes. Cookie is a teacher\, trainer\, coach and global intercultural consultant.  She speaks nine languages and works in six. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/captain-barros-basto-the-portuguese-dreyfus/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210425
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210426
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210223T032558Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210425T220726Z
UID:19132-1619308800-1619395199@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Lessons in Moral Courage -- Irshad Manji in conversation with Abraham H. Foxman
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nIrshad Manji is the winner of Oprah Winfrey’s first annual Chutzpah Award for boldness. As founder of the Moral Courage Project\, Irshad equips people to do the right thing in the face of fear. She discovered her mission through a deeply personal journey. In 2003\, Irshad released The Trouble with Islam Today\, an open letter to her fellow Muslims about why anti-Semitism and other prejudices must end in the name of Allah. In 2007\, Irshad turned the book into an Emmy-nominated PBS film\, Faith Without Fear. And in 2011\, she published Allah\, Liberty & Love\, which shows how Islam can be reinterpreted for the 21st century. Along the way\, Irshad became a professor of moral courage — first teaching at New York University and now lecturing with Oxford University’s Initiative for Global Ethics and Human Rights. Irshad’s latest book is Don’t Label Me. In our deeply polarized time\, she says\, standing for what’s right is not enough to make progress. We must also learn to engage the “Other.” Labeling is easy. But listening is a form of moral courage. \nxxxxx \nLEARN ABOUT THE TRANSFORMATIONAL MOMENT IN IRSHAD’S LIFE\n  \n\nxxxxx \nMEET THE DISTINGUISHED INTERVIEWER\nxxxxx \n \nInterviewing Irshad Manji will be Abraham H. Foxman. After serving 28 years as National Director and a total of fifty years with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)\, Foxman retired in 2015 and became National Director Emeritus. He is world-renowned as a leader in the fight against anti-semitism\, bigotry and discrimination and speaks out on issues of global anti-semitism\, the war on terrorism\, church/state issues\, religious intolerance and issues relating to the Holocaust. During his long and distinguished career\, Foxman has had consultations with world leaders on every continent including the three most recent popes. Abraham Foxman was a hidden child in Poland during the Holocaust. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \nxxxxx \n\n\n\n\n\n\nBooks available! \nxxxxx \nBoth authors are offering signed and inscribed books in conjunction with this program. A rare opportunity! For details and to order yours\, click here. \nxxxxx
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/lessons-in-moral-courage-a-conversation-with-irshad-manji/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Discussion,Lecture
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210418
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210419
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210324T012743Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210416T165941Z
UID:19175-1618704000-1618790399@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Rescue at Entebbe
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n9 PM JERUSALEM\nxxxxx \n“I flew to the Entebbe operation as an Israeli\, and returned to Israel as a Jew.” – Rami Sherman \nThis year marks the 45th anniversary of history’s most daring and influential rescue: the 1976 Operation Thunderbolt\, during which Israeli commandos liberated more than 100 hostages held by German and Palestinian terrorists in Entebbe\, Uganda. Meet one of the mission’s leaders\, Rami Sherman\, who served as an officer in Israel’s top commando unit\, and Boaz Dvir\, an award-winning nonfiction storyteller who spent the past decade researching this operation\, to hear a new take on an operation that continues to impact America’s counterterrorism strategy. \n \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nRami Sherman (right) is one of the heroes of the legendary Entebbe rescue operation. The son of Holocaust survivors who came to Israel in 1945\, he grew up and was educated in the kibbutz system. He enlisted in the Israeli army in 1972 and was accepted into a Special Forces elite unit. After completing the combat soldier course\, he was sent to Officers School in order to return and receive command of a squad within the unit. In 1976\, when an Air France airliner was hijacked and rerouted to Entebbe\, he was the Operations Officer of the unit\, under the command of Yoni Netanyahu. He began telling his story in 2016\, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the rescue at Entebbe. He is married\, with two children and five grandchildren. \nIsraeli-American filmmaker Boaz Dvir (left) tells stories of ordinary people who transform into trailblazers: an inner-city schoolteacher who becomes a disruptive innovator (Discovering Gloria); a truck driver who becomes a child-protection activist (Jessie’s Dad); a Holocaust survivor who sets out to kill his father’s Nazi executioner (Cojot); and a flight engineer who leads a secret\, illegal operation to prevent what he views as a second Holocaust (A Wing and a Prayer\, winner of Best Documentary at the 2016 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival). He serves on the Journalism faculty of Penn State University\, where he also directs the Holocaust\, Genocide & Human Rights Education Initiative. He is the author of Saving Israel (2020). \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.xxxxx \nThis program is co-sponsored by the Holocaust\, Genocide and Human Rights Educational Initiative at Penn State University. For a press release on this program\, click here.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/rescue-at-entebbe/
CATEGORIES:Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210411
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210412
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210325T195129Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210411T224648Z
UID:19241-1618099200-1618185599@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Hava Nagila -- Anthem of Jewish Rejoicing
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nJoin us for a celebration!\nxxxxx \nHava Nagila (The Movie) is a documentary romp through the history\, mystery and meaning of the great Jewish standard. Featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte\, Leonard Nimoy\, Connie Francis\, Glen Campbell\, Regina Spektor and more\, the film follows the ubiquitous party song on its fascinating journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the kibbutzim of Palestine to the cul-de-sacs of America. High on fun and entertainment\, Hava Nagila (The Movie) is also surprisingly profound\, tapping into universal themes about the importance of joy\, the power of music and the resilient spirit of a people.  \n“When you find a song that says ‘Let us rejoice\,’ there’s no better song to leave an evening with. Hava Nagila tells us who we should be and what we\, in a fundamental sense\, aspire to be – peoples of love and joy and peace.” – Harry Belafonte\n  \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\n  \n \nxxxxx\nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ April 9-12\, watch Roberta Grossman‘s film Hava Nagila (The Movie) on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, April 11 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our distinguished panel of guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nPianist Richard Glazier has performed in almost every state and has been a soloist with Pops orchestras across the country. He has won several major international piano competitions including the National Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Competition and the Pro Musicis International Award. He was invited by the Gershwin family to tour across the country in Rhapsody and Rhythm: The Gershwin Concert Experience. Glazier has had three nationally broadcast television specials on PBS. The shows have won multiple awards\, including four Telly Awards for Outstanding Achievement in entertainment\, documentary and cultural programming. He has been featured on the PBS NewsHour and records exclusively for Centaur Records. \n \nFilmmaker Roberta Grossman received the 2018 Washington Jewish Film Festival’s Annual Visionary Award for “creativity and insight in presenting the full diversity of the Jewish experience through the moving image.” Her feature documentaries about Jewish history and culture include Blessed is the Match (2008); Hava Nagila (The Movie) (2012); Above and Beyond (2014) and Who Will Write Our History (2018). She is a three-time recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the co-founder of the non-profit production company Katahdin Productions. \nHenry Sapoznik is an award-winning record and radio producer\, author\, and ethnomusicologist in the fields of Yiddish and American popular and traditional culture. He is featured in the film Hava Nagila (The Movie). A five-time Grammy-nominated producer\, he won the 2002 Peabody award for his 13-part NPR series “The Yiddish Radio Project” — the collection of which was acquired by the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress in 2011. Sapoznik’s most recent reissue box set is  Protobilly: The Minstrel and Tin Pan Alley Roots of Country Music 1892-2017 (2019). He is working on a book about the shvartze khazonim — the Black cantors.  \nxxxxx \nIs cost an issue?  We have a generous benefactor for this program who is offering sponsored tickets to those who need it.   \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/hava-nagila-anthem-of-jewish-rejoicing/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210314
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210315
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210206T070849Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210314T200306Z
UID:19186-1615680000-1615766399@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Dear Fredy
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK\n6 PM LONDON • 7 PM PARIS • 8 PM JERUSALEM\n(Please note: Daylight Savings Time in the United States) \n“We Jews don’t have saints\, but we do have tzaddikim\, righteous people\, people of tzedek\, of justice. Perhaps the word could also be translated as ‘decency.’” \n– Zuzana Růžičková\, Holocaust survivor\, speaking about Fredy Hirsch\n \nFredy Hirsch was a revered Jewish sportsman and youth leader who brightened the lives of children at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. Born in Aachen\, Germany\, he was 19 years old when the Nuremberg Laws were imposed\, and he fled to Prague. There he began activities as a sports teacher and youth counselor in the Maccabee Hashomer Hatzair Zionist youth movement\, and soon became his students’ object of admiration. Together with members of the underground in Auschwitz\, he planned a revolt that never came to pass. Using rare photographs\, archival footage\, the testimonies of survivors\, and animation\, Dear Fredy is a celebration of a heroic figure who died in the Holocaust fighting for the betterment of others. He has been recognized posthumously by B’nai B’rith International as a Jewish rescuer of Jews. \nxxxxx \nSEE THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ March 12-15\, watch Rubi Gat‘s film Dear Fredy on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, March 14 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. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nRubi Gat is an editor and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. He has presented Dear Fredy at numerous film festivals\, to wide acclaim. The film won the Houston Film Critics Society Award Grand Jury Prize\, the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Festival Vues d’en Face in Grenoble\, France\, in 2019\, and other international recognitions. His previous film Not a Hero depicts the journey of his son\, a teenager in a wheelchair\, to be accepted to the army like his peers. From 1994 until 2010 he was Chief Video Editor at the BBC bureau in Jerusalem. He is writing a novel on the “first intifada” in Israel. \nDr. Inge Auerbacher (right) is a chemist and Holocaust child survivor who met Fredy Hirsch during her imprisonment at Theresienstadt and recalls learning from him how to perform a handstand. A prolific author and sought-after speaker\, she is the author of I am a Star\, Beyond the Yellow Star\, Finding Dr. Schatz\, Children of Terror\, Running Against the Wind\, and Highway to New York. She is a recipient of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor\, the Louis E. Yavner Citizen Award and a Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from Long Island University. She was honored by the German government and delivered the keynote address during the United Nations Days of Remembrance in 2019. \n \nDr. Nili Keren (left) is an expert on the action of Fredy Hirsch to ease the trauma of children incarcerated in Theresienstadt and Auschwitz. She is the author of “Children” in The Holocaust Encyclopedia published by Yale University Press. A disciple of the Holocaust studies pioneer Yehuda Bauer\, she taught for many years in the Kibbutzim College of Education in Tel Aviv. She was a visiting professor at Stockton University in New Jersey. Her books include Shoah: A Journey into Memory\, Fragments of Memory. A History of the Holocaust (with Yehuda Bauer)\, a book about the children of Theresienstadt\, and a Holocaust textbook for high schools in Israel. \n\n \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving 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. \nxxxxx \n  \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/dear-fredy/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210307T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210307T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210204T073610Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210305T080025Z
UID:19191-1615132800-1615136400@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Bulgarian Miracle
DESCRIPTION:In 1943\, during the darkest times of human history\, a handful of people in tiny Bulgaria stood up against Hitler… and succeeded. This is a true story about the remarkable rescue of 49\,172 people — the entire Jewish population of Bulgaria. Plamen Petkov‘s documentary film 49\,172 tells the story. \n \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ March 5-8\, watch Plamen Petkov‘s film 49\,172 on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, March 7 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our panel of distinguished guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\n  \n \nPlamen Petkov is a Bulgarian-born documentary filmmaker based in Boston\, MA. His 10-episode documentary The Bulgarians was aired by the largest Bulgarian broadcaster and sold close to 500\,000 copies on DVD. His film The Liberators of Bulgaria received the award for “Best Historical Documentary” in Bulgaria. His film 49\,172 is a gripping story of the rescue of Bulgaria’s entire Jewish population. He is the author of The Bulgarians and The Bulgarians Before Bulgaria. He was an adjunct professor of Mass Communications at New Bulgarian University. He holds an MA in Psychology (The University of Sofia) and an MFA in Visual and Media Arts (Emerson College\, Boston). \n \nDr. Alice Handel Eichenbaum was born in Vienna in 1928 and moved to Sofia\, Bulgaria in 1934. She attended German and French private schools until March 1942. She was then forced to wear the yellow star and to move to the town of Karnobat in May 1943 with her family. They were liberated by the Russian Army on September 9\, 1944. Dr. Eichenbaum received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in Graz\, Austria in 1954. She married Raymond Eichenbaum (an Auschwitz survivor) and moved to the US\, where she worked as a chemist. Dr. Eichenbaum lives in Rhode Island and is a frequent speaker on her wartime experience in Bulgaria. \n\n \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving 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. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/bulgaria/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210228T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210228T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210206T055928Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210226T084631Z
UID:19198-1614528000-1614531600@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Nobody Wants Us
DESCRIPTION:In 1940\, a ship called the S.S. Quanza left the port of Lisbon carrying several hundred Jewish refugees to freedom. Most of them held life-saving visas issued by the Holocaust rescuer Aristides de Sousa Mendes. But events went terribly wrong\, and the passengers became trapped on the ship when no country would accept them. Nobody Wants Us tells the gripping true story of how Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in to save the passengers on board. Other heroes of the Quanza were the lawyers Jacob and Sallie Morewitz and members of the National Council of Jewish Women. This is an episode in American history that everyone should know!\n \nxxxxx \nSEE THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ February 26-29\, watch Laura Seltzer-Duny‘s film Nobody Wants Us on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, February 28 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our panel of guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nLaura Seltzer-Duny is an award-winning PBS filmmaker who has a special interest in producing documentary films about communities and unsung heroes. She is drawn to the topic of migration and has produced numerous stories about the plight of refugees and their stories of resettlement. Laura is based in the Washington\, DC area and will travel around the globe for a cause she believes in. Her work has aired on PBS\, CNN\, MSNBC\, CBS\, NBC and The Discovery Channel. She has produced films for the National Library of Medicine\, the National Institutes of Health\, and the Department of Education. She is a member of the Educational Initiatives Committee of the Sousa Mendes Foundation.  \n \nBlanche Wiesen Cook is a Distinguished Professor of History and Women’s Studies at the John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  She is the author of the three-volume definitive biography of Eleanor Roosevelt. Volume One was awarded the 1992 Biography prize from the Los Angeles Times. NPR included the third volume in its “Best books of 2016.” Cook co-founded the Freedom of Information and Access Committee of the Organization of American Historians and was chair of the Fund for Open Information and Accountability. \n \nRebecca N. Eichler is an immigration attorney and refugee advocate. She lives and works in Mexico\, advising deportees from the U.S\, migrants in transit\, and asylum seekers at the US border. In fall 2018\, she spearheaded central Mexico’s legal aid response to the migrant caravans\, providing consultations and know-your-rights presentations to hundreds of migrants on what to expect at the border. She holds a J.D. from William & Mary Law School and a Masters of Law in International Human Rights from the University of London. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/nobody-wants-us/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210221
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210222
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210109T074251Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210222T000404Z
UID:19147-1613865600-1613951999@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Soros
DESCRIPTION:1 PM LOS ANGELES • 4 PM NEW YORK\nxxxxx \nBillionaire activist George Soros is one of the most influential and controversial figures of our time. Famous for betting against the Bank of England in 1992 and making a billion dollars in one day\, he is maligned by ideologues on both the left and the right for daring to tackle the world’s problems and putting his money behind his fight – from free elections and freedom of the press to civil rights for minorities. With unprecedented access to the man and his inner circle\, filmmaker Jesse Dylan\, the son of music icon Bob Dylan\, follows Soros across the globe and pulls back the curtain on his personal history\, private wealth\, and public activism. The resulting filmed portrait reveals a complicated genius whose experience as a Jew during the Holocaust gave rise to a lifelong crusade against authoritarianism and hate. \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\n\nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\n⇒ February 19-22\, watch Jesse Dylan‘s film Soros on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, February 21 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our all-star panel of guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n \nA prolific director\, immersive storyteller\, and visionary problem-solver\, Jesse Dylan strives to be in service of ideas that change the world both inside and outside of his creative agency Wondros. Vibrant in his passions and dedicated to creating thoughtful\, engaging content\, he is the energy behind his projects’ mission to break barriers and generate large-scale impact. As the mind behind some of the most successful campaigns in commercial television\, print and interactive advertising\, Jesse has dedicated his career to telling the stories of some of the world’s most innovative individuals and organizations. \n \nProducer Priscilla Cohen has created award-winning content that is both socially responsible and visually compelling\, bringing an authentic and compassionate voice to each new project. In 2008 she worked alongside filmmaker Jesse Dylan to produce the Emmy-Award winning Yes We Can video on behalf of then-candidate Barack Obama. Some of the films that she worked on include: Interview with a Vampire\, A River Runs Through It\, The Cider House Rules and Within the Whirlwind which won the European Time For Peace award. She is the Chief Creative Officer at the Wondros creative agency. \n \nDr. Michael Berenbaum is Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute and co-founder of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His books include A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors; The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum;A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis and Witness to the Holocaust: An Illustrated Documentary History of the Holocaust in the Words of Its Victims\, Perpetrators\, and Bystanders. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. \nxxxxx \n\nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/soros/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210214T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210214T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210109T092834Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210212T080432Z
UID:19152-1613318400-1613322000@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Resistance of the Heart - A Valentine's Day Program
DESCRIPTION:The Rosenstrasse Protest is the nearly-forgotten story of a group of women in Berlin who faced down the Third Reich — and won! In February of 1943\, several hundred non-Jewish wives of Jewish men faced down Hitler’s genocidal policy and the SS to secure the release of their captured husbands. Nathan Stoltzfus is the world’s expert on this history\, and he will be in dialogue with historian Mordecai Paldiel as well as Ruth Wiseman\, whose family lived this story. \n\n\n xxxxx\nMEET THE PANEL\n xxxxx\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \nNathan Stoltzfus is the Rintels Professor of Holocaust Studies at Florida State University. His book Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany won numerous prestigious awards. His other books include Hitler’s Compromises: Coercion and Consensus in Nazi Germany\, Protest in Hitler’s National Community: Social Unrest and the Nazi Response\, Nazi Crimes and the Law and Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary People. He is currently co-editing a book titled Women Defying Hitler. He has established the Rosenstrasse Foundation to document this forgotten history. \nRuth Wiseman graduated from U.C. Davis in 1992 with a B.A. in International Relations and Russian. After college she spent a year in Russia\, where she interviewed Jews born in pre-Soviet times. Upon returning to her hometown of Berkeley\, CA\, she interviewed Russian survivors for the Holocaust Oral History Project. She was later approached by Survivors of the Shoah to be an interviewer and conducted more than three dozen interviews for the organization. Ruth is the daughter of Dr. Rita Jenny Kuhn\, a Shoah survivor from Berlin\, Germany who was detained at Rosenstrasse in February 1943 and released through the brave efforts of the women who protested the arrests. Ruth is the author of How the Moon Became Dim (Saturn’s Moon Press\, 2017). She is working on a version of the Rosenstrasse Protest for children.  \n \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving 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. \n\nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. \n\n 
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/resistance-of-the-heart-a-valentines-day-program/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210207T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210207T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20210117T081931Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210205T080303Z
UID:19166-1612713600-1612717200@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:In My Mother's Footsteps
DESCRIPTION:Caught within the ever-approaching steel jaws of Nazi exterminators\, 19-year-old Leah Steppel from Dusseldorf successfully escapes Europe via Portugal — thanks to a precious visa from Aristides de Sousa Mendes. More than seven decades later\, her daughter Rebecca Barber retraces Leah’s footsteps to freedom. \n\n\n xxxxx\nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ February 5-8 (optional) watch the film Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story ($6.99) on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register\, with film rental instructions. \n⇒ Sunday\, February 7 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the free presentation by Rebecca Barber in discussion with Robert Jacobvitz. A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\n xxxxx\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \nRebecca Barber is the author of In My Mother’s Footsteps: An Odyssey of Faith and Courage about her mother’s journey to freedom in 1939-1940 and her own journey in 2017 with the Sousa Mendes Foundation through France\, Spain and Portugal. Using meticulous historical research and clues her mother left behind\, Rebecca solves one mystery after another about her family history. Her presentation will include a dramatic reading from Leah’s exodus diary. She is a frequent public speaker to audiences at Holocaust museums and genealogical societies. Her book is available at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at this link. \n \nRobert Jacobvitz\, who will be in conversation with Rebecca Barber\, serves on the Sousa Mendes Foundation Board. For ten years he directed the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Greater East Bay\, and it was in this capacity in the 1980’s that he began championing the cause of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. In 2005 he received the Aristides de Sousa Mendes Humanitarian Medal from the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. He wrote a seminal article on Aristides de Sousa Mendes that can be read at this link.xxxxx \n\nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed. Instructions and links will be sent by email on Friday\, February 5 and again on the morning of the program to all who registered.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/in-my-mothers-footsteps/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20210131
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20210201
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201225T092339Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250129T215444Z
UID:19092-1612051200-1612137599@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Woman of Valor -- The Story of Hannah Senesh
DESCRIPTION:11 AM LOS ANGELES • 2 PM NEW YORK • 9 PM JERUSALEM\nxxxxx \nThere are few figures in world history like Hannah Senesh. Possessed at a young age by the mission to save the Jewish people\, she was an ardent Zionist who moved to Palestine to help establish a Jewish homeland. Then\, in the midst of the Nazi genocide in Europe she volunteered to parachute into Yugoslavia en route to Hungary in an effort to warn and rescue Hungary’s Jews. Today she is remembered and revered in Israel — the land she helped build. Her poem “Eli\, Eli” was set to music\, and is widely known. This program will include a screening of Roberta Grossman‘s Blessed is the Match about Hannah’s life and action. Then meet the filmmaker who will be in dialogue with historians Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Mordecai Paldiel. Also joining the program will be the Israeli pop singer Avaya to speak about what Hannah Senesh means to her. A story everyone should know! \n  \nLISTEN TO THE SONG “ELI\, ELI” WITH WORDS BY HANNAH SENESH\, SUNG BY ISRAELI POP SINGER AVAYA\nxxxxx \n\n \n  \nWATCH THE TRAILER TO BLESSED IS THE MATCH\n\nxxxxx \n\n  \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nPhoto credit: Sundance Institute \nFilmmaker Roberta Grossman received the 2018 Washington Jewish Film Festival’s Annual Visionary Award for “creativity and insight in presenting the full diversity of the Jewish experience through the moving image.” Her feature documentaries about Jewish history and culture include Blessed is the Match (2008); Hava Nagila (The Movie) (2012); Above and Beyond (2014) and Who Will Write Our History (2018). She is a three-time recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the co-founder of the non-profit production company Katahdin Productions. \nDr. Michael Berenbaum is Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute and co-founder of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His books include A Promise to Remember: The Holocaust in the Words and Voices of Its Survivors; The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust as Told in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum;A Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis and Witness to the Holocaust: An Illustrated Documentary History of the Holocaust in the Words of Its Victims\, Perpetrators\, and Bystanders. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. \nAvaya is a singer\, songwriter\, and producer living in Israel. She is inspired by Hannah Senesh and proudly sings her poem\, Eli\, Eli. Throughout her musical career\, Avaya has pulled from an array of influences; her style has been described as a mixture of Adele\, Birdy\, and Freya Ridings. She was trained as a classical singer and has performed in countless venues across Israel and in the U.S. Avaya released her debut album\, Paper Cranes\, in 2017 (under her former artist’s name ‘AVIVA’). Avaya realized her musical passions early\, memorizing and singing Disney songs before she learned to speak. She began taking private vocal lessons when she was nine years old and majored in Classical Vocals and Music Theory at the Conservatory of Music of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her newest single\, B.B.\, was released on November 29\, 2020 on all platforms.  www.avayaofficial.com \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007\, and he is a prime mover in the effort to honor Jewish rescuers of Jews. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving the Jews\, Diplomat Heroes of the Holocaust\, Saving One’s Own: Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust and The Righteous Among the Nations. He currently 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. \n\n\nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/the-story-of-hannah-senesh/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210124T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210124T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201228T080003Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210124T215741Z
UID:19091-1611504000-1611507600@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Escape to Ecuador -- a Jewish Safe Haven
DESCRIPTION:Eva Zelig‘s documentary An Unknown Country tells the story of European Jews who fled Nazi persecution to find refuge in an unlikely destination: Ecuador. This small South American country\, barely known at the time\, took them in when most had closed their doors. Featuring first hand accounts\, family photos and archival material\, the film opens a window on the exiles’ perilous escape and difficult adjustment as they remade their lives in what was for them an exotic\, unfamiliar land. \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\n \n\n  \n\nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ January 22-25\, watch Eva Zelig’s film An Unknown Country on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒  Sunday\, January 24 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists. A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nDr. Abramo Ottolenghi was born in Turin\, Italy in 1931. After Mussolini promulgated the racial laws\, his family emigrated to Ecuador in 1939. His family\, together with other Italian Jewish refugees\, founded LIFE — a pharmaceutical laboratory in Quito\, Ecuador. After pursuing his Masters Degree at the University of Pennsylvania he returned to Quito to work at LIFE. He then returned to the University of Pennsylvania\, obtaining his Ph.D. in 1956 in the department of Medical Microbiology. Today he is Professor Emeritus of the department of Medical Microbiology in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University. Dr. Ottolenghi is active in Rotary projects in Ecuador and the Dominican Republic. Married for 63 years\, he and his wife Joan have four grown children\, 7 grandchildren\, and 5 great-grandchildren.  \nEva Zelig\, born in Ecuador\, is an award-winning producer/writer whose work has appeared on PBS\, The Learning Channel\, ABC\, and National Geographic TV. An Unknown Country was nominated for a New York Emmy award and best documentary by Barcelona Planeta Film Festival. She has won two Emmys: for the Learning Channel documentary\, Killer Virus\, and for her work on the PBS series\, Innovation. She has also been honored with awards from CINE\, National Educational Media Network\, American Women in Radio & TV\, International Film & TV Festival of New York. For the American Museum of Natural History she produced the first multimedia exhibition on climate change — winner of the American Association of Museums’ Curators Award. \nDaniel Subotnik\, who will moderate the discussion\, serves on the Sousa Mendes Foundation’s Board of Directors. The son of two Sousa Mendes visa recipients\, he is a Professor of Law at the Touro Law Center in Central Islip\, New York. He worked in the investment banking field before undertaking teaching positions in law and business at Northwestern University College of Law\, the University of Illinois\, Chicago\, Santa Clara University School of Law\, Seton Hall University School of Law and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. In 2013 he organized a major event honoring Aristides de Sousa Mendes at the Touro Law Center. He appears in the documentary film\, With God Against Man. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/escape-to-ecuador-a-jewish-safe-haven/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210117T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210117T160000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201227T021303Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210115T080144Z
UID:19090-1610895600-1610899200@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Return to Calais
DESCRIPTION:Return to Calais is a short documentary film linking refugees past and present. In 1940\, Paulette Szafran was a Belgian-Jewish teenager who fled the Nazi invasion of Brussels. She crossed into France and arrived as far as Calais\, where her family found temporary shelter during the catastrophic bombing. After the siege of Calais\, the family was compelled to return to Belgium\, where Paulette spent the war years in hiding. In 2018\, after Paulette died\, her daughter Edith Goldenhar embarked on a journey to retrace her mother’s exodus using her vivid wartime diary as a guide. In Calais\, she met with today’s refugees and with Care4Calais volunteers\, showing how empathy connects the dots of displacement across geography and generations.  \n  \n \nEdith Goldenhar is a writer whose articles and poems have been published widely. Return to Calais is her first film. Following its London premiere during Refugee Week in 2019\, Return to Calais toured U.S. festivals in 2020\, and will screen at the Paris Ethnografilm Festival in April 2020. The film is envisioned as part of a trilogy weaving Paulette’s World War II experiences as a refugee and hidden child to global crises and profound choices in our own times. Edith is co-author of Leveling the Playing Field\, a guide to gender equity and systemic change in the Jewish nonprofit sector. Her father\, Maurice Goldenhar\, was a Sousa Mendes visa recipient and a passenger on the ship SS Quanza that was rescued by Eleanor Roosevelt. \n \nJean-Claude van Itallie is a playwright who received a life-saving visa from Aristides de Sousa Mendes in Bordeaux\, France in 1940 after his family’s escape from Belgium. After growing up on Long Island and graduating from Harvard\, he became a seminal force in the explosive off-Broadway theater of the 1960s. He is the author of many plays\, including the watershed political piece America Hurrah; The Serpent with the Open Theater; Tibetan Book of the Dead or How Not to Do It Again; Light; translations of Chekhov’s major plays\, and his one-man show\, Confessions and Conversation. His latest play is The Fat Lady Sings\, and his latest book is Tea With Demons – Games of Transformation. Jean-Claude is founder of the Shantigar Foundation for Creativity\, Meditation\, and Engagement with Nature\, located on his old farm in Western Massachusetts.  \nMatilda Velevitch is a British playwright\, actress and volunteer for Care4Calais. Her critically-acclaimed play Three Mothers premiered in London in 2017 and completed a UK tour in June 2019.  Other works include After the Blue and The Netherlands. Her most recent projects\, Fabric of Our Lives and Broadway\, have recently been recommissioned. She is currently developing 1974\, a four-part series about the division of Cyprus. For the past five years\, Matilda has worked on the front line with refugees in Calais\, Dunkirk\, and Belgium and currently supports refugees in the UK\, many of them victims of horrific abuse. For refugees and witnesses\, hope is not a strategy. However\, by acting upon conscious instinct\, we can reinstate hopeful futures and form lifelong connections.   \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/return-to-calais/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210110T140000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210110T150000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201126T171608Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210110T220522Z
UID:18890-1610287200-1610290800@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Broken Branches -- Youth Aliyah and the Rescue of Jewish Teenagers
DESCRIPTION:A beautiful and touching film! This program will present the Youth Aliyah movement of the 1930s and its rescue of thousands of Jewish teenagers from Germany and Poland who would otherwise have been trapped by the Nazis. One of the leaders of this movement was the American-born Henrietta Szold\, who was also the founder of Hadassah. We will watch a short documentary film\, Broken Branches\, about Michla Gelfand\, a Polish girl of fourteen who was saved in this way. The film is gorgeous\, with a mixture of animation and live action\, and this is a rescue operation that is not widely known.  Not to be missed!  \nxxxxx \nSTILLS FROM THE FILM BROKEN BRANCHES\n(click on the thumbnails to enlarge) \n\nBroken Branches is the winner of the Pulcinella Award for Best Educational and Social Film\, Cartoons on the Bay 2015 | Best Short\, Haifa International Film Festival 2014 | Best Women’s Short\, Cleveland International Film Festival 2015 | Best Short Documentary\, Athens Ohio International Film and Video Festival 2014 | Gold Award\, The Robinson International Short Film Competition 2015 | Best Short\, Israeli Film Festival in Nice\, France 2016 | Best Short\, Athens Georgia Jewish Film Festival 2016 \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ January 8-11\, watch Ayala Sharot’s film Broken Branches on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒  Sunday\, January 10 at 2:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists. Dr. Shulamit Reinharz will provide the historical framework\, and filmmaker Ayala Sharot will take us behind the scenes and bring us into her creative process. Marcie Natan will speak about the continuation of Youth Aliyah today. A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nMarcie Natan (right) is the Chair of Youth Aliyah and is the Past National President of Hadassah. She has served the organization since her early twenties. Marcie joined Hadassah and rose to President of the Eastern Pennsylvania Region. A former National Vice President\, she has also served as Chair of Planned Giving & Estates\, Major Gifts\, Unit Assessment\, and Hadassah College. Her positions have included National President’s Training Chair\, National Secretary\, and National Treasurer. Marcie has traveled to Israel more than 100 times\, including visits during both intifadas and the 2006 Lebanon War. Her time in Israel has intensified her passion and honed the perspective she has brought to Hadassah’s National Board and Executive Committee\, and the Hadassah Foundation Board. \nAyala Sharot (left) is an independent film director and animator with a fresh approach to documentary film making. A graduate of Central St. Martin’s College\, in 2006 she directed Foreigners\, a short animated documentary about foreigners who live in London\, which was later adapted for MTV Bloom. Her film Broken Branches\, an animated documentary based on her grandmother’s life story\, has won many awards. Ayala is also an accomplished animation director\, and her work features in animated documentaries\, historical and educational museums\, music videos and title sequences for film and television.  \nDr. Shulamit Reinharz (right) was born in Amsterdam and grew up in the United States with long stays in Israel. She earned her B.A. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from Brandeis University\, both in sociology. She is the author of thirteen books\, including American Jewish Women and the Zionist Enterprise (Brandeis\, 2005); Observing the Observer (Oxford\, 2011); and One Hundred Years of Kibbutz Life (Transaction\, 2011). Dr. Reinharz is a member of an Israeli research team studying differences in Covid-19 responses on kibbutzim\, moshavim and community settlements. She is completing A Memoir in Four Hands\, a book about her father’s Holocaust experience. Dr. Reinharz is a popular lecturer who has spoken frequently about Israeli films. In 2017\, she retired from Brandeis and became Professor Emerita. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-program-youth-aliyah-and-the-rescue-of-jewish-teenagers/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20210103T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20210103T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201215T190227Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210101T081338Z
UID:19034-1609689600-1609693200@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:The Jewish James Bond and Other Heroes
DESCRIPTION:Go behind the scenes and get to know some of the colorful characters who participated in Operation Zebra — the 1947-49 mission to help rescue newborn Israel’s 600\,000 Jews and provide a safe haven for Holocaust survivors. The heroes include the Jewish James Bond\, Yehuda Arazi\, the operation’s whimsical chief pilot\, Sam Lewis\, and its cowgirl flight instructor\, Elynor Rudnick. Meet Arazi’s grandson and namesake\, and Lewis’ daughter\, who was a teenager during the operation\, as well as Boaz Dvir\, who captured their tales in the 2015 award-winning PBS documentary A Wing and a Prayer and the 2020 critically acclaimed book Saving Israel. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \nIsraeli-American filmmaker Boaz Dvir tells stories of ordinary people who transform into trailblazers: an inner-city schoolteacher who becomes a disruptive innovator (Discovering Gloria); a truck driver who becomes a child-protection activist (Jessie’s Dad); a Holocaust survivor who sets out to kill his father’s Nazi executioner (Cojot); and a flight engineer who leads a secret\, illegal operation to prevent what he views as a second Holocaust (A Wing and a Prayer\, winner of Best Documentary at the 2016 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival). He serves on the Journalism faculty of Penn State University\, where he also directs the Holocaust\, Genocide & Human Rights Education Initiative. He is the author of Saving Israel (2020). \n \nSandra Brown is the daughter of Operation Zebra’s chief pilot\, the late Sam Lewis. She was a high school student during the years (1947-49) her father participated in the secret\, illegal operation to provide an air force and weapons to newborn Israel. Before joining the operation\, Sam served as TWA’s first Jewish captain. After the operation\, Sam become El Al’s first chief pilot. Along with nine other members\, he stood trial in 1950 for breaking the US arms embargo and Neutrality Act. Sandra recalls attending the trial in Los Angeles and feeling surprised that her father was the only member of the team to be found not guilty. For 25 years she was the director of North Hollywood Adult Learning Center\, from which she is now retired. \n \nYehuda Arazi is the grandson and namesake of the “Jewish James Bond” and will share stories about his grandfather’s daring exploits. He lives with his wife and two children in Las Vegas\, where he works as a district manager at BenefitMall. A former software associate at Vanguard Integrity Professionals\, he graduated from California State University\, Northridge with a bachelor’s degree in the humanities. “I have felt honored my whole life being named after my grandfather\,” Arazi said. “It has been my privilege to continuously learn of his many contributions\, his daring missions and the bravery he possessed helping the establishment of Israel and arming of its army and air force with their first planes.” \nxxxxx \nRegistration has closed for this program. If you have registered\, you will receive confirmation and instructions on Friday\, January 1\, 2021 and again on the morning of the program.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-program-the-jewish-james-bond-and-other-heroes/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Discussion
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20201213T150000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20201213T160000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201112T090238Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201213T220015Z
UID:18872-1607871600-1607875200@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Virtual program: Fiddler - A Miracle of Miracles!
DESCRIPTION:Meet our panel of Fiddler superstars! Join us for a Chanukah program celebrating the triumph of the human spirit. Steven Skybell is the award-winning Tevye of the Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish production that recently took New York by storm\, with musical direction by Zalmen Mlotek. Samantha Massell played Hodel in the recent Broadway revival\, and Mimi Turque performed in the original Broadway cast. We will watch Max Lewkowicz‘s dazzling Fiddler – A Miracle of Miracles produced by Patricia Kenner and then spend an uplifting hour together.  Lechaim! \n \nxxxxx \n \nAbove: Steven Skybell in the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish\nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\nxxxxx \n\nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ December 11-19\, watch Max Lewkowicz‘s film Fiddler — A Miracle of Miracles on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, December 13 at 3:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the program with our all-star panel of guests.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANEL\nxxxxx \n\n       Photo: Allison Michael Orenstein \nSteven Skybell (left) most recently starred off-Broadway as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish directed by Joel Grey\, for which he received the Lucille Lortel award for Best Performance by a leading actor in a musical. His Broadway credits include: the 2016 revival of Fiddler on the Roof (Lazar Wolf)\, Pal Joey\, Wicked\, The Full Monty\, Love!Valour!Compassion!\, Café Crown\, Ah\, Wilderness! Additional off-Broadway credits include: Babette’s Feast\, Cymbeline\, Antigone in NY (Obie Award). Other: Camelot (Helen Hayes nomination); Henry V (Shakespeare Globe\, London). TV/Film: Blue Bloods\, Elementary\, Chicago P.D.\, Cradle Will Rock\, Simply Irresistible\, Arthur Miller’s Everybody Wins\, and many other credits. He is a 1984 graduate of Yale University.  \n \nSamantha Massell (right) is a New York based actress and singer who has appeared on Broadway\, on television\, in movies\, in the cabaret scene\, and in commercials. She was last seen on Broadway as Hodel in the acclaimed revival of Fiddler on the Roof. She has originated lead roles in many world premiere musicals including Steven Schwartz and Charles’ Strouse’s Rags at The Goodspeed Opera (Connecticut Critics Circle Award for Best Actress)\, The Flamingo Kid at Hartford Stage\, and Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame at La Jolla Playhouse and Paper Mill Playhouse. On the small screen\, Samantha has held recurring roles on Mr. Mercedes and Chicago Fire and guest starred on NCIS: New Orleans\, The Good Fight\, and Elementary. BFA\, University of Michigan\, Phi Beta Kappa. @smassellsings www.samanthamassell.com \n \nMax Lewkowicz (left) has written\, directed\, and produced hundreds of productions for network and public television. His credits include award-winning films about the Dance Theater of Harlem\, Nelson Mandela’s struggle against Apartheid in South Africa\, as well as Across the Bridge\, a documentary about the American Military Doctrine in Germany during the Cold War and Ours to Fight For\, telling the stories of American GIs in World War II. He has won the Silver Screen Award at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival\, the grand prize of The Chicago International Film Festival\, and the 2003 Award of Excellence from the National Association of Museum Exhibitions. \n \nPatricia Kenner (right) is the Executive Producer of Fiddler – A Miracle of Miracles.  Previously she produced Ahead of Time\, a film that chronicles the astonishing life story of pioneer journalist and photographer Ruth Gruber. Both films have won prizes and critical acclaim. She is a humanitarian and philanthropist who serves on the Boards of the Museum of Jewish Heritage\, the Defiant Requiem Foundation\, Selfhelp Foundation\, Educational Alliance\, Carnegie Mellon University\, and the American Heart Association and is co-chair of the Community Initiative on Holocaust Survivors at UJA. \n \nMimi Turque (left) performed in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof\, playing Hodel alongside Bette Midler\, who portrayed her sister Tzeitel. Her first major role was as Louise in the 1961 national tour of Gypsy. Her Broadway credits include Lili in Carnival! as well as Antonia Quijana in the original Man of La Mancha. She played Jenny in the revival production of The Threepenny Opera on Broadway and portrayed Molina’s Mother in Kiss of the Spider Woman. She is a co-creator of the musical Blue Roses\, based on The Glass Menagerie. \n \nZalmen Mlotek is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music as well as a leading figure in the Jewish theater and concert worlds. For the past 20 years\, he has been the Artistic Director and conductor at National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. His vision brought to New York the critically acclaimed award-winning Fidler Afn Dakh (Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish) directed by Joel Grey\, for which he served as music director\, and will serve as musical supervisor for the international and national tours being planned. He brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages with the Tony-nominated Those Were the Days and Drama Desk Nominated Amerike – The Golden Land. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-program-fiddler-a-miracle-of-miracles/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20201206
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20201207
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201122T034043Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201204T080011Z
UID:18908-1607212800-1607299199@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Virtual program: Women of Valor -- Stories of Resistance in Paris
DESCRIPTION:4 PM US EASTERN TIME\, 1 PM US PACIFIC TIME \nIn February 1943\, at the height of the deportations from France\, a daring group of Jewish and Christian women banded together to stage the largest single rescue operation in wartime Paris. Please join Anne Nelson\, author of Suzanne’s Children\, and Joanne Gilbert\, author of Women of Valor\, as they describe these women — including Suzanne Spaak\, Sophie Schwartz\, Frida Wattenberg and others — who risked everything to fight back against evil.\n \n  \n \nxxxxx \nMEET THE SPEAKERS\nxxxxx \n \nAuthor Joanne D. Gilbert was profoundly affected by the stories told by her grandmother\, who had been able to leave Vilna\, Lithuania before the Nazis destroyed the Jewish community there. Joanne became dedicated to finding and celebrating the truth of Jewish heroism during the Holocaust. Her books Women of Valor: Polish Jewish Resisters to the Third Reich (2018) and A Victory for Miriam! The Little Jewish Girl Who Defied the Nazis (2019) have received outstanding reviews. Her next book Women of Valor: German\, French\, & Dutch Resisters to the Third Reich will be published in 2021. Along with the Paris walking tour company Sight-Seekers Delight\, Joanne is currently developing a walking tour of the Jewish Resistance in Paris. \nAnne Nelson is a prize-winning author who has written extensively about human rights and freedom of expression. Her 2017 book\, Suzanne’s Children: A Daring Rescue in Nazi Paris\, told the story of Suzanne Spaak and her extensive network to rescue Jewish children from deportation to Auschwitz. It was a finalist in the National Jewish Book Awards. Her previous book\, Red Orchestra\, described a leading anti-Nazi resistance network in Berlin\, and was an Editors’ Choice at The New York Times. Her current work\, Shadow Network\, deals with the political crisis in the United States today. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/virtual-program-women-of-valor-stories-of-resistance-in-paris/
CATEGORIES:Book Talk,Discussion
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END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=UTC:20201129T160000
DTEND;TZID=UTC:20201129T170000
DTSTAMP:20260418T094834
CREATED:20201011T224600Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201127T080049Z
UID:18843-1606665600-1606669200@sousamendesfoundation.org
SUMMARY:Virtual program: Searching for Sousa Mendes
DESCRIPTION:In June 1940\, Aristides de Sousa Mendes\, the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux\, France\, issued life-saving visas to thousands of Holocaust refugees in defiance of his government’s direct orders – an action for which he paid a heavy personal price. In June 2013\, filmmaker Semyon Pinkhasov followed a group of visa recipient families\, along with members of the Sousa Mendes family\, as they embarked on the Sousa Mendes Foundation’s Journey on the Road to Freedom\, retracing their families’ footsteps. They were “searching for Sousa Mendes” – looking for traces and clues of a lost history in an effort to understand their personal pasts.\n \nxxxxx \nWATCH THE TRAILER\n \nxxxxx \nTHE SCHEDULE\nxxxxx \n⇒ November 27-30\, watch Semyon Pinkhasov’s film With God Against Man on your home device. A link will be provided to all who register. \n⇒ Sunday\, November 29 at 4:00 p.m. US Eastern Time\, tune into the discussion with our distinguished panelists.  A link will be provided to all who register. \nxxxxx \nMEET THE PANELISTS\nxxxxx \n \nBorn in the Soviet Union\, Semyon Pinkhasov immigrated to the United States in 1977. A championship fencer\, he was the Fencing Coach for U.S. Pan American\, Olympic\, and Maccabiah Teams. As a filmmaker he is drawn to stories of individuals who act heroically in the face of totalitarianism\, such as the story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes. His inspiration derives from the interplay between the various aspects of his background\, including sports\, politics and the arts. His award-winning documentaries include Sport and Peace\, What If? The Helene Mayer Story and others. His latest film\, You Be the Judge\, describes how the Nazi occupation of Britain’s Channel Islands tested established notions of leadership and patriotism. Semyon lives in New York. \n \nJoan Arnay Halperin\, daughter of Sousa Mendes visa recipients\, holds a BA in Speech and Drama from the University of Wisconsin and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from Adelphi University. In 2013 and 2016 Joan participated in the Sousa Mendes Foundation’s Journey on the Road to Freedom which was the impetus for her book My Sister’s Eyes: A Family Chronicle of Rescue and Loss During World War II. Joan presents her story at synagogues\, middle and high schools\, colleges and Holocaust teacher training workshops. She has served on the Board of the Sousa Mendes Foundation and as the Director of its Educational Initiatives Committee\, on which she continues to serve as a member. \n \nDr. Mordecai Paldiel (left) headed the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem from 1982-2007. His books include The Path of the Righteous\, Sheltering the Jews\, Saving 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. \nArchitect and designer Eric Moed (right) designed a temporary installation in front of the Sousa Mendes home in Portugal. His projects have been featured in The New York Times\, The International Herald Tribune\, Haaretz\, NPR\, the BBC\, Tablet Magazine\, Architizer\, and Archinect. He holds a Masters in Design Studies from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a Bachelors of Architecture from the Pratt Institute School of Architecture. In 2020 he co-founded the design studio Office of Open Practice Studio/Agency (oopsa). The grandson and great-grandson of Sousa Mendes visa recipients\, he is a former Board member of the Sousa Mendes Foundation. \nxxxxx \n \nGive the gift of inspiration! Get your signed and inscribed copy of My Sister’s Eyes for $19.95 plus priority shipping within the US (total: $23.94). This lushly illustrated full-color 96-page book in large format is the perfect holiday gift for young and old! To order the book\, click here. Then send a message to info@mysisterseyes.com indicating how the author’s inscription should read and where to send it. \nxxxxx \nRegistration for this program is closed.
URL:https://sousamendesfoundation.org/event/searching-for-sousa-mendes/
CATEGORIES:Discussion,Film Screening
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