56th Annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration
An audience of almost 600 people attended Memphis Jewish Federation’s 56th Yom HaShoah Community Observance on April 12. The evening’s keynote presentation was led by Roger Brooks, President and CEO of Facing History & Ourselves, and explored the work of Polish Jewish photographer Henryk Ross, who was hired by the Nazis to take propaganda photos of the Lodz Ghetto. Secretly, he captured the human suffereing of the Jews sealed in the ghetto, creating a unique and vital record of the horrors of the Holocaust.
Before the ceremony, Roger Brooks conducted a lecture, The Changing Landscape of Holocaust Education. It was attended by volunteer leaders, local educators, Facing History & Ourselves staff and board members, and others.
Entries from the 2018 Holocaust Art & Essay Competition were displayed in the MJCC lobby during the evening, and many contributing students attended the ceremony.
Holocaust Art and Essay Competition
Essays
Memphis Jewish Federation’s 9th Annual Holocaust Art and Essay Competition drew a record-setting number of students with more than 100 entries from students in Tennessee and the Mid-South in the two categories. This year’s theme was Remembering the Jews of Lodz: Jewish Life and the Struggle to Survive. The contest was sponsored by the Memphis Commissioners of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, along with their spouses: Marilyn and Jack Belz, Eileen and Allen (z"l) Exelbierd, Jan and Andy Groveman, Joanna and Josh Lipman, and Friderica and Leonid Saharovici.
Following the 56th Annual Yom HaShoah Community Observance, certificates and cash prizes were awarded to the following winners:
First Place Essay—Batya Bosin, 12th grade, Goldie Margolin School for Girls READ NOW
Second Place Essay— Rakhel Finkelstein, 9th grade, Goldie Margolin School for Girls READ NOW
Honorable Mention Essay— Alexandra Nabity, 11th grade, Collierville High School
Honorable Mention Essay— Rina Soffer, 11th grade, Goldie Margolin School for Girls
Art
First Place Art— Noah Broadway, 8th grade, Snowden School
Second Place Art (tie)— Kathy Lam, 7th grade, Colonial Middle School
Second Place Art (tie)— Anisa Shank, 8th grade, Colonial Middle School
Third Place Art— Noah Sandler, 8th grade, Bornblum Jewish Community School
Honorable Mention Art— Briana Ashmore, 8th grade, Colonial Middle School
