Vida

 

 

 

An Arctic fox on Alexandra Land, an island in the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic Ocean

Sarah Bernhardt

 

 

Funeral of Sarah Bernhardt (Paris, 1923)

 

Teshuvah

 

 

Daniel Gordis

 

Esther

 

 

"The Rabbis Read Esther in the Diaspora", Aaron Koller 

 

Gueto de Varsóvia

 

 

 

The original German caption reads: “Jews pulled from a Bunker” (in the Warsaw Ghetto)

Picture taken at Nowolipie street looking East, near intersection with Smocza street.

In the back one can see ghetto wall with a gate (1943)

 

 

Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the Voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have, and lived? Has any god ever tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 

Deuteronomy 4:32-34

Sarah Halimi

 

 

Vida

 

 

 

 A flock of lesser flamingos wades through Lake Magadi in the Great Rift Valley in Kajiado, Kenya

Younes Dardashti

 

 

(Medley)

 

Mark Rothko

 

 

"No 21" (1949)

Chava Rosenfarb

 

 

 

"The Tree of Life": A Synopsis by her daughter, Goldie Morgentaler

 

 

Aggadah captures the heart.

Shabbat 87a

 

Genocídio Arménio

 

 

 

Armenian deportees in Erzurum, photographed by Viktor Pietschmann (1915)

Of the 40,000 Armenians deported from Erzurum, fewer than 200 reached Deir ez-Zor

Irão

 

 

 

"Mahaleh or Ghetto?: The Challenges of Writing a Jewish History of Iran", Lior Sternfeld (2019)

 

 

מַה־בֶּ֥צַע בְּדָמִי֮ בְּרִדְתִּ֪י אֶ֫ל־שָׁ֥חַת הֲיוֹדְךָ֥ עָפָ֑ר הֲיַגִּ֥יד אֲמִתֶּֽךָ 

What is to be gained from my death, from my descent into the Pit? Can dust praise You? Can it declare Your faithfulness? 

Psalm 30:10

Vida

 

 

 

A reed warbler feeding a cuckoo

Cuckoos lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, which raise the chicks in place of their own offspring

 

Tzedakah

 

 

Rabbi David Wolpe

 

Gueto de Varsóvia

 

 

Market in Warsaw ghetto, Nazi-occupied Poland (1941)

 

"Mighty Ira"

 

 

Trailer

Akedah

 

 

 

"The Akedah and the Shaping of Jewish Memory", David Gottlieb

 

Irão

 

 

"Vashti", Galeet Dardashti 

 

Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin

 

 

 

"What Could Have Been?”: Alternative History and the Torah’s Imagination"

Vida

 

 

 

Storks stand in their nest in Kizilcahamam, outside the Turkish capital of Ankara

 

 

God loves novelty.

Kotzker Rebbe

Gueto de Varsóvia

 

 

 

Jews marched out of the ghetto during Warsaw Ghetto Revolt in April and May, 1943

 

Irão

 

 

 

 "Iranian Jews in the 20th Century: Between Iranian Nationalism, Communism and Zionism", Lior Sternfeld

 

Esnoga

 

 

 

This 1768 parchment by Jekuthiel Sofer emulated the 1675 Ten Commandments 

at the Amsterdam Esnoga synagogue

 

Younes Dardashti

 

 

"Kharabat"

 

When God gave the Torah, no birds sang. No ox bellowed. The sea was calm. Not a creature stirred.

Exodus Rabbah 29:9 

 

Vida

 

 

 

A grey whale is seen at Ojo de Liebre Lagoon in Guerrero Negro, Mexico

 

73!

 

 

 

Israelis watch a fireworks show during Independence Day celebrations in Tel Aviv on April 14, 2021 

 

Yom HaZikaron

 

 

 

People stand still as one minutre siren sounded across Israel, marking Memorial Day 

which commemorates the fallen Israeli soldiers and victims of terror in Ayalon highway, Tel Aviv, April 13, 2021

Sarah Bernhardt

 

 

(1905)

 

Turquia

 

 

 

"The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of Its Christian Minorities, 1894–1924", Benny Morris

 

Mauthausen

 

 

 

A view of Mauthausen, from the 'Prussian Blue' series,  Yishai Jusidman

 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

 

 

 

"Restoring Our Moral Culture": A Conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

 

Teshuvah

 

 

"Rededicating the Temple", Rabbi David Wolpe

Vida

 

 

A royal Bengal tiger at Bardiya National Park in Nepal

 

Gueto de Varsóvia

 

 

 

The remains of the Warsaw ghetto, which the German SS dynamited to the ground in 1945 after slaughtering some 60,000 Jews

Chava Rosenfarb

 

 

Address to Graduates (2006)

 

Rio Sambação

 

 

 

Detail of choir windows in St Mary’s church, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany (c. 1360s)

The Red Jews wait at the banks of the river Sambation

 

A Prayer for Yom HaShoah 

Rabbi Sacks composed this prayer in 2013 

 

Today, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the victims of the greatest crime of man against man – the young, the old, the innocent, the million-and-a-half children, starved, shot, given lethal injections, gassed, burned and turned to ash, because they were deemed guilty of the crime of being different. 

We remember what happens when hate takes hold of the human heart and turns it to stone; what happens when victims cry for help and there is no one listening; what happens when humanity fails to recognise that those who are not in our image are nonetheless in God’s image. 

We remember and pay tribute to the survivors, who bore witness to what happened, and to the victims, so that robbed of their lives, they would not be robbed also of their deaths. 

We remember and give thanks for the righteous of the nations who saved lives, often at risk of their own, teaching us how in the darkest night we can light a candle of hope. 

Today, on Yom HaShoah, we call on You, Almighty God, to help us hear Your voice that says in every generation: Do not murder. Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour. Do not oppress the stranger. 

We know that whilst we do not have the ability to change the past, we can change the future. We know that whilst we cannot bring the dead back to life, we can ensure their memories live on and that their deaths were not in vain. 

And so, on this Yom HaShoah, we commit ourselves to one simple act: Yizkor, Remember. 

May the souls of the victims be bound in the bond of everlasting life. Amen

Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

"Spiritual Audacity: The Abraham Joshua Heschel Story" - Trailer

 

Sarah Bernhardt

 

 

Nadar (1864) 

 

Samaritanos

 

 

 

The Samaritans, Kilburn, B.W., Palestine. Middle East (ca. 1899)

 

Vida

 

 

A white-throated kingfisher in a field in Lahore, Pakistan

 

Yom Kippur

 

 

 

"Service on the Day of Atonement for Jewish Soldiers in the Prussian Army

 during the Franco-Prussian War, outside Metz" (1870)

 

 

One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged.

Heinrich Heine

Marc Chagall

 

"Goat and Violin" (1922)

 

Rabbi Norman Lamm

 

 

 

"Rabbi Lamm in His Own Words: The Role of Torah in the Modern World"

 

The whole world became like a wall before him.

Genesis Rabba 68:10