This past week has laid bare in stark, visceral terms, the worst face of mankind. As Jews, while we don’t forget history, we spend more time working to improve the present and future. Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, Rabbi of Kehilath Jeshurun, aptly describes those two claims on our humanity in the context of the crisis in the Ukraine, below. It helped me frame and assimilate this tragedy. I hope it does the same for you.
Every once in a while I use this column to describe someone at AMIT who truly inspires me. Today, that person is Nedavya Naeh, principal at AMIT Florin Taman High School for Boys in Tzfat. Nedavya grew up on a moshav in the Golan; his mother was a Moroccan immigrant, and his father was a farmer. School was difficult for him ‒ with the benefit of hindsight, he now recognizes he was dyslexic. He spent a lot of time outdoors with cattle and crops. For his bar mitzvah, Nedavya said the brachot and his twin brother recited the full parashah.
On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, we remember Holocaust survivor Grzegorz Pawlowski. My husband will tell you that I cannot talk about this story without crying.
