Courtesy of the Congress for Jewish Culture
By Rukhl Schaechter
April 24, 2025
In Riverside Park in Manhattan, stands a simple slab of stone (called der shteyn in Yiddish), commemorating the Jewish fighters of the historic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
On Friday, April 18, close to 300 people gathered by der shteyn to honor the memory of the uprising, and the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The annual event is hosted by the Congress for Jewish Culture and several other Jewish organizations.
This year’s program highlighted the heroic acts by women, including young girls, in the resistance. Historian Lori Weintrob described in gripping detail some of these events, while Anita Gallers, a great-granddaughter of the Yiddish writer Jacob Pat, read an excerpt of his book “Khanke” about his niece who fought the Nazis.
Feygele Jacobs read a letter from the head of the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum in Israel, expressing the dire importance of sharing with the world the self-sacrificing heroism of these fighters.
Kyla Kupferstein Torres shared moving memories of her grandparents, Holocaust survivors Hershl and Fela, who lived with many other survivors in the Amalgamated building complex in the Bronx and singers Joanne Borts, Shiffee Lovitt Loccasio and Sarah Gordon performed several beautiful Yiddish Holocaust songs.
Koved zeyer ondenk. Honor their memory.
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