Dear Friend, We hope this finds you and your loved ones well and safe, and, to those celebrating, we would like to take this opportunity to wish you a Chag Shavuot Sam'each! |
In this edition (if viewing this on a desktop, click on each heading to skip to that section): |
Special Announcement:
March of the Living Australia's in-person programs will resume in 2023!
|
After two challenging years of upheaval and cancellations due to the global pandemic, we are extremely thrilled to announce that March of the Living Australia will be resuming its live, in-person programs in 2023! Excitingly, next year's March will coincide with special celebrations of March of the Living's 35th and Israel's 75th anniversaries, as well as the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In light of these milestone events, and given that many of our fellow delegations around the world will also be resuming their programs, we have no doubt the 2023 March will see record-high participation numbers and that it will be an incredible not-to-be-missed program!
Starting in 2023, we will be shifting our focus to the Young Adult and Adult programs. For the first time ever, March of the Living Australia has committed to providing very substantial subsidisation of the program for all Young Adult participants who may not be able to pay full fare. This is in recognition of the financial challenges many Young Adults, who are potentially only starting out in their careers and who may have been financially impacted by the pandemic, may be facing. This decision by March of the Living Australia to actively raise and dedicate funds in order to make this unique program more accessible and affordable for the 18-35 year-old Young Adult cohort, bears in mind the unique power and impact of this program and the potential it has in shaping the views, opinions, attitudes and proactivity of our future generations and leaders.
We warmly invite you to click here to learn more about the Young Adult
and Adult programs. |
In light of this exciting news, we would like to share with you two articles that were recently published online and in the Australian Jewish News (AJN) in honour of the resumption of the in-person programs in 2023.
The first is an article published in the AJN in which our President, Cedric Geffen, discusses the 2023 program. The second is a blog post published on The Social Blueprint, in which Ben de Winter describes the immense impact the March of the Living program has had on his life since his participation on the Student program in 2013. |
|
|
We eagerly invite you to join us for the next chapter in our online event series.
We are excited to welcome journalist and documentarian Michael Kretzmer, who will reveal and discuss the sordid background to Lithuania's shameful acts of Holocaust distortion. Among many talking points, Michael will unravel how, incredibly, Lithuania is the world leader in manufacturing lies about the Holocaust via its Orwellian Genocide Centre, which employs 120 pseudo-historians to lie about Lithuania's role in the depraved genocide - a country which had slaughtered approximately 220,000 Jews (96.4% of the Jewish population) by the end of the war, the highest in Europe.
Michael will also tell the stories of Grant Gochin, a SA-born Jew who for over 30 years has been fighting Lithuania through the courts, and Silvia Foti, who has exposed her own grandfather, the Lithuanian national hero Jonas Noreika for the mass murderer that he was. Michael will make the case that this repulsive, unnecessary and appalling insult needs to be challenged and that world Jewry and other forces of goodwill and justice need to unite to ensure that Lithuania does not get away with this outrage, as otherwise, in Michael's view, the Holocaust will cease to have meaning.
We would like to make a special 'call-out' to the Litvak/ex-South African members of our community to register and attend this special event, which will no doubt prove to be greatly informative and illuminating! |
International Holocaust Survivor Day
- Sunday 26 June 2022
|
On 6th March 2021, Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Jonathan Ornstein (Executive Director of JCC Krakow, the organisation hosting the Ride for the Living global challenge - see next section below) published the following op-ed in The Jerusalem Post calling for the creation of a "Holocaust Survivor Day." In their words:
"Holocaust survivors deserve a day of joy; a day of celebration. Not a day to share with condemnation of the Nazis, but a day to celebrate their lives they built in response to the Holocaust. Survivors represent the best in all of us, the best of the human spirit. They are our treasure and our light and we must shine that light into every dark corner of our world. We call on the world to join us and celebrate.....Holocaust Survivor Day on June 26th."
March of the Living Australia is proud to once again support and promote the second annual Holocaust Survivor Day, which falls on June 26th. This date, the birthday of Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski, was chosen to acknowledge the importance and impact of Mr. Turski, a noted historian and journalist, and the moral conscience of Poland's Jewish community. Click here to find out more about this important day.
We also invite you to click on the image below to view a special online event we hosted in 2021 in honour of the inaugural Holocaust Survivor Day. |
Ride for the Living
Global Challenge 2022
Throughout the month of June!
|
As in 2021, March of the Living Australia is once again proud to promote the Ride for the Living Global Challenge, a unique program that combines Holocaust education and commemoration with fitness to challenge participants to engage their bodies, souls, and minds. Throughout the month of June 2022, participants are encouraged to cycle, run, walk, or hike the symbolic 60-mile distance between Auschwitz-Birkenau and JCC Krakow, the centre of the resurgence of modern Jewish life in Poland today, from the comfort and safety of their own homes and communities.
Ride for the Living was originally inspired by Robert Desmond, who rode his bicycle 1,350 miles from London to Auschwitz, visiting sites of liberation from WWII along his journey. After joining JCC Krakow for a Shabbat meal and learning about Krakow's reborn Jewish community, he realised his ride should not have ended in a place of loss, but rather in a place of hope and community. As the world continues to repair and rebuild, the RFTL Global Challenge seeks to unite Jewish communities in support of Holocaust survivors and Holocaust education.
This year, participants will also be able to use their involvement in the month-long challenge to fundraise for the JCC Krakow's projects benefiting Ukrainian refugees, as well as intergenerational programming for its growing community of students, young families and Holocaust survivors. |
Hiding and Surviving in Friesland:
Joe de Haan's experiences living as a farmhand during the Holocaust
Online Event Recording
|
On Sunday 22 May, March of the Living Australia was honoured to welcome survivor Joe de Haan for an online event where he shared his heartbreaking, jaw-dropping and incredible story of survival throughout the Holocaust.
This was a truly moving event, and we warmly invite you to click on the image below to view a recording of it. |
Participants required for Monash University's Oral History Project for Melbourne's Holocaust Survivor community and their children
|
Monash University's Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation has launched a new oral history project to help shed light on the experiences of Melbourne's Holocaust survivor community and their descendants. Rather than focusing on the years of the Holocaust, this unique interview project explores the lives of survivors and their children in Melbourne after the war.
|
Pictured: Survivors on the first leg of their journey to their new homes in Australia and South America (photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Museum). |
This project provides an opportunity to have your voices heard. Your participation could help the ACJC better understand the impact of the Holocaust on your family and the Australian-Jewish community. |
Here is a selection of recent articles and videos from around the world, many of which we have shared across our social media over the past few weeks: |
As always, we warmly invite you to follow us on social media by clicking
on the various Socials bubbles below, so you may keep updated with all our daily posts and news.
We also kindly invite you to share this Newsletter and encourage members of your networks who may be interested in receiving it to subscribe via the bottom of the Homepage
on our website - www.motl.com.au
We greatly look forward to being in touch again next month! |
|
|
Copyright © March of the Living Australia, All Rights Reserved. You are receiving this email because you are part of the March of the Living Australia community. Our mailing address is: PO Box 268
Elsternwick
Melbourne 3185 Want to change how you receive these emails? Click here to unsubscribe sent by vega.works |
|
|
|