Dear Friend,
As always, we hope this finds you and your loved ones well and safe.
Whilst we were once again forced to endure a different, unusual and challenging High Holiday Season (as with last year), we very much hope you had a good period over the various Chaggim.
In this edition (click on each heading to skip to that section):
Book Launch:
"Gift of Time: Discoveries from the Daily Ritual
of reading with my Father"
by Frances Prince
Online Event - Thursday 14 October 2021 at 8PM AEDT
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We are immensely proud to promote this special upcoming online event hosted by the Jewish Holocaust Centre (VIC) to launch Frances Prince's new book, Gift of Time: Discoveries from the daily ritual of with my father. Frances was one of the founding educators of MOTL Australia, having travelled with the Student delegations in 2005, 2007 and 2009. Her father David Prince, a Holocaust Survivor, accompanied the Student delegation in 2009, providing wholly riveting and moving testimony.
Frances began reading to her father David in mid-March 2020 as a form of care during the pandemic. As they read a number of memoirs by Holocaust survivors, David reflected upon his Holocaust experiences and life as a Polish Jewish university student in post-war Munich. Together, they engaged in many conversations emerging from David's recollections from the past, and Frances memorialised their family dialogue by penning Gift of Time.
The book launch features an in conversation between Joanna Murray–Smith and Frances Prince followed by a Q & A.
With lifelong expertise in Jewish Studies, Holocaust education and leadership in Victoria's interfaith community, Frances Prince currently serves as Vice President of the Australian Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) Victoria, on the committee of the annual Lodz ghetto commemoration and as an executive member of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV).
Portraits of Moral Choices during the
1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda
Online Event - Sunday 31 October 2021 at 7:30PM AEDT
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Join March of the Living Australia for a lecture with Historian Tali Nates and student alumnus Dean Levitan (2008) in our continuing webinar series on Sunday 31 October 2021 at 07:30PM AEDT.
In this talk, we will explore the moral choices that were made by people, groups and governments during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Tali will focus on stories of perpetrators, bystanders, upstanders and their effects on the victims and explore how you tell this complex history in a Holocaust & Genocide Museum.
Tali is the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and chair of the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation. She is a historian who lectures internationally on Holocaust education, genocide prevention, reconciliation and human rights. She published articles and contributed chapters to many books, among them God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (2015), Remembering The Holocaust in Educational Settings (2018) and Conceptualising Mass Violence, Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (2021).
Dean is a lawyer, community organiser and social justice advocate. After returning from March of the Living when he was 16 years old, Dean co-founded the organisation Youth Against Genocide in Darfur (YAGID), which mobilised thousands of people to protest in Sydney and Melbourne against the atrocities occurring in Sudan. Since that time, he has directed a number of advocacy campaigns, including the Sudan Peace Project and the What Would You Do? Campaign, which were designed to raise awareness about the plight of people seeking asylum.
Righteous Among the Nations:
Frances Prince in conversation with
Rev. Lawrence Cross
Online Event Recording
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On 1 September, March of the Living Australia was proud to co-present an online event alongside The Lamm Jewish Library of Australia and Zionism Victoria. Frances Prince, in conversation with Rev. Lawrence Cross, discussed the life and impact of Klymentiy Sheptystsky, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who helped save over 150 Jewish children during the Holocaust.
Click on the image below to view the recording of this fascinating event:
Following the event, we at March of the Living Australia were deeply saddened to learn of the recent passing of Mrs. Lili Stern-Pohlman, one of the Survivors saved by the Church of Archbishop Sheptystsky - her obituary can be found here. A snippet of an interview with Lili was featured in a video presented at the event (see recording above). We are working to develop more online programs which will further illuminate the Sheptytsky story, and will have more details to share soon.
May Lili's life, story, memory and legacy be a blessing to us all.
World Jewish Congress:
Education Against Hate Speech and Discrimination
Online Event Recording
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We recently promoted the World Jewish Congress' live stream event: Education Against Hate Speech And Discrimination, a virtual side-event to the 48th session of the UN Human Rights Council. On September 14th the stream took place with important and and informative take aways presented, duly promoting a sense of reassurance that the Jewish people, and other minority groups, have staunch international support in the fight against antisemitism and all other forms of hate speech.
We were filled with overwhelming pride that the highly-esteemed Sue Hampel OAM, one of the founders of March of the Living Australia, was a guest panellist at this most important event. Sue's years of Holocaust education and research as well as her current role as Chair of the Education Committee of IHRA, placed her in league with international MPs and other heads of global institutions on how governments, communities and individuals can educate themselves and others in the combat of hate speech.
Southern Wall Excavations
Online Event Recording
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On Thursday 30 September 2021, March of the Living Australia hosted an online event featuring an eye-opening virtual tour of the Southern Wall Excavations aka The Davidson Center. Under the expert guidance of Israeli tour guide Assaf Boker, we were lead through the traditional pilgrimage rituals of Sukkot by visiting different corners of the Davidson Center and learnt together how some of our Jewish rituals were shaped at that very place!
We warmly invite you to view the recording of this insightful and informative event by clicking on the image below:
March of the Living Australia's
Annual General Meeting for 2021
Sunday 21 November at 4pm AEDT
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We are pleased to confirm the date and time for our 2021 Annual General Meeting, which will take place on Sunday 21 November at 4pm AEDT.
We greatly encourage all friends and supporters of March of the Living to play an active role in improving and influencing March of the Living Australia, its work, outreach, engagement and programs. As such, we welcome as many of you as possible to become MEMBERS of the association for 2022. In doing so, you will be able to nominate as potential Committee of Management members and/or attend and/or vote at the upcoming AGM on November 21st, and thereafter continue to have a voice and influence across the organisation.
Please note, the annual membership fee is $18. If you would like to apply to become a member of March of the Living Australia Inc., please click on this link to download the application form. Please fill in your details on the form and get two (2) current Members of March of the Living Australia Inc. to support your membership application. If you do not know any other association Members, please email your completed Membership Form (without endorsement) to the Secretary - Shirley Atlas - at shirley@motl.com.au, by 21st October 2021, and she will be in touch thereafter with regard to endorsement. Please note that Membership is not automatic and that all applications for membership need to be approved by the Committee of Management.
If you wish to nominate for the Committee of Management of March of the Living Australia Inc., please contact either of the following at your earliest convenience but no later than 31st October 2021, and they will gladly discuss the process with you.
President - Cedric Geffen - cedric@motl.com.au
Chair of our Governance Sub-Committee - Karan Katz - karen@motl.com.au
We greatly look forward to hearing from you!
We recently came across this amazing video from 2017, which features and highlights the incredible work of Nate Leipciger, a Toronto-based Holocaust Survivor who has accompanied the Canadian Student March of the Living delegations many times over the years. One of those years was in 2001, when the Australian and Canadian student delegations were combined for the program. In light of this video, we invited Sarah Reid (2001 Australian Student Program Alumna, 2018 Student Program Counsellor and past MOTL Committee of Management Member) to share her experience of meeting and getting to know Nate (and a serendipitous chance encounter!):
Memories and Meetings
In 2001, I went on the 1st Australian March of the Living program which was combined with the Canadian contingent. The survivor who came with us that year was Nate Leipciger.
Sarah Reid and Nate Leipciger
Seventeen years later I returned to Poland with 2018 MOTL student program as the group counsellor. As I stood outside the destroyed crematorium in Auschwitz- Birkenau, I recalled to my colleague Nate's reciting of the Mourners' Kaddish while standing at this site in 2001. This was the memory I would forever remember and hold close to my heart. I had also mentioned that Nate was a special man, who I was sure had passed on, given his age at the time.
Later on that day we went to Auschwitz 1. As the students moved through the camp, they lined up to walk through the gas chamber. I stood at the back of the line and for no reason at all, I turned around. To my shock and disbelief, I saw Nate standing behind me and leading a group of Canadian students through the camp. I ran up to him, introduced myself to him and he straight away remembered me and the experience we shared 17 years prior. Nate introduced me to his group and told me that this was his 18th March and that he was leading the group. I felt like I had seen a celebrity.
Thank you Sarah for sharing this amazing story!
International March of the Living's
Kristallnacht Commemoration 2021
Online Event - Wednesday 10 November at 12pm AEDT
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Following last year's inaugural "Let There Be Light" Global Initiative, International March of the Living will once again be hosting an online International Commemoration Event in honour of Kristallnacht. Taking place on Wednesday 10 November at 12pm AEDT, the theme for the event will be 'shedding light on the darkness of hate' by focussing on upstanders in various situations both during Kristallnacht and more universally.
Further details of this event will be confirmed and shared in upcoming emails and across our social media channels, so be sure to keep an eye out for these!
Kristallnacht
Betty & Shmuel Rosenkranz Oration
with Philippe Sands QC
Online Event - Tuesday 9 November at 8pm AEDT
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In honour of Kristallnacht, we are proud to promote the Jewish Holocaust Centre's (VIC) annual Betty & Shmuel Rosenkranz Oration with this year's keynote speaker Phillipe Sands QC, exploring justice after the Holocaust.
Philippe Sands QC is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He is an award-winning author of Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008) and several academic books on international law, and has contributed to the New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, the Financial Times and The Guardian.
Broken Glass, Unbroken Spirit:
NSWJBD Kristallnacht Commemoration
Online Event - Tuesday 9 November at 7:30pm AEDT
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In honour of Kristallnacht, we are proud to promote the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies' annual Kristallnacht Commemoration, with this year's special guest Eddie Jaku (Holocaust Survivor and witness to Kristallnacht).
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
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homepage on our website - www.motl.com.au
We would like to re-iterate our wishes to you for a safe, joyful, happy and prosperous new year ahead - may we all be inscribed in the book of life for another year and have the opportunity to continue expressing and exemplifying kindness, compassion, peace and light in our households and communities.
We greatly look forward to being in touch again next month!
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