Dear Friend,

Happy New Year! We hope this finds you all well and safe, that you have had a joyous, restful and rejuvenating holiday break, and a fantastic start to 2023 so far! It is our fervent wish that this coming year be a safer, happier, positive and uplifting one for us all.

We will continue to offer a broad array of virtual events throughout 2023 (as we have done over the past several years) as well as a number of live and/or hybrid events, where possible.

We very much hope you will join us for these events and actively participate in our Holocaust and Israel awarenesses programs.

In this edition (if viewing this on a desktop, click on each heading to skip to that section):

In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 27 January as the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Since then, we have dedicated this day to remembering the atrocities committed towards the Jewish people during the Holocaust, and to address antisemitism and racism in our modern world so as to prevent future genocides.

We strongly encourage you to view or attend as many of the numerous events listed below (occurring both locally in Australia and around the world) in recognition of International Holocaust Remembrance Day and this year's theme, "Home and Belonging".  Click on the below links to find out more about each event (listed in chronological order):

Ahead of this year's International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we also invite you take part in the #WeRemember Campaign being run by the World Jewish Congress in partnership with UNESCO, to remind the world of what can happen when hatred is allowed to thrive unchecked.

Since the inception of International March of the Living in 1988, more than 300,000 alumni from 52 countries have marched down the same 3-kilometre path leading from Auschwitz to Birkenau on Holocaust Remembrance Day – Yom HaShoah – as a tribute to all victims of the Holocaust, with a commitment to study the history of the Holocaust and to examine the roots of prejudice, intolerance and hatred, and a united aspiration and promise to eliminate them from our communities all around the world.  The diverse composition of participants on the program includes students and adults from all streams of Judaism as well as many other religions, including Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist, of all ages, from teens to seniors in their 90s.  Also participating are Holocaust survivors, World War II liberators, educators, clergy of many religions, leading political and religious figures, as well as Righteous Among the Nations.

March of the Living Australia has been immensely proud and honoured to be a part of the global MOTL family for the past 22 years, having sent more than 2,200 Australians on the program since 2001.  We recognise, applaud and celebrate the significant milestones achieved over the past 35 years as well as the incredibly vital and important work yet to be done, and remain steadfast in our commitment to ensuring as many people as possible, both Jewish and non-Jewish alike, can experience the truly unique and life-changing journey that is March of the Living.  

We would like to take this opportunity to wish our global March of the Living family a big and hearty Mazal Tov! May our global community continue to grow from strength to strength in the many years to come!

With registrations for both our Adult and Young Adult programs having officially closed towards the end of 2022, we are thrilled to be leading a 45-strong Australian contingent on the 2023 March of the Living program, our first delegation following a three-year hiatus due to the global pandemic.  The delegation this year will have an incredibly diverse 'flavour' to it, comprising Adults; a 3-generational family; our very first cohort of subsidised Young Adults; incredible child Survivor Henry Buch (who was saved by non-Jews and raised initially as a Christian); as well as three high-profile broader community opinion leaders.  The involvement of these high-profile broader community participants signifies a vital step forward for MOTL Australia in our continued efforts to 'spread the message' of the crucial importance of Holocaust memorialisation and hate prevention education to the broader community of Australia across all faiths. 

With this in mind, we are thrilled to share an article written by Adam Geha, an alumnus of our 2019 Adult program who is of Christian-Lebanese background, in which he describes the vital importance for Christians to participate on the March of the Living.  This article was published in the 2022 edition of Gesher, the official journal of The Council of Christians and Jews (Victoria).

Additionally, our Australian delegation in 2023 will be accompanied by a film crew who will be making a new documentary.  Directed by Adam Dostalek (2014 MOTL Alumnus and inspirational leader of Live Differently Productions), the documentary will use the program as a platform to look at how far we as a society have/have not come from a 'hate prevention' perspective in the 80+ years since the Holocaust, while exploring the MOTL experience from a wholly unique and different perspective.

While registrations for our 2023 program have closed, we are now accepting Expressions of Interest for our 2024 programs - click on the button below if you would like to be added to our mailing list to receive details about our 2024 program.

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 by becoming a paid MEMBER of the Association for 2023. In doing so, you will have a voice and influence across the organisation. 

The annual membership fee is $18.  If you would like to apply to become a member of March of the Living Australia Inc,  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, 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.

We greatly look forward to hearing from you, and to hopefully having you join us as a Member of the Association in 2023!

We are proud to welcome internationally-renowned cellist Friederike Fechner for the first event in our 2023 online series.  Friederike will present on her fascinating journey of research which began when she and her husband purchased and renovated a decrepit townhouse in Stralsund on Germany's Baltic coast. Discovering that the house formerly belonged to a Jewish couple, Selma and Julius Blach (who owned a leatherware factory), Friederike began researching the Blach descendants and finally connected family members who had never heard of one another before.  For her research she was awarded with the Obermayer Award and the Federal Cross of Merit in 2021.

We warmly invite you to read this article and discover more about this incredible story.

**This event was originally scheduled for October 2022, but was unfortunately cancelled at the last moment due to unforeseen circumstances - we are thrilled that we have been able to re-schedule it and warmly welcome Friederike back for what will undoubtedly be a most moving evening! 

We are honoured to promote this series of special events being hosted in Melbourne and Sydney by ZDVO Beith Halochem Australia.  For the first time in Australia, Yoseph Haddad (a non-Jewish Israeli-Arab and staunch supporter of Israel) and Emily Schrader (an award-winning American-Israeli journalist, lecturer and content creator) will discuss their views on Israel and the fight against antisemitism around the globe.

We are particularly excited that, as part of the MOTL itinerary on this year's program, our Australian delegation will also have a one-on-one address by Yoseph at Beith Halochem in Tel Aviv, where they will hear his views about the importance of Israel advocacy and how to fight anti-Israel bias.

We warmly encourage you to attend these special events in Australia if you are able to! Click on the buttons below for further details:

March of the Living Australia is proud to once again partner with Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) in support of its annual Righteous Among the Nations virtual reception this February. This year, the reception will commemorate the late Bishop of Assisi, Monsignor Giuseppe Placido Nicolini, who will be recognised for his role in saving Italian Jews during the Holocaust by bringing them to refuge in the City of St. Francis.

Further details (including a link to view the reception) will be made available soon - for now, we encourage you to save the date!

With are thrilled to announce the appointment of Yael Garkawe as our new March of the Living Australia Administrator! Having worked in numerous positions across several organisations in the Melbourne Jewish community, Yael brings with a breadth and wealth of knowledge to the role.  We are doubly excited as Yael will also be participating on our 2023 Adult March of the Living program, alongside her son Josh (a participant on the Young Adult program) - we have no doubt her experience will greatly inform her work and contribution to the organisation, and are very excited to work alongisde her.

On behalf of our MOTL Australia family, we wish a very warm 'welcome' to Yael and once again wish to thank and pay tribute to Matan Franco, our outgoing Administrator, who has served the organisation so extraordinarily well over the past four years. Thank you Matan, you are a legend and a true friend of March of the Living Australia!

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:

• VIDEO: 35 Years of Marching to the Future
• VIDEO: 35 Years of Marching in Memory
• VIDOE: Tribute to Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau
• 'The great unpunishment': How, why so many Holocaust perpetrators got away with it
• Adolfo Kaminsky, Jewish French forger who saved 14,000 in Holocaust, dies at 97
• 21 never-published photos of Warsaw Ghetto Revolt's aftermath found in Poland attic

• Oscar-qualifying short film strikes chord with story of heroic young WWII partisan

• 'Imam of Peace' committed to fight against Islamist extremism

• Ideology one of 'bigotry and violence'

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Once again, we would like to wish you and your loved ones a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous new year.  We greatly look forward to being in touch again next month! 

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