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Public Employee Press
Never give up hope Holocaust
survivor Esther Jungreis addresses Jewish Heritage Committee dinner at DC 37 Participants at DC 37s 13th Annual Jewish
Heritage Month Celebration on June 28 listened silently, almost reverentially,
as keynote speaker Esther Jungreis offered some of the wisdom she had gained in
surviving the Nazi death camps. Hope is the most important aspect
of our Jewish heritage, said Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass in his invocation. Many
Jews became activists and leaders in the U.S. labor movement in the hope
of building a better world, said Kass, a member of DC 37s Local 299
and the Senior Jewish Chaplain of the city Police Dept. Executive Director
Lillian Roberts attended but was called away on union business before the formal
program began, and DC 37 Treasurer Maf Misbah Uddin addressed the group. This
union and this city have come a long way based on the contributions of Jewish
members and leaders, said Uddin, who is president of Local 1407.
Dr. Leonard Davidman, president of Psychologists Local 1189 and the new chair
of the Jewish Heritage Committee, emceed and presented a beautiful kiddush (sanctifying)
cup to outgoing chair Larry Glickson before the hundreds of members and retirees
who attended. In addition to the speakers, the event included a kosher meal from
Brooklyns Essex-on-Coney, the comedy of Stewie Stone and klezmer music by
Howard LeShaw and the Golden Land Orchestra. Television
producer Alan Oirich told of what he sees as the Jewish roots of comic book superheroes
such as Superman, who like Moses was sent away to survive as his people faced
catastrophe, and who in his earliest comics wore biblical-looking sandals.
David Napell of the organization Mazon, The Jewish Response to Hunger, explained
that a small amount of money could alleviate hunger worldwide. The Jewish Heritage
Committee regularly contributes to Mazon, which raises money from Jews and assists
Jewish and non-Jewish groups. Rebbetzin Jungreis, a best-selling author,
survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where the Nazis killed as many as
18,000 Jews and Poles in one month. Rebbetzin is a Yiddish title of respect and
endearment for a rabbis wife. In a voice somewhere between a sob
and a wail, she explained that after she was freed from the camp in 1945, she
thanked God for giving her the wisdom of the rooster. The rooster, she said, can
tell night from day and good from evil, unlike the Nazi officers with college
degrees who ran the camp. The rooster also has the strength to know that no
matter how dense the darkness, the morning will come to understand that
we must never give up hope.
Bill Schleicher | |