STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Oct. 31, 2020 - On Monday, November 9 at 7 p.m. via Zoom The Wagner College Holocaust Center (https://wagner.edu/holocaust-center/about-us/) will present the 5th annual commemoration of Kristallnacht and the St. Louis. The commemoration will be led by guest speaker Julian E. Zelizer (https://history.princeton.edu/people/julian-e-zelizer), Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and CNN Analyst. This talk will examine the ways in which fighting anti-Semitism and the quest for racial justice intersect, drawing inspiration from the life and theology of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-72). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel) Guests are requested to register here to receive the link to the event. https://alumniconnect.wagner.edu/kristallnacht-2020?srctid=1&erid=4518114&trid=09f79e3b-1c90-4a1f-b6e5-22db19a114f3
"We are proud to explore how a Jewish survivor of Nazi Germany became so committed to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and how that is relevant to the quest for racial justice today." insists Prof. Lori Weintrob, Director of the Wagner College Holocaust Center
The commemoration features artwork and singing by students at local schools, candle lighting by survivors of the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda, and remarks by Traci Frey, Board of Education DC31 Deputy District Superintendent, and by Prof. Rita Reynolds, who teaches African-American history at Wagner College.
Julian Zelizer, is the Co-Host of the weekly podcast, Politics, and Polls, published 19 books and over 900 op-ed articles on American politics since the New Deal. He recently published Burning Down the House: Newt Gingrich, the Fall of a Speaker, and the Rise of the New Republican Party (2020). This talk is drawn from his forthcoming biography of A.J. Heschel for Yale University's Jewish Lives Series.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Polish-born American rabbi, was one of the leading Jewish theologians of the 20th century. Martin Luther King called Heschel "a truly great prophet" for his activism in the civil rights movement. Educated in Vilna and Berlin, Heschel witnessed the Nazi book burnings; his mother and three of his sisters perished in the Holocaust. Escaping to the U.S.in 1940. He persuaded the Roman Catholic Church to revise anti-Semitic teachings and advocated on behalf of Soviet Jews. He marched arm-in-arm with Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis in Selma and called on President Kennedy to show "moral grandeur." Insisting that faith involved awe and wonder at God's creation, he was also dedicated to advocating for human rights.
This annual commemoration honors the courage of Egon J. Salmon, his parents Paul and Erna, and other relatives that enabled their family to survive. Egon J. Salmon was an eyewitness to anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and to Kristallnacht.
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