‘Coming to America’ panel discussion in Fair Lawn
A panel discussion detailing the personal experiences of Holocaust survivors and émigrés, moderated by Dr. Michael Riff, is at Temple Beth Sholom in Fair Lawn on April 22 at 10 a.m. It’s sponsored by the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey in collaboration with the Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College, which Dr. Riff directs.
Sally Whitmore, Bella Miller, Natalya Miroshnik, and Rachel Harari will be featured panelists. Both Ms. Whitmore and Ms. Miller survived the Holocaust. Ms. Miroshnik is from the former Soviet Union, and Ms. Harari is from Lebanon.
Jewish immigration to the United States in general — and in this region in particular — goes back to pre-Revolutionary War. Sephardic Jews settled in New Jersey before the Revolution; they were joined by waves of German and other Central European Jews in the 1840s, and by Eastern European Jews starting in the 1880s. The advent of Nazism and fascism in Europe during the 1930s led to the next wave, which continued after World War II.
This program focuses primarily on the post-war period in northern New Jersey, where Jewish resettlement and suburbanization coincided, creating a new landscape in American and Jewish history.
Holocaust survivors resettled here in the late 1940s and 1950s. After the Israeli War of Independence and the persecution of the Jews in the Middle East that followed that victory, Jews from Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa came as well.
The most recent wave of Jews has come from the former Soviet Union, beginning with the relaxation of emigration restrictions under communist rule and continuing after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1993.
This evening advances the missions of both the Jewish Historical Society of North Jersey and the Gross Center for Holocaust Studies. The society’s mission is to collect, preserve, and make available the documentary heritage of Jewish life and culture in Passaic, Bergen, and Hudson counties. The center’s mission is to assist students, educators, and the community-at-large in learning the history and lessons of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and other similar tragedies, and to forge awareness, changed attitudes, and new methodologies for the protection of individual liberty and the prevention of genocide.
Temple Beth Sholom is at 40-25 Fair Lawn Ave., in Fair Lawn. Refreshments will be served. For reservations, call (201) 300-6590 or email JHSNNJ@gmail.com.
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