Ridgewood to hold interfaith Holocaust remembrance service
The 38th annual interfaith Holocaust remembrance service organized by Ridgewood’s Inter-Religious Fellowship will be at Temple Israel on Sunday, May 5, at 7:30 p.m. Reverend Peter Pettit will discuss “Letting the Holocaust Change Me: Now is the Time.”
According to Reverend Petitt, “For six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, life ended. For millions more, life was irrevocably changed. For me, the Holocaust is a subject of history and study, sober reflection and ethical assessment. Does it change me? Should it change me? Why? How? With the date nearing when eyewitnesses will no longer be among us, the question of how the Holocaust will change those who have no direct experience of it becomes more acute than ever. I believe that it must — now is the time.”
The Ridgewood Interfaith Choir, under the direction of Dr. Tamara Freeman, will sing the world premiere of “Plea(sed),” composed by Elliot Roman. The piece is based on a poem by Mordechai Gebertig (1877-1942), a beloved Yiddish poet and composer who died in the Holocaust. Freddie Kotek will narrate, and the virtuosic Rose Quartet from the Cali School of Music at Montclair State University will perform chamber music composed in Terezin. There will also be a candle-lighting ceremony by Holocaust survivors and members of their families.
Reverend Peter A. Pettit, Ph.D. is a Lutheran minister and teaching pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport, Iowa. He is a former research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, where he was a co-director of the Institute’s Theology Conference since its inception in 1984. The remembrance is free and open to the community.
comments