September 7, 2023

Today was special. I marked my 31^st year at The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR) and upon arriving in Warsaw, Poland, in the afternoon, I found myself at an outdoor evening concert honoring Polish righteous. I sat with Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, Dr. Anna Bando, a Righteous Gentile and President of the Polish Society of the Righteous, and nine Righteous who attended the luncheon the JFR held for Polish Righteous this past July. The concert had two large screens which projected images of the Righteous as well as photographs of Jews before and during the Holocaust. Nazi Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Many at the concert, especially the Righteous, had lived through the war. Poland had just commemorated the German invasion days before. When these images appeared on the screens the audience was silent. It was a time for reflection. The concert was excellent!

I am in Poland to attend a beatification ceremony in Markova, Poland, this Sunday. The ceremony is honoring the UlmaFamily. The family hid 8 Jews until they were denounced. The Germans killed the Jews and the entire Ulma family, parents Jozef and Wiktoria, and their children. Here is a link to their rescue story.

-Stanlee

The JFR is pleased to announce the arrival of some new additions to the office. Ben Kamelhar will be the new education intern for the summer, and Kim Nates will be joining the JFR as a volunteer in the development department. After spending a gap year in Israel, Ben will enter NYU this fall. Originally hailing from South Africa, Kim graduated from Brown University this May. Welcome to the JFR Ben and Kim!

It’s been three years since we have made any major changes to our website. Since we are currently changing web hosts, we decided to take the opportunity to make several of our web pages more user friendly. These changes will allow our site to be available and accessible to users on all platforms, especially those using smartphones. Additionally, we will soon be able to offer our donors access to their giving history. More information on that will follow shortly. This summer, be sure to log onto www.jfr.org to read new rescue stories, to check out our updates, and to see our redesigned pages.

Spring and summer are busy seasons for the education department at the JFR. We are arranging the next locations of the traveling exhibit, Whoever Saves a Single Life…Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, and coordinating speaking engagements featuring members of the JFR’s Speaker’s Bureau. Currently, we are arranging the loan of the exhibit to the Rust Library in Leesburg, Virginia beginning September 15th. On September 23rd, in conunction with the exhibit, I will be speaking to the community on the importance of rescue during the Holocaust. It is great to see the exhibit getting such exposure across the country. Those of you who are interested in hosting the exhibit should also try to arrange for a member of our Speaker’s Bureau to speak on a related topic. Members of the JFR’s Speakers Bureau are experts in their individual fields and provide a plethora of information and resources on selected topics. Click here to learn more about members of the JFR Speaker’s Bureau and to obtain further information on our exhibit.