Messianic Initiative Helps Bring Holocaust Healing

Thursday, April 16, 2015 |  David Lazarus  ISRAEL TODAY

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“When I stood before the actual baby clothing, little dresses and tiny shoes that had been stripped off the infants being thrown into the gas chambers, I just couldn’t take it,” said Tehilah, one of the young Jewish girls who came to Auschwitz with a Messianic initiative called Yad B’yad, which means "Hand in Hand" in Hebrew.

“Standing there paralyzed, holding hands with my German partner, we both broke down crying and could not stop weeping as we held each other and walked through that horrible place,” she recalled. “Something very deep was healed in both of us.”

Every year since 2005, Messianic Jewish leaders in Israel together with their German partners have taken hundreds of Jewish and German youth aged 16-18 to walk through Auschwitz in the Yad B’yad program.

This bold Messianic initiative’s vision is clear: “The pain and the shame of the Holocaust have left deep scars on both Jew and German. They need help to walk together from memory – through friendship – to a shared future."

More than half of all Israeli high schools have since the 1980s sent tens of thousands of Jewish youth to Poland and to Auschwitz to learn the history of the Holocaust. “Many of our children coming back from these trips suffer from nightmares, anxiety and even some cases of depression,” said Batya Herpas, a local city chairperson with the Department of Education. “There are many problems and unresolved issues with the current high school trips to Poland.”

Members of Herpas’ city counsel noticed that the Yad B’yad participants didn’t seem to have the same problems, and that the program could help bring healing and resolution, rather than more pain and anger to their high school teens.

When Roi Keshet, a history teacher in a local Israeli high school, heard about the Messianic Yad B’yad initiative he said that it had been his dream to see Jewish and German teens walking together through Auschwitz. Quoting from Ezekiel 17, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge,’ he admitted that, “We have a problem with a victim mentality in this country and it is time to bring healing for both German and Jewish youth.”

Many German government officers and education officials have also shown interest in the Yad B’yad journey for their communities. The mayor of Berlin recently hosted a public event in the city square for Yad B’yad kids to tell their stories of how they were helping one another overcome the past and create hope for the future.

“When I saw all the barracks and the destroyed gas chambers,” said Annika, one of the German participants, “I realized for the first time how guilty my nation was and is! I understood what my country did! This was when I understood how important it is to ask for forgiveness… I separated from the group and I asked Julia (her Jewish partner) in the name of my family and in the name of my nation Germany for forgiveness and she forgave me in the name of her family and her nation.”

A Jewish participant named Esther recalled: “At the entrance to Birkenau there are train tracks. We walked in pairs (Jew and German) for about ten minutes holding hands… then each pair sat and prayed together. At first my partner and I were silent, then we began sharing our hearts with each other about what we had just seen. We were both in tears… Then my partner began to pray for me in German and even though I couldn't understand her, it was like God's grace touching my heart."

While in Auschwitz, the young ones light candles as a reminder that even through the darkest hours of human history our people have not been destroyed. It is a small light to remind all of us that hope is our strength, not anger. It is a light, however small, of hope for a future where they and their children’s children will find a way out of the darkness towards a day when we can all say together, “Never Again.”

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My visit to Auschwitz on this, International Holocaust Remembrance Day - Joel Rosenberg

Some thoughts on my visit to Auschwitz on this, International Holocaust Remembrance Day. by joelcrosenberg

My visit to the Nazi death camp in southern Poland led me to write "The Auschwitz Escape."

(Naples, Florida) -- Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Today is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in southern Poland. Indeed, this year marks 70 years since the defeat of the Nazi reign of terror, the end of World War II, and the end of the Holocaust that led to the systematic murder of six million Jews.

Let us take some time today -- and throughout this year -- to remember the horrors of what really happened. Let each of us take time to remember the heroes who fought the Nazis and survived and won the war. Let us also consider lessons learned from that darkest of eras in human history, and recommit ourselves to never letting it happen again.

Have you visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., or Yad Vashem in Israel, or one of the Nazi death camps in Europe? I would encourage you to do so, and to take your family.

In November of 2011, I had the opportunity to tour Auschwitz with several friends. The experience marked me forever.

Here is a short video of my time at Auschwitz, produced my oldest son, Caleb, for The Joshua Fund. It runs a little less than five minutes. I hope you'll take a few moments to watch it and to share it with others, especially today.

Here, too, is a link to the historical novel I published in the spring of 2014, The Auschwitz Escape. I hope you and your family will take some time to read it and discuss it.

I did not go to Poland planning to write a book. But as many of you know, I became so deeply fascinated in the lives of four Jewish men, true heroes, who actually escaped from Auschwitz, against all odds. I became intrigued with how they did it, and with their burning passion to escape not simply to save their own lives, but to risk all to tell the world -- including FDR and Churchill -- what was really happening there, and to plead with the world to take decisive action to liberate the camps and end the nightmare. Without question, these were the greatest escapes in human history.

Finally, for now, here is an article I posted on The Joshua Fund website several years ago describing my visit to Auschwitz and some of my thoughts on that visit. I hope you'll find it helpful.

-------------------------------

REPORT FROM AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

In November, after teaching on Bible prophecy and God’s love for Israel and the Jewish people at a wonderful, pro-Israel evangelical church in Germany, I had the opportunity to travel to Krakow, Poland with the pastor of that church and his wife, and a dear pastor friend from the U.S., and his wife. Together, the five of us spent a day touring the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps not far from Krakow. None of us had ever been there before. None of us will ever forget the experience. More than 1.3 million prisoners were brought to the camps by the Nazis during World War II. Of those, 1.1 million were exterminated in the gas chambers and the crematoria. One million were Jews. So many of them were children.

It is difficult to describe my emotions as a Jewish person as I stood inside one of the Nazi gas chambers. Or walked through rooms filled with enormous glass cases filled with human hair. And glasses. And shoes. And suitcases from all over Europe. How can one explain the inexplicable? With the help of my eldest son, Caleb, I’ve produced this short video report from Auschwitz to share with you, at least, some of the images that my colleagues and I saw at the camps. At the end of the video, you’ll also see an excerpt of a speech that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered in 2010. He said that the prophecies of Ezekiel 37 regarding the “Valley of the Dry Bones” were fulfilled during the Holocaust and the subsequent resurrection of the State of Israel. I couldn’t agree more. I hope you’ll take a moment to watch the video and encourage your friends and family to watch it as well.

My time at Auschwitz raised many sobering questions. Among them: Why was the world silent for so long? Why didn’t the U.S. and the allies take decisive action to stop Hitler before it was nearly too late? Why didn’t the Church do more to rescue Jews? As difficult as these questions are to answer, more difficult still are these: Why is much of the world largely silent again today as Radical Muslims in Tehran and elsewhere in the Middle East threaten to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people? Why are the U.S. and our allies refusing to take decisive action now to neutralize the Iran nuclear threat before it’s too late?

That said, I am glad to be able to report some good news: More and more Christians are repenting for the Church’s sins against the Jewish people in the past. The Church is mobilizing today to bless Israel and the Jewish people in ways that to her shame she did not in the 1930s and 1940s. More followers of Jesus Christ are hearing and heeding the call to learn, pray, give and go to the work of the Lord and caring for Holocaust survivors today than ever before. More Christians are helping persecuted Jews immigrate to Israel than ever before. More Christians are helping to feed and clothe the poor and needy in Israel than ever before. More Christians are visiting the Holy Land and meeting Israelis and learning about the past, present, and the future of the Promised Land and the Chosen people than ever before. Not all. And not enough. But more than ever. This is good, but more must be done. Evil is rising once again. Israel faces existential threats. The world is increasingly turning a blind eye to the fate of the Jews. Now evangelical Christians are the best friends that Israel and the Jewish people have. We cannot undo the past. But we can ask the Lord to forgive us and ask Him for the courage to be faithful to the Scriptures and to the Jewish people in the times in which we live. We can bless Israel and her neighbors in the name of Jesus, according to Genesis 12:1-3. We can show unconditional love and unwavering support, come what may. This is the heart of The Joshua Fund. That’s what our work is all about. And visiting Auschwitz was another powerful reminder to me personally that this work is more vital and urgent than ever.

As 2011 ends, therefore, I see the gathering storm on the horizon, but I am not frightened or discouraged. I know the God of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. I know He is moving powerfully. I know the Lord is taking what man meant for evil and turning it for good. Indeed, the Lord is moving powerfully to care for His people, Israel, and turn their hearts back to Him and His Word. And for this reason I rejoice. I look forward to 2012. I’m determined to stay the course, and I hope and pray that you will be, too.

“Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it,” declares the Lord.’”(Ezekiel 37:11-14)

—————-

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joelcrosenberg | January 27, 2015 at 3:16 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3cw

The Algemeiner E-paper - Source: Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli to Attend Historic Auschwitz Event

Source: Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli to Attend Historic Auschwitz Event

JANUARY 8, 2014 

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Algemeiner Staff

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Andrea Bocelli AuschwitzAndrea Bocelli IsraelAndrea Bocelli JewishFrom the DepthsInternational Holocaust Remembrance DayJonny DanielsKnesset membersYuli Edelstein

Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. Photo: Wikipedia.

Famed Italian tenor, Andrea Bocelli, plans to attend a historic memorial event at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp later this month, a source with knowledge of the matter revealed to The Algemeiner.

The event, which will take place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, will also be attended by more than half of Israel’s Knesset, other international politicians, and Holocaust survivors. The Knesset members will host a discussion on anti-Semitism at the memorial site.

“This event has the potential not just to be a memorial but to develop into a symposium for elected officials to discuss how the Holocaust and anything like it can never happen again,” Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein told The Jerusalem Post in September, when the event was first announced.

“The symbolism of the majority of the Knesset coming and standing with the survivors in a place in which 69 years ago they didn’t imagine they’d live another day is so strong,” said Jonny Daniels, founder of From the Depths, the organization planning the event.

Bocelli has expressed his appreciation for Israel in recent interviews.

In 2012, when asked by the UK’s Daily Telegraph about his best holiday, he responded: “A country that has really resonated with me and I was really impressed with was Israel. I found that the whole country had a very special atmosphere. I was there to perform but it was one of the few places that I’ve visited over the years that I had some free time to explore, and I was hugely impressed by all the religious history there.”

Writing for the UK’s Daily Mail last year, he said, “Places in the world I have especially enjoyed include Israel, which left a very powerful impression on me.”

Bocelli last visited Israel in 2011, performing at Masada in collaboration with members of the Rishon Lezion Symphonic Orchestra.

It is unclear of Bocelli plans to sing at the event, or just to attend as a guest.

Auschwitz Records 1.43 Million Visitors in 2012

Auschwitz Records 1.43 Million Visitors in 2012

The Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp memorial and museum registered 1.43 million visitors in 2012, a record number in its 65-year history.

 

By Rachel Hirshfeld

First Publish: 1/8/2013, Israel National News

Jewish delegation at Auschwitz

Israel news photo: Flash 90

 

The Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp memorial and museum in southern Poland registered 1.43 million visitors in 2012, a record number in its 65-year history, officials said Friday.


For several years now, the grounds of the former Nazi death camp have registered record numbers of visitors. In 2011, there were 1.4 million visitors from across the world, triple the number of a decade before.


In a statement announcing the new figure, director Piotr Cywinski said that in the last decade Auschwitz has become a "fundamental memorial" for all of Europe.


“It reflects the actual meaning of the history of the Shoah and the drama of concentration camps in the history of contemporary Europe and understanding its appearance today,” he said. “The growing educational dimension of this place indirectly shows us also the challenges that our societies face today."


Poland had the most visitors with 446,000, followed by Great Britain (149,000 visitors), the United States (97,000), Italy (84,000), Germany (74,000), Israel (68,000), and other countries.


While the record numbers of tourists visiting the site is essential for Holocaust education, it is straining the site's barracks and other structures, most of which were built of wood and never intended to last long.

Efforts are currently under way to preserve the site and maintain it in as close a state as possible to when it was liberated by Soviet troops in January 1945.


The Nazis murdered at least 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau (some claim the figure is much higher), most of whom were Jews, but the victims also included Polish political prisoners, Romani (gypsies), homosexuals and others.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163990