Lehrer is part of a high-ranking delegation from the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament currently in Israel, advocating for a Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial site to be located in North Rhine-Westphalia. The delegation includes, among others, State Parliament President André Kuper (CDU), Antisemitism Commissioner Sylvia Löhrmann (Greens), and the President of the Westphalian Evangelical Lutheran Church, Adelheid Ruck-Schröder.

After a lengthy visit to Yad Vashem, the group attended the Reformation service at the Redeemer's Church in Jerusalem's Old City. Lehrer was explicitly welcomed at the beginning of the service in his capacity as Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.

Bishop speaks of "two years of genocide"

In his sermon, delivered in Arabic and for which translations were offered, Bishop Azar spoke of a "genocide" against the Palestinians:

"But what does reformation look like after two years of genocide? (…) When the international community ignores Palestinian suffering, that is a call for reformation. (…) When the dominate global narrative dehumanizes the Palestinians and ignores the Palestinian Christians' existence, that is a call for reformation."

Azar also criticized Israeli checkpoints in Judea and Samaria and spoke about "falsely imprisoned people". He did not mention the Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, the fate of the Israeli hostages, or recent reports of Gaza civilians killed by Hamas.

Abraham Lehrer is the vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the umbrella organization for Jewish communities in Germany. His mother is a survivor of the Auschwitz camp.

"The translation said in English 'genocide,' in German 'genocide' – when I read that, I couldn't stay," Lehrer said to German news outlets.

In the middle of the sermon, Abraham Lehrer stood up, left the service immediately, and took a taxi back to his hotel. He did not attend the subsequent reception hosted by the congregation. The other members of the North-Rhine-Westphalia delegation stayed until the end of the service and left the reception early.

Prayer for the release of "all prisoners" in Israeli prisons

In another part of the service, prayers were offered in French for the release of "all prisoners in Israeli prisons." A worshipper who spoke after the event with the leader of this prayer reported that he did not deny that this included imprisoned Hamas terrorists.

Bishop Ibrahim Azar leads the Evangelical Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, which was founded in the 19th century by German missionaries and still receives substantial financial support from Germany. He is known for constant accusations against Israel. In July, for example, he publicly accused the Israeli government of using starvation as a "weapon of ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians.

Azar is also considered to be one of the leaders of the EAPPI program, which sends international anti-Israel activists to Judea and Samaria, where confrontations with Israeli soldiers regularly occur.

"This is not true morality"

Danny Orbach, a military historian and an associate professor at the History and Asian Studies Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, states about the claims of Azar:

"This is not true morality. This is perverse morality that incentivizes the likes of Hamas to hide even more behind civilians, using them as human shields, thus amplifying the destructive effects of wars and the plight of victims in the future.

The situation in Gaza is as far away from genocide as possible. In all known cases of genocide, the perpetrating side tried to kill as many civilians as possible, in order to destroy the group as a whole or in a substantial part.

In Gaza, by contrast, even the necessary conditions of maximizing deliberate killing of civilians are not met. Nor does indifference. In fact, the IDF sacrificed an important military advantage in order to spare civilians and minimize their killing.

In addition, analysis of bombing patterns shows that in the first, more deadly two months of the war, Israel spent an incredible amount of ammunition in order to conduct a very large number of small, focused attacks against targets embedded in an urban environment. Had it wanted to kill large numbers of civilians, one bomb could kill several hundred in dense areas, and Israel had all the incentives to spare ammunition, being faced with several fronts and possible embargoes. Yet it chose to expend scarce resources in order to minimize the death of uninvolved civilians, bringing the ratio of bombs per casualty in the first two months of the war to something less than one bomb. This is certainly not the mark of indiscriminate bombings.

Also, careful casualty analysis of Gaza Health Ministry Data (suspicious due to affiliations with Hamas, and yet), shows that fighting-age men are numerous among the war casualties in a way that widely overrepresents their share in the general population.

Finally, none of the above should make us ignore the enormous human toll in Gaza, the widespread destruction, and the immense suffering of the population. All wars are hell, and from all wars one could broadcast an endless stream of horror pictures of hellish human suffering. Certainly in urban wars, and certainly in wars where an enemy like Hamas is deliberately using civilians as human shields, building 1000 km of tunnels below almost every civilian structure, and is systematically using hospitals, schools, mosques, and kindergartens for military purposes.

And yet, though Hamas used the safer areas (humanitarian zones) for military purposes, hiding its leaders there and shooting hundreds of rockets towards Israeli civilians, according to our statistical analysis, the humanitarian zones were safer for Gaza civilians almost sixfold than other areas of the Gaza Strip. That is, Israel made a lot of effort to spare civilians even though Hamas abused the humanitarian zones."

Furthermore, Professor Orbach notices, "I do not think it is legitimate to spread vile Hamas propaganda, which is just false and amounts to blood libel, in front of a delegation going mainly to Yad Vashem."

Bishop Ibrahim Azar's daughter, Sally Azar, also an employee of the Protestant Church, recently came under criticism as well. At the German Protestant Church Assembly in Hanover, she led a workshop on "Palestine", during which, according to reports, a map was shown on which Israeli cities were listed only with their Arabic names; Tel Aviv was completely missing. Furthermore, on the day of the Hamas attack, October 7, 2023, she posted the sentence "Gaza just broke out of prison " on Instagram – many interpreted this as an endorsement of the attack.

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The European Union Delegation to Israel in partnership with Yad Vashem held a profound commemoration at Beit Juliana Nursing Home in Herzliya, central Israel, on January 21. This poignant ceremony marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, bringing together Holocaust survivors, EU ambassadors, and local high school students in a powerful testament to memory and resilience.

Beit Juliana, a residential complex established in 1979 by Dutch immigrants, houses around 200 residents, many of whom are Holocaust survivors. The location added layers of significance to the event, particularly in light of a recent Hezbollah drone attack on the eve of Yom Kippur 2024, that damaged the building but left residents unharmed.

EU Ambassador Dimiter Tzantchev delivered a stirring address, emphasizing the urgent need to combat rising antisemitism. "We Europeans consider it a sacred duty to condemn and repudiate the factories of death that the Nazis and their local collaborators set up on our continent and beyond with the sole goal to annihilate every single Jew they could find," he declared. Tzantchev highlighted a disturbing statistic from a recent EU survey: 96% of Jews in Europe encounter antisemitism either online or offline. "That is totally unacceptable," he stated, "and we are determined to fight these odious developments to make sure Jews can live and thrive – in Europe, Israel, and around the globe."

The ceremony featured powerful testimonies from Holocaust survivors, including Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel, whose extraordinary life story captivated the audience. Born in the Švenčionys Ghetto in 1943, Weksler-Waszkinel was entrusted to a Polish couple as an infant. Unaware of his Jewish heritage until adulthood, his journey of self-discovery led him from the Catholic priesthood back to his Jewish roots. "The only reason I cannot say no to my Polish parents is their love for me," Weksler-Waszkinel shared. "The only reason that, for the rest of my days, I am going to shout that I am Jewish, is my love for my Jewish parents."

Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan emphasized the enduring impact of the Holocaust on survivors. "The scars of the Holocaust did not simply fade with time, and would ultimately shape the rest of their lives," he noted. "As we reflect on this milestone anniversary, let us honor not only the memory of the victims but also the extraordinary efforts of survivors who would go on to mold the future of our world."

The event also highlighted the stories of Beit Juliana residents. Rachel Fisch, whose apartment bore the brunt of the recent drone attack, recounted her experiences during World War II. Other residents, painted a vivid picture of survival against overwhelming odds.

Beit Juliana Director Iris Friedman Sade reflected on the lessons learned from the residents. "Especially in these complex times, I learn from Beit Juliana's residents about the power of faith and overcoming impossible obstacles. They teach us that even from the depths of hell, one can rise and build a new life," she said.

The ceremony underscored the EU's ongoing commitment to combating antisemitism and preserving Holocaust memory. Ambassador Tzantchev detailed the EU's Comprehensive Strategy on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life, launched in 2021. This landmark framework aims to address antisemitism through education, security measures, and cultural initiatives. Tzantchev announced a commitment of millions of Euros for Holocaust education and remembrance in 2025, emphasizing the importance of these efforts in light of current global challenges. Following the ceremony, Ambassador Tzantchev visited Rachel Fisch's apartment, which had been damaged in the drone attack. This personal gesture symbolized the EU's solidarity with Holocaust survivors and their ongoing struggles.

Students from the local Rishonim High School played a crucial role in the event, participating in meaningful intergenerational dialogues with survivors. These interactions emphasized the vital role of youth in carrying forward Holocaust remembrance and combating hatred in all its forms.

The event, part of broader commemorations including additional events scheduled at Yad Vashem on January 23-24, stands as a testament to the enduring spirit of survivors and the commitment of institutions like the EU and Yad Vashem to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten.

In the words of Beit Juliana's director, inspired by the poet Rachel Shapira: "Slowly, we learned once again to discern the wonderful power of life." This sentiment encapsulates the spirit of the commemoration – a celebration of resilience, a call to vigilance, and a commitment to building a future free from the shadows of the past.

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The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum is set to showcase a collection of Disney-inspired artworks created by Holocaust survivors and victims. These rare pieces, including a Pinocchio-adorned jar buried to escape Nazi persecution and a Mickey Mouse birthday card preserved for over seven decades, offer a unique window into how Jews, especially children, found solace and expression through familiar cartoon characters during one of history's darkest periods.

For 80 years, these artworks remained hidden, some wrapped, damaged, or concealed, yet they managed to survive the journey from concentration camps and ghettos. Often the sole possessions of Holocaust survivors, they have now found their way into Yad Vashem's collections.

As part of the "relocation" to the new Shaffer collections center, which houses millions of historical artifacts – objects, documents, artworks, and photographs from countless sources – artistic treasures created by Jews during the Holocaust have been uncovered. Most of these were made by children and teenagers who expressed their emotions through works featuring characters familiar to almost everyone – Walt Disney films.

"One of the most touching Disney drawings was created in March 1941, at the height of the war, inspired by the film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,'" curator Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg, director of Yad Vashem's Art Collection, says. "Henri Kichka, father of Michel Kichka, was then a 15-year-old boy who had lost his family in the gas chambers and found refuge in the magical world of fairy tales. After the war, he returned to Brussels and collected items from the family apartment, including this drawing which he gave to his daughter Hanna, who immigrated to Israel in 1970. Hanna passed the drawing to her son Yaron, who received a dedication from his grandfather – 'To Yaron, from his grandpa.'"

Drawing to survive

Kichka was not the only one who found comfort in Disney films. Suzanne Schick was 14 when she fled Austria at the outbreak of World War II and hid in Yugoslavia with about 1,200 Jews awaiting immigration permits to Israel. On her 15th birthday, her friends prepared a gift – a box with a drawing of a ship and a Mickey Mouse greeting, which she kept close to her heart for 72 years as the last memory of her childhood, until she entrusted it to Yad Vashem for future generations.

Another item, one of the most prominent artworks created during the Holocaust using cartoon characters, is a colorful jar featuring Pinocchio. The jar was created before the war by artist Lilly Kasticher from Yugoslavia. "When the war broke out and she was deported with her family to Auschwitz, Lilly buried the jar in the ground along with documents and photographs as a hope to preserve a last memory," explains curator Michael Tal, manager of Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection. "Lilly encouraged her fellow prisoners to write poems and draw in order to survive, and after the war, she even brought the creations to Israel inside the jar she had buried in the ground."

The collections center, spanning 63,300 square feet, includes four underground floors and an additional floor housing five of the world's most advanced laboratories for preserving paper, photographs, artifacts, textiles, and art. The center will preserve about 227 million pages of documentation, tens of thousands of artifacts and artworks, and hundreds of thousands of photographs and testimonies from Holocaust survivors.

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Q: You've served as director of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem – the world Holocaust remembrance center – for nearly 30 years. You told me before, that the preoccupation with names and the stories of the victims in the Pages of Testimony collection fascinates you. On a deeper level, what does this pursuit mean to you?

"Shimon Peres once said that people are not floating in the air like in Chagall's paintings, because every human being is tied to a specific place. For me, the pursuit of the source of the names, their place of origin, and their roots is a winning combination of history, geography, and textual research in multiple languages. Of course, the fact that we're helping people to get closure and sometimes find living relatives also contributed. Our main work is based on the page of testimony, a personal card briefly describing the identity and a short biography of the Holocaust victim. These are usually filled out by family members, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. While the page of testimony itself is printed in 14 languages, our work involves more than 30 languages."

Q: You've typed countless names into the database of victims' names. You must have encountered some unique stories.

"I worked for years at the Hall of Names desk, where people came and asked for information about their relatives. Once, a man insisted on receiving the original page of testimony, which was forbidden. He kept requesting it until I finally complied. When he had the page in his hands, he stepped aside, turned around, and I heard him recite the Mourner's Kaddish prayer inside the hall. It broke my heart. The page of testimony is a symbolic gravestone because most of the Holocaust victims did not have a grave. This is the reason our work touches the deepest chords of people's souls. To this day, we receive about 1,000 pages of testimony per month. The first one arrived at Yad Vashem in 1954."

Video: PM Netanyahu speaks during the Holocaust Remembrance Day on May 5, 2024

Q: What did early efforts to collect names involve?

"The first protocol of Yad Vashem included a recommendation on how to approach the mission of collecting names – contacting families and requesting them to report missing persons. Another channel was appealing to the archives of the extermination camps, which was, of course, an oxymoron - because there were no records kept at all. Initially, in the 1950s, registration was done by communities, and along the way, the idea of personal commemoration emerged based on the page of testimony, which incidentally is also legally valid.

In 1955, a national campaign to collect testimonials lasted over two years, with registration stations set up across the country. At one point, when organizers were unsatisfied with the public response, teams of pairs went door-to-door asking people to fill out the pages.

Years later, in 1994, we worked in the southern city of Kiryat Gat and the city of Carmiel up north, sending high school students door-to-door. We managed to collect about 30,000 names there, but one of the teams, consisting of two girls didn't return on time. We waited and waited, and they simply didn't come back. Towards evening, they returned pale-faced with tears in their eyes. We didn't understand what happened until they explained to us that the delay was caused by one family filling in more and more pages of testimony. They brought over 100 pages from one family. It was an unforgettable event. In the end, the operation in the 1950s led to the collection of about 800,000 names, and following another operation in April 1999, we collected about 400,000 more."

Q: You've worked on the collection since 1984, locating names from various populations in unconventional places. Where did you find victim names?

"We search everywhere – in schools in Poland, checking Sept. 1939 student lists, realizing the missing Jewish children were murdered. We received pages of testimony from unlikely places like Suriname in South America and Hong Kong, where Jews lived. Inevitably, there will always be someone who lost family in the Holocaust. We even got pages from Monaco, even though it's not exactly the place one tends to think of in the context of the Holocaust. But the Holocaust reached there, and several tens of Jews were sent to the camps from there."

Q: What about locating names in the ultra-Orthodox community?

"In the ultra-Orthodox sector, various forms of commemorating names have developed. In books dealing with religious subjects, there are dedications by the publisher or author to family members who were murdered in the Holocaust. We scanned tens of thousands of books for dedications. We also found many memorial plaques in synagogues with names, and sometimes names on synagogue seats dedicated to victims' memories. We photographed 99% of synagogues and study halls in Israel. In some cases, discarded memorial plaques had to be reassembled from backyards after renovations. We concluded that 65% of the names we found in synagogues were not registered in our database. This is a serious and significant source. Additionally, we attempted to locate more names in cemeteries. Roughly speaking, on one of every ten tombstones in Israel, there are names of Holocaust victims. In the absence of a proper grave for the victims, the family seeks a physical, tangible place to commemorate their memory. I think over the years we have covered over half of the graves in the State of Israel, probably hundreds of thousands of graves."

Q: You had a similar project among Jews from the former Soviet bloc. 

"We made significant efforts to raise their awareness of the importance of the subject because, in the former Soviet Union, the Holocaust was a taboo topic. They had different narratives, and almost no approval was given for commemorative actions. Before the Iron Curtain fell, we received some self-printed testimonials, smuggled out by foreign tourists."

Q: How do you feel when you discover a new name?

"The Nazis wanted to destroy the Jews, and also to annihilate their memory. Therefore, for me, every new name is another victory over the Nazis. I have a picture in my office of a machine developed by IBM and marketed in Europe in the 1930s, which served the Nazis in managing the population census of the Jews in May 1939. Today, we use similar, advanced technology, but for the opposite purpose – to preserve the memory of the Jews and to turn them from numbers into people. For me, it is another victory over the Nazis. But it is important to mention that there is great responsibility in locating the names. Our team is mostly composed of experts in linguistics and philology, proficient in several languages. Our goal is to thoroughly understand the name and interpret it in its historical context, as language changes over time. Sometimes, a single letter can alter the entire meaning. If we attempt to document the name of the victim, and we make a mistake with one letter – everything we did is worthless. That individual will not be remembered, as no one will find them due to the incorrect name."

Q: Nevertheless, errors such as duplicate names might occur, and sometimes it takes time to update names I presume. 

"True, but that doesn't absolve us of responsibility. We try to be as accurate as possible and avoid duplicate names. It's important for us to honor the victims and preserve their memory as accurately as possible, but only those who don't work make no mistakes. Just a month ago, one of the employees at Yad Vashem discovered that her uncle's name was listed with us as a victim, while he survived. It happens from time to time, and it's preferable that these are the kinds of mistakes we make."

Q: Was there a testimonial that moved you deeply?

"In 1999, we executed an extensive computerized project in which we typed more than a million pages of testimonies. One was about a woman who had been sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. Her name was Bat Sheva and she was from Kavala, Greece. We had no other details except that she sold ice cream at a school. The person who filled it out was a child who bought ice cream from her, writing he didn't know anything else except that he'd never forget her delicious ice cream, tasting like the madeleine cookies in Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time'. The flavors brought emotion and memories to life. We shared this story with all our typists, and I remember time standing still. It was very emotional."

Q: Do you get overcome with emotion often due to your work?

"Our team consists of about 20 people, and they are exposed to extreme emotional situations, both difficult and optimistic. But generally, these are people mainly dealing with death. Some of the team members write about 30 names of victims per day, for years. The pages of testimony also indicate how the victims were murdered, it's incomprehensible. But this work is so important because we are responsible for ensuring that the memory of these people is not erased. There was a case where an employee came to me and said she could no longer type the names of the victims, that it was hard for her, and asked to type the names of survivors instead, thus connecting to the more optimistic aspect of the work."

Q: Some of the victims were children. I suppose this makes coping more difficult and complex.

"It's painful because we have records indicating a child was murdered, but we don't have their name. There are testimonies with the name of an adult who was murdered, and it's noted, for example, that they had three children, sometimes even indicating their gender and age, but without their names. This is because distant relatives filled out the testimony page, but they didn't always remember the names."

Q: It's chilling. They lived, but no one will remember them by their names.

"It's as if they never existed. Every time I encounter such a testimony page I shudder, my heart breaks. Currently, we have no solution for this because the law of privacy in Europe applies to 100 years from birth. Maybe in another 20 years, we will be able to locate the names of the children. It's a little comfort."

Q: When you began working at Yad Vashem, you had approximately one and a half million names, with about 4 million missing. Did you ever imagine you'd gather such a vast number of names over the years?"

"I didn't dare imagine it, but I held onto hope. Now, my dream is to reach 5 million names before retiring next year. That's roughly another 100,000 names by then. Over the years, our team diligently typed countless names into the system, one by one. I've personally inputted thousands of names. Each name stirs something within us, offering a glimmer of hope for continuity. These names have become my life's mission, albeit a challenging one. Every passing day, we exhaust known and potential sources, with fewer survivors and dwindling documentation. It's a constant race against time."

Q: You rely on artificial intelligence. Could this advance lead you to uncover more names?

"Over the past year, artificial intelligence has 'learned' to scan written and photographed testimonies of Holocaust survivors, extracting additional names of victims. The technology keeps improving, allowing us to delve into testimonies provided by tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors over the years, some of whom have passed away, and extract additional names along with detailed information such as full names, birth cities, parents' names, and the last place they were seen. This technology enables us to sift through vast amounts of data and uncover thousands of names in a fraction of the time it would take us manually. However, the machine still requires further training to become more accurate. If successful, there's significant potential here for text scanning on a massive scale within a reasonable timeframe."

Q: Even with artificial intelligence, do we need to accept that some names may never be identified?

"I fear that might be the case. As of January this year, we've documented around 4.9 million names. The mythical figure of 6 million, as mentioned in the Nuremberg trials, is likely closer to 5.8 million in reality. The difficulty lies in knowing that we may never be able to document all the victims, especially in regions where sources are scarce. The issue is that people don't understand that there was never truly a list of 6 million or even 5.8 million. I've encountered people who are genuinely surprised, and astounded, that there are still around a million names of Holocaust victims missing. They ask me, 'Don't you know all the names? We always hear about the six million.' But it doesn't exist, there isn't a comprehensive list of all the victims, just as there isn't an organized list of survivors. In our database, there are over a million names of Jews whose fate is unknown. In Germany, there's currently an attempt to reconstruct the names of Jews who lived in the country between 1933 and 1945, but it's challenging because at the time the Germans certainly didn't document the names of the murdered. They simply annihilated most of them without any record. In contrast, our mission, as stated in the Book of Names, is to engrave the names of the Holocaust's Jewish victims into the world's memory. That's our mission."

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At exactly 10:00 am on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the country of Israel stood still to observe the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II.

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Israel will begin observing the Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday evening with a state ceremony at the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog are scheduled to speak at the event. In light of the weekly mass protests against the judicial reform, Yad Vashem is also preparing for the possibility of protesters disrupting the event. On Tuesday, the International March of the Living will take place in Poland, with thousands expected to attend and walk between the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

The event is marking its 35th anniversary this year and will be held in full format for the first time in three years due to the coronavirus pandemic. Delegations from 25 countries are expected to attend as well as the grandchildren of the fighters of the Jewish Combat Organization.

The march will be led by 42 Holocaust survivors from Israel and elsewhere as well as senior Israeli politicians and officials. For the first time, a torch will also be lit in memory of North African Jews who were also persecuted by the Nazi regime.

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A Torah scroll from Kielce in Poland survived the Holocaust and its owner fell victim to an anti-Jewish Polish pogrom. Now, it will be entrusted to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, with the aim of memorializing the family and the Jewish community.

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Mordechai (Motel) Kanner was born in 1910 in Kielce in Poland to Sender (Alexander) and Sara-Rachel, nee Redlich. Mordechai had three sisters: Esther, Hela-Handel and Luba. Mordechai was a watchmaker and traded in Zieger watches.

With the outbreak of World War II and the German invasion of Poland, Kanner fled to the Soviet Union. Along the way, he passed through a village where an elderly Jewish woman gave him a Torah scroll. Kenner carried on his journey with the scroll, but its size weighed him down in his escape, so he decided to bury it in the ground and come back to retrieve it if he ever managed to survive the war.

Kanner joined the partisans and finally arrived in the city of Lviv, currently in Ukraine, where he met Rebecca, a young widow with two small children. Mordechai and Rebecca fell in love and married in 1945. After the liberation, he decided to return to Kielce, his hometown. Rebecca and the rest of the family waited for him in Krakow, and after a delay in his return, Rebecca went to look for him in Kielce.

During her search, Rebecca discovered that Mordechai was severely beaten by the Poles in a pogrom that took place there in July 1946. During the pogrom, dozens of Jews were brutally murdered and many were injured. Kanner was thrown into a ditch together with the bodies of those murdered in the pogrom. Rebecca found him alive among the bodies and managed to get him to a hospital.

After he was discharged, the two moved to a displaced persons camp in Germany. Kanner was able to fulfill the request of the elderly woman in the Polish village. He found the Torah scroll where he buried it and protected it. In 1949, the family immigrated to Israel and settled in Holon.

In 1950, the Torah scroll was donated to the Great Synagogue in Holon and was dedicated in memory of Kanner's parents who perished in the Holocaust. Mordechai's daughter, Sarah Megidish, and his grandson Avi Kanner have recently decided to donate the scroll to the collection at Yad Vashem, as a memorial and testimony. "This is a unique object," Sarah said, "It symbolizes not only the difficult events but also the determination and desire to preserve Jewish identity. By granting this Torah scroll to Yad Vashem, it will become part of the memory of the Holocaust for future generations."

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In mid-May, members of the Borussia Dortmund soccer club once again visited Israel in yet another step against antisemitism. This time they came with a major gesture in the form of a donation worth 1 million euros to the national Holocaust memorial and museum, Yad Vashem. In recent years, the German club has spearheaded the fight against racism and antisemitism in the world's global sporting scene, using a host of engagements both inside and outside the pitch. This includes its ongoing efforts to foster strong ties with its soccer counterparts in Israel.

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Head of Corporate Responsibility at Borussia Dortmund Daniel Lörcher, who also manages the community outreach for the club, already knows a few words in Israel due to his frequent visits to the Jewish state. He even has some thoughts on Israeli soccer.

The overarching takeaway from the interview he granted Israel Hayom is that he has a sober assessment of how far the club has come, as well as how much more needs to be done despite the tremendous strides. In fact, notwithstanding this German sporting empire's many successes, its battle is far from over. Just when it appeared that the great club could succeed where all the others have failed, the coronavirus pandemic hit and reshuffled the deck. This was noticeable outside the stadiums, but of course, inside as well: The violence, the racism, and the bigotry all came back roaring to the soccer pitch all over the world. In Europe alone, there was a spike of some 36 percent in such instances observed in European soccer events. In many ways, European soccer has come full circle to the eighties, and now the managers are playing defense in this effort to stop this violent contagion from spreading even further.

Q: People claim that the coronavirus has had the world reverse much of the progress in many fields. How do you see this from your end? 

"What I can tell you is that when we saw the protests against coronavirus restrictions in Germany, we could see that these had antisemitic elements in the truest sense of the word, even if they tried to hide it under the guise of some other context. This is obviously also trickling into the pitches, perhaps because people have this feeling they are entitled to take out their aggression in these games."

Q: When you started your corporate responsibility projects, did you set specific goals when it comes to the battle against antisemitism?

"That is a good question. I think there was no specific deadline. Our learning was conducted through the process, and we gleaned our insights as one group with our fanbase. We have kept making adjustments along the way, by adding layers from which we can progress even further. We have a long history of antisemitism in Dortmund's fanbase on the stands in the stadiums, emanating from the radical Right. There are several troublemakers among our fans and we try to crack down on them by placing sanctions. But the overall educational efforts are aimed at the other segments of the general population who comes to our games."

Q: This is an interesting approach – you have basically given up on the extremists because it is a lost cause. The goal now is to engage the others in the fanbase so that the extremists' clout won't grow. 

"I think that the education efforts have reached out to the general audience rather than the few people on the margins. With the latter group, there is nothing we can do. It is important to remember that soccer clubs are not educational institutions. We are not the government, we are not a church and we are not a school. But we have leverage and we choose how we wield this power. For us, by realizing who we are as a club, we consider it imperative to use our ability and the club's brand in the world so that we can change what needs to be changed. For us it is part and parcel of who we are as a sporting organization."

Q: In Israel, for example, there are many ideas of having a quick and easy fix when it comes to racism and bigotry. It appears this is the typical approach in most sporting clubs around the world, isn't it?

"Such an approach would not work [in this case]. Let's say we take our players or fans to visit the Auschwitz death camp. Then what? Do you think this would radically change the picture just after this one experience? You need to take people to these places only after they had internalized and understood history, and after you had given them the tools to cope with this situation [of racism and antisemitism]. We keep changing and updating our programs so that they are tailored to the general audience, and our fans are fully engaged with this around the world."

Q: In other words, this is a process that takes time and requires a lot of money, and doesn't always reach the desired results?

"Look, you can take players to the pitch with the slogans on their jerseys saying "no to racism" or "end bigotry." Yes, that is the easiest thing you could do. Why would anyone oppose that? After all, we all want a world free of racism, But you must ask, What are we actively doing to realize this vision? When it comes to slogans, telling someone 'No to racism' may be good, because he knows about it and hears about it. But if you give him a sticker that reads 'No beer for Nazis' the fan may see this as a small nudging attempt that could be perceived differently, perhaps on a linguistical level."

Q: This means that a club or any sporting body that wants to take this responsibility must create its own unique brand within this process? 

"I think this has to be part of the club in every aspect. For example, when new players join our team, they learn the basic game strategy, and they learn about the work we do in other fields. When it comes to our fanbase, our work is definitely far from over, especially since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This new era has made people think that if you bought a ticket for a match you also got a free license to do and say whatever you want in the stadium. The soccer stadium cannot be a place where you let your guard down and engage in unacceptable behavior. When a fan conducts himself inappropriately in the stands, they must realize that this will hurt him in other fields as well. They will lose their job, for example, and their conduct will be known far and wide in the community as a whole."

Q: One of the interesting challenges is that on the one hand, you need to inform people about the past, but on the other hand, you must keep your sights trained on the present and the future.

"You hit the nail on the head. We may be talking about things that happened in the past, but there are still people in our day and age who subscribe to Nazi ideology. The voices we hear now are those that could be heard in the past, and you have to know your history in order to have the means to deal with what is unfolding in the here and now. But of course, the struggle is first and foremost in the present."

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The chairman of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center and other prominent Israeli figures have written to US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, urging that billionaire philanthropist Roman Abramovich be kept off a US list of wealthy Russians to be sanctioned over Russia's policy in Ukraine, the Times of Israel reported this week, referencing a report by Channel 12 News.

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According to the report, the letter – sent on Feb. 6, weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine last week – hailed Abramovich's investments in Israeli and Jewish causes. It was signed by Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan, Chief Rabbi David Lau, and Director-General of Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Professor Yitshak Kreiss.

On Feb. 22, Yad Vashem announced a new long-term strategic partnership with Abramovich, which it called "part of Mr. Abramovich's global charitable work in promoting Holocaust research and education, as well as combating antisemitism."

A Yad Vashem press release said that Abramovich's donations would go toward the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research. Yad Vashem plans to build a new building for the institute, as well as two new versions of its iconic Book of Names to be on permanent display at Yad Vashem.

Abramovich said, "Yad Vashem's work in preserving the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is instrumental to ensure that future generations never forget what antisemitism, racism and hate can lead to if we don't speak out."

Abramovich is also the owner of England's Chelsea FC and has spearheaded the club's public stance against antisemitism in sports.

On a visit to Chelsea in November 2021, President Isaac Herzog praised Abramovich for using the Premier League leaders' platform to battle antisemitism, calling the club "a shining example of how sports and teams can be a force of good and for shaping a more tolerant tomorrow."

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Dani Dayan welcomed the talk-show host's "important" apology, though said her remarks were evidence of a "fundamental misunderstanding" regarding the nature of anti-Semitism.

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The chairman of Yad Vashem on Tuesday invited talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg to visit the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem to learn more about the causes of the Shoah. The invitation came on the heels of a controversy that erupted on Monday after Goldberg said on ABC's "The View" that "the Holocaust isn't about race."

The segment during which Goldberg made the remarks focused on the Tennessee school board's decision to ban Maus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. "Let's be truthful about it … the Holocaust isn't about race," said Goldberg. "It's about man's inhumanity to man. That's what it's about."

Goldberg later apologized, saying, "As [Anti-Defamation League CEO] Jonathan Greenblatt shared, 'The Holocaust was about the Nazis' systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race.' I stand corrected."

Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan welcomed the apology but said that Goldberg's initial statement was indicative of a wider problem.

Goldberg's remarks "only days after the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, is an unfortunate indication of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism," he said in a statement.

"We must not mince words; people need to know what led to the Holocaust, the unprecedented murderous drive to annihilate the entire Jewish people, their religion, culture and values by the Nazis and their collaborators, primarily because of the unfounded belief that Jews were their foremost and extremely dangerous racial enemy," he continued.

While Goldberg's apology and clarification were "important," said Dayan. "I extend a personal invitation to her to learn more about the causes, events and aftermath of the Holocaust here at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem."

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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