Related Blog Posts on Holocaust and Jewish History

Brady Corbet's "The Brutalist" opens with Hungarian architect, Jewish Holocaust survivor, and soon-to-be freshly minted U.S. immigrant László Toth in the shadowy depths of a ship headed into New York Harbor.

Since 1945, there have been over 440 Holocaust-related films and miniseries, and that's not counting documentaries. Hulu offers the latest, a new limited series, "We Were the Lucky Ones."

Simcha Blass, Helen Suzman, Eddie Jacobson, and Abby Stein all contributed to our world in different ways. Yet, they shared traits - commitment, integrity, resolve and an inner sense that they could make a difference.

Focusing this contemporary lens on Deborah and Yael reveals a story of women acting so outside of expected norms that I stand in awe and am compelled to magnify their adventures for our own times.

What does it mean to remember? It is to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading, and to call upon the future to illuminate it. 

During the Spanish Inquisition, there were plenty of ways that one could be identified as a Jew. One way people would identify their neighbors as Jews was observing whether they would eat non-kosher food that was popular with the Christian population such as pork, sausage, or fish without scales.

I've been reflecting on the story of America's founding - the narrative many of us learn as children in the United States. I've recently learned a different version of that story - one that I now recognize intertwines with my own. My identities as Cuban American and Jewish have been shaped by Indigenous stories in America and in Cuba; particularly the themes of beginnings, loss, transformation, and change.

Imagine that you travel back in time to 1934 – when Europe had no inkling of the catastrophic events lying ahead that would transform that continent forever. What would you photograph to capture the authentic essence of human experience at that liminal moment in history?

On June 3, 1972, Rabbi Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion as the first woman rabbi in North America. To celebrate this milestone in Jewish and American history, HUC's Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York partnered with The Braid's Story Archive of Women Rabbis in Los Angeles to create the exhibition "Holy Sparks," presenting 24 ground-breaking women rabbis who were "firsts" in their time.

Yom HaShoah is also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day and occurs on the 27 th of the month of Nisan. It is a day to commemorate those who perished during the Holocaust and listen to survivors tell their stories. However, as the survivor population ages, many are needing more assistance.