Living Through the Halle Synagogue Attack (14-Minute Yom HaShoah Film)
I highly recommend taking the time to watch this excellent and deeply stirring video created by Shmuel and Margalit Hoffman released in honor of Yom HaShoah. It recounts the Halle Synagogue terror attack of this past Yom Kippur from the perspective of the gunman, as well as an idealistic (and very inspiring!) young couple, Rebecca and Jeremy, who work in Jewish outreach in Berlin and were inside the Halle synagogue praying during the attack.
Rebecca explains, “I live here in Germany with my husband and my daughter. We’re welcoming young people in the Berlin Jewish community into our home to experience what it means to live in a Jewish home. Because stronger Jewish homes mean strong Jewish communities.”
As the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, Rebecca reflects at the film’s end, “My great-grandmother died because of the Nazis. My grandmother lived, my mother lived, my daughter lives, and for a moment there [during the attack] there was a question about me…And it was still because of this same ideology, the same hate.
“[Before the attack] this felt like a burden of history. But I’ve realized that the biggest gift I’ve gotten from my grandma is her strength and her ability to withstand generations-worth of trauma and still build a family and still be a proud Jew. Today we need to sit and reflect on how we can bring out the resiliency we’ve inherited as a people. Today [since the attack] that’s what I think about when I think about the Shoah.”
Yasher koach, Margalit Hoffman
Yasher koach, Chana Jenny Weisberg
it’s easy to talk about what (theoretically) should be done
but the two of you actually do those (sometimes hard) things
thank you
Thank you Rishe! We are so grateful that Addlestone Hebrew Academy got us started with this project, and to the Borovitzes for being so open with us and sharing their story. We hope to never have to be afraid for our lives when entering a shul or just being Jews.
its beautiful and very interesting but i think that the most important victory today over the nazis and over all our ennemies is to be proud jews on our land living with the Torah values and strengthening our bond with other jews and with God. i think we should fight to convince the young generation that our strength reside in our land and in our brautiful youth!