Yom HaShoah marked, Israel eases restrictions, Noach Dear succumbs

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Commemoration Day, begins this evening at sundown.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will hold a Virtual National Commemoration as part of Days of Remembrance events on Tuesday at 11 a.m. The ceremony will be simulcast on Facebook and YouTube.

The pre-recorded program will include remarks by Elie Wiesel and by Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg prosecutor, and tributes from Holocaust survivors.

The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia will mark Yom HaShoah with a livestreamed program on Monday at 6 p.m. The program will feature storytelling and song.

The World Jewish Congress will host an online Yom HaShoah commemorative ceremony on Monday at 11 a.m. It will include reflections by WJC Commissioner for Holocaust Memory Dr. Charlotte Knobloch and WJC Executive Committee Member Colette Avital, both survivors of the Shoah.

Detroit’s Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus will host its annual community-wide Yom HaShoah commemoration online on Sunday at 2 p.m. The event will include remarks by local clergy and Holocaust educators.

The Bronx-based Baldor Specialty Foods firm, which has expanded its delivery operations during the Covid-19 crisis and preserved its employees’ jobs, has donated 100 pallets of assorted produce through City Harvest to Chamah, an educational-humanitarian organization in Crown Heights.

The donated goods were part of two special food distributions on the eve of Passover, where 50 volunteers delivered food to more than 5,000 homes in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

Israel

The number of people in Israel diagnosed with coronavirus rose to 13,654 on Monday and the number who died of the disease reached 173.

The government started to ease its strict quarantine restrictions, permitting some regulated outdoor prayer and allowing some retail stores to reopen.

Adhering to social distancing regulations, thousands of protesters gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Sunday night for the latest “black flag” demonstration against an alleged erosion of Israeli democracy under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.

Demonstrators kept two meters from each other, in accordance with the Health Ministry rules allowing public protest. Organizers said the rally was attended by over 5,000 people,

Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center allows has found a way to allow family members to safely say a final goodbye to dying relatives.

The hospital lets relatives sit by a patients’ bedsides after decking them out in full protective gear, including gloves, robe, cap and mask, according to the Associated Press.

“The stories of patients dying alone are horrifying,” said the medical center’s chief executive, Roni Gamzu. “This is our moral duty as medical staff and as human beings. No one shall be allowed to die alone.”

Deaths

Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Noach Dear, who served as a New York City Council member from Brooklyn for nearly two decades, died on April 19 from coronavirus. He was 66.

Dov Hikind, a former State Assembly member who had worked with Mr. Dear on many issues affecting the Jewish community, called Mr. Dear “a champion, a friend and fighter for his people and all of his constituents. He especially cared for the voiceless and powerless, and dedicated his every single day to making the world a better place,” the New York Post said.

Mr. Dear represented Midwood and parts of Borough Park and Bensonhurst, before he was elected to the Brooklyn Supreme Court in 2015.

Rabbi Avrohom Pinter, a Town Council member in London and principal in a girls’ day school, died on April 13 at 70 of coronavirus, London’s Jewish News reports. He was among the most influential rabbis in Stamford Hill, an area in North London with a large haredi community.

In recent years, he had spoken against a growing anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, where he had many friends.

Representing a relatively insular community, the rabbi and his wife, Rachel, who died in 2014, built bridges across denominational and religious lines. He attended Jewish community events outside haredi circles as well as interfaith activities.

Adam “Yitz” Friedman, a member of the Boyan chasidic dynasty who founded a prestigious public relations firm, died here of coronavirus on April 10. He was 75.

A native of Brooklyn, he raised his children in New Rochelle and moved late in life to Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College, a master’s from New York University, and an MBA from the Baruch School of Business.

He is survived by his wife Shirley; three sons and their families; and several grandchildren. His two younger sons, David Friedman and Joseph Friedman, live in Denver.

Margit Feldman, a survivor of Auschwitz and several other Nazi concentration camps, died on April 14 of coronavirus in Somerset, N.J. She was 90.

Ms. Feldman, a native of Hungary, played a major role in helping New Jersey pass legislation mandating a Holocaust and genocide curriculum in public schools; she was a member of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education for 40 years, the Daily News reports.

She and her family were deported to Auschwitz, where her parents were killed. She was liberated at Bergen-Belsen, at the end of World War II.

Streaming

The Kulanu organization will sponsor an online webinar on Monday at 1 p.m. on “How Kulanu Partner Communities are Sustaining Jewish Life during the Time of COVID-19.” The speaker will be Modreck Maeresera, leader of the Jewish community in Zimbabwe. Rabbi Avraham Coalesce Browne, leader of the Jewish community in the Philippines, will participate on Thursday at 11 a.m.

Mike Leven, co-founder of American Jewish University in Los Angeles, and chairman Mark Silberman will take part in a webinar about the institution’s “Jewish Future Pledge” on Tuesday at 1 p.m. The conversation will be moderated by AJUs  interim dean David Groshoff.

Hadassah has announced the launch of “reConceiving Infertility,” a national information and advocacy campaign that is part of National Infertility Awareness Week, which this year is April 19-25. The initiative will “raise awareness, destigmatize and confront prejudices and misconceptions, drive policy change at the state and national level, and empower patients to advocate for their own health” said Rhoda Smolow, Hadassah national president.

reConceiving Infertility will include three videos about infertility: “How to Help People Struggling With Infertility During COVID-19,” available on April 23; “What Not To Say About Baby-Making,” available on May 21; and “How To Pay for Infertility Treatment,” available on June 18.

UJA-Federation of New York has compiled a guide to help the Jewish community find advice, resources and volunteer opportunities for learning during the virus outbreak. UJA and the Jewish Board also have listings of volunteer opportunities.