Kristallnacht Keynote Commemoration

With the support of the Kurt & Tessye Simon Fund for Holocaust Remembrance of South Bend’s Temple Beth-El and the Jewish Federation, we keynoted their annual community-wide commemoration of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) on November 12. Ava Adler, Joy Wolfe Ensor, and Avishay Hayut spoke about how our book’s messages are especially relevant in the present day, as we reel from the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the war that followed, and the antisemitic hate that has exploded in the U.S. and abroad. The authors chose excerpts from their chapters that aimed to address the questions that so many have in this moment: What helps us break the silence and speak out when we witness horrors? What keeps us grounded and centered when so much is out of our control? How do we hold our minds and hearts open to the suffering of others, even as we are being attacked? The Q&A invited us to reflect further on our own stories and the differences we see between the survivors and the generations that followed in making sense of the Holocaust and its impact. Most important, we discussed what we can all do now to make a difference.