During the month of April, the MJCC and PJA communities will be collecting toiletries and new underwear for Portland Homeless Family Solutions. Items can be dropped off in the blue bin located in the MJCC Lobby.
A PDX Art Display: People from the Greater Portland area submitted photos they took while traveling in Israel. Visit this exhibit the week before our annual Yom Ha’Atzmaut Celebration on April 18. Vote for your favorite photo in the MJCC Lobby!
Winners will be announced April 18 at our celebration.
Exhibit on display in the MJCC Lobby.
Sponsored by Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, PJ Library, Institute for Judaic Studies
For parents/caregivers and their children up to 5 years old. Play. Run. Have a Kosher snack. Sing and listen to stories.
Located in the MJCC Sportsplex.
Free and open to everyone!
In partnership with PJ Library, Chai Baby, and Portland Jewish Academy
Exhibits Feb. 16- May 27
Vedem: The Underground Magazine of the Terezin Ghetto
Vedem Underground examines the literary magazine written by Jewish teens imprisoned at Terezin, a Nazi camp in Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. Using pop-art graphics, drawings and paintings, and the prose and poetry, these brave adolescents secretly wrote and illustrated the longest-running underground magazine in a Nazi camp. Vedem (Czech for “In the Lead”) documented their voices with defiance, humor and heartbreak. The exhibition breaks down their 800 original pages and reconstructs them in the form of a contemporary magazine. Curated by Rina Taraseiskey and Danny King.
To Tell The Story: The Wolloch Holocaust Haggadah
On view in the East Gallery: Commissioned by Helene and Zygfryd B. Wolloch, The Holocaust Haggadah is richly illustrated with lithographic prints by David Wander and calligraphy by Yonah Weinreb that link the story of liberation from ancient Egypt to the Holocaust.
Served to commemorate those who died in the Holocaust and to honor the survivors.
Join local Holocaust survivors, their families, rabbis and community members for a candle lighting ceremony to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. Please bring a yellow flower to symbolize life. Presented in partnership with Congregation Shaarie Torah, Oregon Board of Rabbis, and Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
Yom HaShoah, Jewish Remembrance Day, memorializes the millions of victims of persecution and mass murder during the Holocaust. On Yom HaShoah, in the nation of Israel, air raid sirens blow throughout the country, announcing two minutes of silence, during which Israeli Jews stand wordlessly in place – traffic stops, pedestrians stop, all join to remember the dead. Here in Portland – as in Jewish communities around the world – we gather to read the names of the men, women, and children murdered by Nazi Germany and its European collaborators between 1933 and 1945. On Yom HaShoah we read aloud names of those confirmed to have died in the Holocaust. There is no definitive list of those who perished. The list we read here in Portland is comprised of names archived at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center in Jerusalem.
Memory, remembering, memorializing – these are practices anciently familiar to Jews. During Passover we remember the exodus from Egypt; at Shavuot in mid-June, we will remember the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Jews have a 4,000-year-old history and we continue to survive, in part, by remembering our history through a variety of narratives. Remembering the Holocaust is yet another traditional way to save history from oblivion.
Chaja Brajtsztajn died 1942 Treblinka; Beryl Solowjczyk died Wilna 1942; Rywka Fyhrer died Auschwitz 1943; Rachela Szucht died Warsaw 1944; Lina Stern died 1944 Theresienstadt. Throughout our Remembrance Day members of the community – dignitaries, clergy, and people like you and me – will read these names out loud in Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square. One cannot help but reflect on the once living spirit and body of these lost individuals. Some names sound familiar and others seem like a cluster of consonants that we can barely pronounce. But though we didn’t know them personally, they belonged to our family, and we miss them. Is the obligation to mourn them any different than that of any other family member?
Everyone has a story to tell and every story is unique, interesting, and special. In this workshop you will have an opportunity to write your story in a supportive, noncritical atmosphere. Dorothy Dworkin, an experienced author, columnist, and writing coach, will offer prompts and suggestions to get you started on writing your stories.
Every Thursday April 5-May 3. Class on April 19 will begin at 12:00 pm.
Class is located in Ballroom A.
Class size is limited to 12.
Mar: Passover Torah; Apr: Jewish perspectives on Gun Control.
A monthly discussion covering a wide range of topics that will draw on our experiences.
April’s Topic: Jewish Perspectives on Gun Control Held in the Cafe at the J
Free and open to the community.
In partnership with Congregation Neveh Shalom