How many of us can remember a heartwarming story that was read or hard during the past several weeks?
Well, here’s one: (Thank you to Barry Elkins for bringing it to our attention)
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — In January of 1943, Irma Lauscher, a teacher at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, smuggled a tree into the camp so that the Jewish children imprisoned by the Nazis could celebrate Tu B’Shevat in a secret ceremony. The children used their water rations to nurture the sapling.

Of the 15,000 children who were imprisoned in Theresienstadt during the Holocaust, fewer than 200 survived. But the tree was still standing when the camp was liberated in 1945, and a sign was placed at its base marking it as a symbol of resilience.

“As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people!” said the sign under the tree, which survivors named “The Tree of Life.” Lauscher, who survived the Holocaust, eventually was buried alongside the original tree.

In the 1980s, branch saplings were cut from the tree and planted in Jerusalem, as well as in San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia to accompany a traveling exhibit of treasures nearly lost in the Holocaust.

Now, New York City — home to the largest community of Holocaust survivors and their descendants of any city outside Israel — will also nurture a descendant of the original tree. Dr. Roger Pomerantz, a Jewish philanthropist who owns a farm in Pennsylvania that holds seven trees grown from cuttings of the original tree, has donated one to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City.

“The Children’s Tree,” as it will be known, will be unveiled to the public today during a dedication ceremony held jointly by the Museum of Jewish Heritage and the Battery Park City Authority. Currently 15 feet tall, the silver maple tree will have a permanent home in the park.

“We want everybody in Battery Park City to be able to walk by and see a piece of history,” Jack Kliger, the president and CEO of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, told the New York Jewish Week. “To not only remember but to understand what resilience means in the face of tremendous odds.”

Calling the project “a labor of love,” Kliger said transporting the tree involved hiring a horticulturist to uproot the tree from Pennsylvania and working with Battery Park City Authority to find the right space for the tree.

As at Theresienstadt, the tree will be cared for by children — in this case, students at PS/IS 276: The Battery Park City School, a public elementary and middle school located just across the street from the museum. In collaboration with the museum, the school will make the tree part of an ongoing curriculum in Holocaust education.

“They were planting a tree that would live in a world that they would not live in, as sort of a physical expression of belief in the future and a form of spiritual resistance,” said Michael Berenbaum, a Holocaust historian who was instrumental in the transplant of the tree to New York, of the imprisoned children who cared for the original Tree of Life.

“Now their legacy can continue,” he added.

“Resilience is represented by both humans as well as trees,” Kliger said, comparing their abilities to survive as well as endure such a long, roundabout journey to New York.

Speakers at the ceremony will include Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. representative to the United Nations; Theresienstadt survivor Fred Terna; Czech Consul General Arnošt Kareš; and Battery Park City Authority President and CEO B.J. Jones. The student choir at PS/IS 276 will also perform.

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Author: Julia Gergely

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Our prayers for Peace and Love are with you all.

Reverend Paul Sladkus and our Good News & Peace Team

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The season officially began on June 1 and will end on November 30. These dates historically describe the period of year when most tropical cyclones form in the Atlantic basin and are adopted by convention. However, as shown by Tropical Storm Arlene in April, the formation of tropical cyclones is possible at any time of the year.

For the third consecutive year, activity began early, with the formation of Tropical Storm Arlene on April 19, nearly a month and a half before the official start of the season. It is only the second named storm on record to exist in the month of April, with the first being Ana in 2003, as well as the strongest overall for the month of April. In mid-June, Tropical Storm Bret struck the island of Trinidad, which is rarely impacted by tropical cyclones due to its low latitude. Tropical Storm Cindy struck the state of Louisiana a few days later, becoming the first tropical cyclone to strike the state since Hurricane Isaac in 2012. In late August, Hurricane Harvey became the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Wilma in 2005. In early September, Hurricane Irma, a Cape Verde-type hurricane, became the first Category 5 hurricane to impact the northern Leeward Islands on record, as well as the joint strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the Atlantic basin, tied with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.

Beginning this year, the National Hurricane Center has the option to issue advisories, and thus allow watches and warnings to be issued, on disturbances that are not yet tropical cyclones but have a high chance to become one, and are expected to bring tropical storm or hurricane conditions to landmasses within 48 hours. Such systems are termed “potential tropical cyclones”. Advisories on these storms contain the same content, including track forecasts and cyclone watches and warnings, as advisories on active tropical cyclones. This was first demonstrated on June 18 with the designation of Potential Tropical Cyclone Two—which later developed into Tropical Storm Bret—east-southeast of the Windward Islands.

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