Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance and education center in Jerusalem, and the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center (IHMEC) signed an important agreement Wednesday (21.10.09) to pursue and promote a close and cooperative relationship in several key contexts, including: education, publications, museum activity and commemoration.
“I am delighted to have hosted the Illinois Holocaust Museum’s leadership here on the Mount of Remembrance, and look forward to our cooperation in the future,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem. “With over five decades of experience in Holocaust commemoration, documentation research, and our cutting-edge work in education, Yad Vashem is pleased to cooperate with the Illinois Holocaust Museum in their important activities.”
The agreement was announced during a two-day working visit to Yad Vashem by a senior delegation from the Illinois Holocaust Museum, including the Museum’s Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Trustees J.B. Pritzker, the Museum’s Executive Director Richard Hirschhaut, and Museum Interior and Exhibition Co-Conceptual Developers Michael Berenbaum and Yitzhak Mais. They met with Shalev and senior Yad Vashem staff, in order to explore avenues of cooperation. The group was also given in-depth tours of the Holocaust History Museum, the Museum of Holocaust Art, the Yad Vashem Archives and the International School for Holocaust Studies.
“The strengthening of the ongoing relationship between our two institutions furthers the global significance of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center,” said Pritzker. “Our cooperative relationship will allow us to share Yad Vashem’s wealth of knowledge about the Holocaust with our Museum’s patrons.”
The agreement notes that, “emphasis will be placed upon optimal realization of Yad Vashem’s unsurpassed expertise and knowledge in Holocaust-related research, education and commemoration, together with the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center’s promising and vital new position, in its region and elsewhere, as an effective catalyst for enhanced, widespread Holocaust remembrance.”
“We are grateful for this opportunity to work closely with Yad Vashem to enhance our institution’s offerings to our patrons,” said Hirschhaut. “The cooperation with Yad Vashem will enable the Illinois Holocaust Museum to best commemorate the Jewish experience before, during and after the Holocaust.”
(YWN Desk – Israel)
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4 Responses
Why do we focus so much on remembering, which is not the main point. Hashem wants us to ask “Al Ma Zeh V’al Ma Zeh”, or “Lomo Osso Hashem Kocho”.
We must improve our true and real caring and love towards all the Nations, regardlees of ethnicity or to which family they were born into.
Then we can hope and be Mispalel, that HKB”H should never instill into any of the Nations, Sinna towards us, by using the priciple of Middoh Kneged Middoh.
The Illinois Holocaust Museum is an embarrassment:
1. The Chicago Rabbinical Council (cRc) and other Kashrus organizations have refused to approve the food in its cafeteria.
2. The architect they selected to design their building is an “assimilated Jew” who is married to a non-Jew and very proud of it. (When he was chairman of architecture at a local college, the department magazine ran on its front page a photo a his Shiksah sitting on his lap.)
A “Jewish” organization which openly ridicules Kashrus and Lo Sischatnu must be boycotted by all good Jews!
Avraham, read over your words and please rethink your position. Good Jews? Was that the selection criteria for the 6 Million. Is that the selection for the IDF? Please. If the Kasruth of the new museum does not meet with your practice it is understood and respected, but wouldn’t your Rabbi teach you to seek to understand the issues of Kashruth at the museum before making your inflamatory remarks. Please. As for the “assimilated” Jew who is the architect, he has poured his heart into making this a building that is a memorial for the 6 Million and a tribute to the survivors. Please don’t respond in anger, I send this message to you Avraham, the same name as my father who was liberated from Matthausen and saw his parents and sister die at the hands of the Nazis. Show respect for the survivors who are giving the remaing days of their lives, volunteering at the museum every day.
Please Avraham, repsect and be resepected.
Shalom,
Herzl
I have consulted with my Rav, who is very familiar with this situation. The Psak from him and his Rabbinical organization: We should boycott the Illinois Holocaust Museum, because:
1. They are open Shabbos and Yom Tov (but closed on X-mas).
2. They refuse to make their cafeteria Kosher.
What the museum board members and staff do privately is their own business. However, public institutional disrespect of the Torah HaKedoshah and the Kedoshim — including several members of my family — whom they claim to memorialize cannot be condoned!