JPEF will be at NCSS this weekend!

JPEF will be at the NCSS (National Council for the Social Studies) Annual Conference this week in Washington DC. Visit us at booth 428 for free DVDs, posters and curricula, as we promote our new E-Learning Platform. All attendees can join us at our free workshop at 4:20pm this Friday – RESIST: Defying the Myth of Sheep to the Slaughter, taught by JPEF’s Education Manager Jonathan Furst.

We look forward to introducing our programs and materials to the 3,500 educators attending NCSS and getting feedback from those who are using our curricula. Last year we had over 450 educators come to our booth to receive free JPEF materials.

To learn more about the NCSS Annual Conference, go here.

This Month in Jewish Partisan History: Borszczower Bande Liberates Prisoners on November 17, 1943

The Borszczower Bande was a small yet bold resistance group formed by Jews from the Borszczow ghetto in western Ukraine. The leaders were Wolf Ashendorf, Joel Weintraub, Kalman Schwartz and a Jewish soldier of the Red Army named Lyoveh.

The Borszczower Bande was a small yet bold resistance group formed by Jews from the Borszczow ghetto in western Ukraine. The leaders were Wolf Ashendorf, Joel Weintraub, Kalman Schwartz and a Jewish soldier of the Red Army named Lyoveh.

Before the ghetto was liquidated by a series of aktions, resistance groups formed. “In October 1941 we started to organize ourselves,” said B. W. Ben-Barak, a member of the Borszczower partisan group. Gathering small arms weaponry, the resistance managed to escape into the forest before the ghetto was ordered to be liquidated in 1943. Throughout that summer, they carried out attacks on Ukrainian policemen and nationalist groups.

Group photo of attending partisans at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.

In November 1943, the Borszczower Bande then planned an attack on the German prison in Borszczow. Led by Ashendorf, they released all fifty prisoners on November 17. This brazen victory overshadowed their demise. After facing hostility from locals, the Bande was attacked by a much larger group of German forces. They inflicted casualties on the Germans, but the Borszczower group’s losses were greater and they were forced to disperse. Some who fled found no choice but to commit suicide, their last defense against dehumanization. Those others who survived joined with Kovpak’s soviet partisan brigade.

Jewish Partisans honored in New York City

Over 55 Jewish partisans gathered together in New York City on November 6th and 7th to commemorate the enduring legacy they share and to be honored at the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation’s 2011 Tribute Dinner. Traveling from throughout the United States, many with children, grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren in tow, they reconnected with friends and quickly rekindled the strong bonds that will forever unite them.

The celebration began with a Sunday afternoon reception for partisans and their family members, hosted by JPEF, at the Park East Synagogue. Laughter resonated throughout the space as partisans embraced one another, tears of joy welling in their eyes. For many, this was the first time they had seen one another in over sixty-five years. Allen Small, who traveled from Palm Beach Gables, Florida, was overjoyed to be reunited with Leon Bakst who came from Dallas, Texas.

Over 400 guests packed the stylish art deco Edison Ballroom the following evening to formally recognize and honor the courage and sacrifice demonstrated by these Jewish partisans during World War II. Mistress of Ceremonies Dana Tyler, Senior News Anchor for WCBS-TV and actor and Emmy winner Edward Asner, the cousin of partisan Abe Asner, paid tribute to each of the honorees. With their black and white partisan photograph projected on screen, each partisan was individually honored and identified by name, country of birth and the partisan group in which they served. In all there were 23 women and 33 men, representing brigades from Belarus, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Ukraine, Russia and France. Included among the attending partisans were six married couples, three sets of siblings, a rabbi, a cantor and a mohel.

Guests watched in awe as each partisan, most in their eighties and nineties, stood to accept their honor with the same characteristic strength and determination that empowered them to fight back so many years before.

In his address Asner stated, “JPEF is important because it puts the legacy of the Jewish partisans front and center, as no other organization does. It stays committed to its mission and does not deviate.”

Lauren Feingold, granddaughter of partisans Dr. Charles Bedzow and Sara Golcman Bedzow also spoke. As the first third generation representative to the JPEF Board, Lauren worked closely with her grandfather, who serves as JPEF’s Honorary International Chairman, to promote the Tribute Dinner and guarantee its success. Like Lauren, many of those involved in the recently formed 3G group, are already working to ensure that young people everywhere are empowered by their grandparent’s examples, and she challenged her peers to join in this quest. She was followed by Charles who spoke movingly to his fellow partisans reminding them that they share a unique and important legacy; one which must be passed from generation to generation.

In a fitting testament to this charge, Cantor Shira Ginsburg, grandaugher of partisan Judith Ginsburg, closed the event with a performance of the song “Who Am I”, about her family and the inspiration of her grandmother’s partisan legacy. As Shira’s beautiful voice filled the room, more than forty third generation teens and young adults raised white candles high, signaling their commitment to keep the flame alive.

JPEF extends its sincere appreciation to event co-chairperons Esther-Ann Asch, Suzanne and Elliott Felson, Kim and Jonathan Kushner and Diane and Howard Wohl for their dedication to ensuring the success of this remarkable event.

Links to press materials about the event:
Jerusalem Post article.
Jewish Week article.
An article in the Algemeiner.
WCBS nightly news video.
More photos from the event on our Flickr page.

Partisan Legacy Honored in New York City

Fifty-five surviving partisans, many traveling from as far away as California, Colorado and Tennessee, attended the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's Tribute Dinner on Monday, December 7th. For many, this was the first time that they had seen one another in over 60 years. Allen Small and Leon Bakst were reunited for the first time since the War. Growing up together in a small town, in what is now Belarus, they attended the same school. Fighting with different partisan brigades during the war, they had last seen each other at a DP camp in Germany before coming to the United States. Another partisan stated that this was one of the “best nights of his life.”

Group photo of attending partisans at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.

NEW YORK (JTA) — Allen Small, 83, and Leon Bakst, 86, hugged each other so tight, Small said, “I couldn’t let go.”

Their embrace at a synagogue on Manhattan's Upper East Side was 65 years in the making.

Small and Bakst grew up a few houses apart in Ivye, Belarus, attending the same school and synagogue before reality turned black, back when their names were Avraham Schmulewitz and Leibel Bakst, and Ivye belonged to Poland and the Nazis had not yet invaded. They last saw each another in 1946 at a displaced persons camp in Munich.

During the two years preceding their liberation by the Red Army in 1944, the then teenagers fought the Nazis in separate brigades in the vast Nalibotskaya Pushcha forest. For their daring, Small, now living in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and Bakst, of Dallas, along with 53 other Jewish partisans from across the United States, were honored here at a synagogue reception Nov. 6 and a gala dinner the next evening.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

Click here to read another article about this event from the New York Jewish Week.

Click here to view a video about this event that aired on CBS News New York.

Daniel Craig as older Tuvia Bieski on hack license prop for Defiance

Daniel Craig as an older Tuvia Bielski

If you’ve seen the movie Defiance, you’ll recognize Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, but you won’t recognize the above prop made for the film. It’s a New York City hack license picturing Craig as an elderly Tuvia; the scene (intended as the opening for the film) took place in the 1980’s long after the Bielski brothers lived and fought in Nalibocki forests.

“All of us have gotten into cabs in New York, and we assume that that person is just a person driving a cab.” That’s the kindling behind director Edward Zwick’s idea for the original opening scene in Defiance. Hear the rest of Zwick's thoughts on the scene in this video clip. The idea’s merit is one of relevance and human interest—little known to the Bielski story is how Tuvia and Zus modestly and anonymously lived out their post-war lives in New York City.

However, Zwick didn’t intend the movie to be a romantic or comprehensive overview of the Bielski’s biographies; he wanted the film to express the absolute physical and moral struggles during that particular moment in their lives. In this way, the discarded prop serves as a symbol of artistic integrity. “I didn’t want it to be comfortable,” Zwick said at a JPEF event this Spring, “I wanted it to capture the feeling.” For more on Defiance — including educational material and interviews with Tuvia Bielski's brother Aron — go to www.jewishpartisans.org/defiance.

Visit the JPEF website for our acclaimed Defiance curriculum. Additionally, E-Learning classes on Defiance are available at www.jewishpartisans.org/elearn/web/.