Oldest Ordained Rabbi To Speak

At Holocaust Program

SOUTHBURY — The Jewish Federation’s annual Yom HaShoah Commemoration (Commemoration of the Holocaust) is scheduled for Monday evening, April 28, at 7 pm, at the Walzer Family Jewish Community Campus, 444 Main Street North.

The event includes a memorial service led by area rabbis, a candle lighting ceremony, and a special guest presentation by Rabbi Helga Newmark. Holocaust survivors, children and grandchildren of survivors, and liberators will be invited to light a yellow memorial candle. David Sermer, a senior at the Taft School and a grandson of survivors, will accompany the candle lighting ceremony on the violin.

Rabbi Newmark, a Holocaust survivor, is the oldest Reform rabbi to be ordained at Hebrew Union College. She graduated from HUC at the age of 67. Rabbi Newmark was a child inmate at several concentration camps, including Westerbork, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt.

Rabbi Newmark serves as assistant rabbi of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun-Barnert Memorial Temple in Franklin Lakes, N.J. Her address is entitled, “My Faith Journey from the Camps and Back to Judaism.” Her comments are based on her personal perspective.

This Yom HaShoah Commemoration is sponsored by Jewish Communities of Western Connecticut. It is free of charge and open to the public. For information, call the Jewish Federation at 267-3177.