Community | Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle - Part 2

Community

Boker Tov in Waukesha!

Boker Tov in Waukesha!

Posted on: June 25th, 2025 | 29 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Cantor Martin Levinson, right, and religious education director and teacher Carrie Barbakoff led children in song at Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha, on Sunday morning, May 4. As in synagogues everywhere, they greeted the children in Hebrew: “Boker tov!” (“Good morning!”) Photo by Rob Golub. 

More than 25 organizations and 250 volunteers were part of the effort in Milwaukee 

More than 25 organizations and 250 volunteers were part of the effort in Milwaukee 

Posted on: June 25th, 2025 | 29 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Built on the foundation of the annual Community Passover Food Drive, Good Deeds Day – Milwaukee was a full day of community-wide volunteering. The day was held April 6th, 2025, organized locally by Tikkun Ha-Ir, Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, and Milwaukee Jewish Federation. With opportunities for all ages and abilities both […]

Meet the Upstanders: Ted Neitzke IV is on a teaching journey, to remember the Holocaust

Posted on: June 24th, 2025 | 28 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Ted Neitzke IV, who is not Jewish, had never heard directly from a Holocaust survivor.  An educator, Neitzke had read extensively about the genocide. He researched. He wrote. But it was all, as he said, “through one-dimensional, breathless texts.”  Then he met southeastern Wisconsin’s Eva Zaret, a survivor. Zaret, of Budapest, Hungary, shared her experience […]

Meet the Upstanders: Teacher Maria Prust worked on a Holocaust education event at Wausau’s Grand Theater, for more than 800 students

Meet the Upstanders: Teacher Maria Prust worked on a Holocaust education event at Wausau’s Grand Theater, for more than 800 students

Posted on: June 24th, 2025 | 28 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Back in mid-April, the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center teamed up with Wisconsin teacher Maria Prust to host a Holocaust education event, featuring a survivor and a child of one, at Wausau’s Grand Theater. The event drew more than 800 students from several districts in the central part of the state.   Prust […]

Meet the Upstanders: Rachael and Golan 

Meet the Upstanders: Rachael and Golan 

Posted on: June 24th, 2025 | 28 Sivan 5785 by Rob Golub

The program Student to Student dates back to 1992, when it was created by the Jewish Community Relations Council in St. Louis. It aims to fight antisemitism by having students talk to other students, including some who might have little previous familiarity with Jewish people, to foster understanding.   Twelve students recently entered the Milwaukee Jewish […]

Meet the Upstanders: Faye Zemel tells her grandfather’s Holocaust story to school children in Wisconsin

Posted on: June 24th, 2025 | 28 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

While held in the Buchenwald concentration camp, Rabbi Franz (Frank) Rosenthal set up a small medical clinic. One day, as he was caring for a man suffering from pneumonia, he was summoned over the loudspeaker. He was going to either die or be set free, so he gave the stranger his clothes off his back […]

Meet the Upstanders: Marty Thau gets ‘swamped’ with questions when he tells the story of his father, a Holocaust survivor

Meet the Upstanders: Marty Thau gets ‘swamped’ with questions when he tells the story of his father, a Holocaust survivor

Posted on: June 24th, 2025 | 28 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

On Dec. 7, 1941, as the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, a young Jewish man in what is now Ukraine had a harrowing choice to make. Either be captured by the Nazis — who had already taken his parents and two brothers — or run and hide in a forest.   Charles Thau chose the latter, fleeing […]

Annual antisemitism audit reports category spike 

Annual antisemitism audit reports category spike 

Posted on: June 6th, 2025 | 10 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin’s reported antisemitic incidents still reflect a cumulative increase of 459% since 2015, according to the 2024 Audit of Antisemitic Incidents released in May by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation.   Although overall reporting decreased by 20% last year, the report indicates that anti-Israel/anti-Zionist incidents spiked 192% between 2023 […]

Yom HaZikaron: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yom HaZikaron: Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted on: June 6th, 2025 | 10 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Jordan Bielsky, grandson of a Jewish partisan group founder, spoke on his family’s connection with the Holocaust at the Yom HaShoah community event on April 27. The event was held at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, in partnership with the Nathan and Esther Pelz Holocaust Education Resource Center, a program of Milwaukee […]

Yom HaZikaron: Israel’s Day of Remembrance

Yom HaZikaron: Israel’s Day of Remembrance

Posted on: June 6th, 2025 | 10 Sivan 5785 by Special to the Chronicle

Yom HaZikaron included participation from the Milwaukee Jewish Day School choir. By Janet McMillan Photography. Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Day of Remembrance, was marked April 29, 2025, with Milwaukee Jewish Federation at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.  /// Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Day of Remembrance, was marked April 29, 2025, with Milwaukee Jewish […]