Community Corner
Peekskill Area Pastors to Host Holocaust Remembrance Service Sunday
The service will begin at 5 p.m. inside the First Hebrew Congregation, located at 1821 E. Main St. in Peekskill. This year's featured speaker will be Betty Knoop, a Westchester County resident and Holocaust survivor.
Editor's Note: The following was submitted by the Peekskill Area Pastor's Association. If you would like to post your news to Patch, click here.
The community is invited to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day at an Interfaith serviceat First Hebrew Congregation, 1821 E. Main St., Peekskill (opposite Beach Shopping Center), on Sunday, April 7 at 5 p.m.
The service has been created jointly by members of First Hebrew and the Peekskill Area Pastors Association (PAPA). This is the first time that there has been fullcollaboration on this commemoration.
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“We believe that the vastness of the evil unleashed on the world makes this observancethe responsibility of all people. We remember the six million who were murdered because theywere Jews. We remember the millions of others who died during World War II. And weremember those who risked their lives to save Jews in acts of great courage and sacrifice,” said Rabbi Lee Paskind, spiritual leader of First Hebrew Congregation.
Rev. Dr. Ron Pankey, Pastor of Church of the Nazarene, Yorktown, and Vice-Presidentof PAPA, said “At last year’s service, I was so moved by hearing the words of the Holocaustsurvivor who spoke, and the memorial service’s Candle Lighting, I felt that PAPA should be afull participant this year.”
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This year, those assembled will hear Holocaust survivor Betty Knoop, a resident of Westchester born in Amsterdam, who was arrested as a young girl along with her entire family when the Nazis invaded her country. Her family was sent to the concentration camp in Westerbork, and later to Bergen Belsen.
There will be a Question and Answer period after her talk. The diverse committee that has created this year’s service includes Sondra Treadwell, representing the Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship of Briarcliff, Croton and Ossining, Rev.Samuel Sanchez, Pastor of the Spanish Church Tabernacle of Christ, Daniela Rosen,representing First Hebrew, in addition to Rev. Pankey and Rabbi Paskind.
The committee is grateful to receive support from the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and their Speaker’s Bureau. Everyone is welcome to join in this solemn ceremony of remembrance.
