My first entry on my new blog. Kind of daunting thinking about all the things I could write about, but I want to remember my trip yesterday to The William Breman Jewish Heritage & Holocaust Museum with Jackson's fifth grade class.

I love my 11 year old. He's still young enough to want to sit with his mom on the bus ride. We had a talk about the Holocaust, well basically I gave him a mini history lesson about what led up to the persecution of the Jews and the German mindset of the time. When we got to the Center, my kids were in the first group to hear Mr. Kohn, an 83 yr. old Holocaust survivor, give his testimony. He did such a fantastic job telling the kids about his experiences in Frankfurt, German during the time the Nuremberg Laws were passed up until his leaving Germany in around 1938. He stressed to the kids to not be bystanders watching injustices in the world. The children and adults were riveted by his story.

When we were finished, I told Jackson to go up and shake Mr. Kohn's hand and to thank him, which he did. Then I took Mr. Kohn's hand in mine and leaned in so he could hear me and I told him "My family will not be bystanders." He and I both teared up and hugged then I left with my group to tour the exhibit. Our tour guide was wonderful and the children did such a good job listening to a very difficult subject and looking at very disturbing images from the concentration camps.

We were lining up to go to the bus when Jackson's teacher, Mrs. Aronstein, told me that she had been told that Mr. Kohn said that a teacher or parent had told him something that had really moved him to tears. I asked her if it was about being a bystander and it was....somehow I had said the right words for a change. I'd done a mitzvah for Mr. Kohn. But he had done one for me too. He reminded me why I want my children to do mission work, to not turn a blind eye to the poor at home, those suffering from natural disasters in the world and to those who are living in war even as I type these words. His words validated what mission work is all about, getting out and helping others, not just standing by and watching.

On the ride home, I told Jackson that one day I hoped he would sit by his son and tell him that when he was 11 he had heard a Holocaust survivor speak about his experiences because by the time Jackson has children the survivors will most likely all be gone. Their generation is passing so quickly now and Jackson and I were so privileged that day to hear it first hand, not from a film or recording as future generations will.

I snapped this photo of Jackson outside the Museum. Such a fitting title to our day: "To Inspire Our Children"


Back in the Day..... When I was a child, my family was friends with the Back family in Nashville. They had been neighbors for years and I remember one visit I had to their home when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Mr. Jacques Back was from France originally. He edited The Observer, a Jewish newspaper. He was the nicest man and I remember him taking me into his library where he worked. The walls around the room were lined with bookcases brimming with books. He told me I could choose any book in the room to take home with me. I don't know why I picked the book I did, it was a history book and very old, but I had it for years. I remember Grandmother telling me he had lost most of his family during the war, but we just didn't talk about it, she said. I found this mention of him in a Nashville publication: Jacques Back was founder and first publisher of the Observer, which is a publication of the Nashville Jewish community. It is not a statewide publication. Founded in 1935, the Observer now is published bimonthly by the Jewish Federation of Nashville.