May 1 – 2, 2019

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day we honor the memories of the six-million Jews whose lives were brutally taken and the countless Jewish communities who were destroyed and then simply vanished. In these last fews years, second and third generation survivors from North Africa and the Middle East have have begun working to ensure the stories of their grandparents and great-grandparents are acknowledged and included in international efforts to commemorate victims of the Holocaust.

This year in San Francisco, JIMENA partnered with זיכרון בסלון – Zikaron BaSalon to tell the stories of Tunisian Jews who lived under Nazi occupation and were sent to forced labor camps in North Africa and death camps in Europe. Local Jewish educator and Sephardic activist, Adam Eilath shared the testimony of his Tunisian grandparents and spoke about the deep impact the Shoah had on Tunisian Jewish identity, collective memory and relations between Jews and their non-Jewish neighbors. We hope to see more and more of this in the years to come.

May all their memories be a blessing to us all and let us never forget to remain vigilant in the face of evil Antisemitism.