El Paso: Remember. Reflect. Respond.

Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

April 2017

Places and numbers

Poland: 17
Slovenia: 12
Hungary: 11
Germany: 18
Burma: 1
Czech: 1
Belgium: 4
Austria: 6
Lithuania: 5
France: 1

The nations and numbers above represent women and men with bone and sinew, love and grief, and refuge and loss, and mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, daughters and sons, dear friends, homes, and ways of life gone and recreated.

They are the survivors who made new homes in El Paso during and after the Holocaust, and who died since. 

Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

Sunday, April 23, 2017, was about: Remember. Reflect.Respond.

Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

Temple Mount Sinai hosted the remembrance.

I know the numbers and the nations that I cited at the top of this post because there was a slide show that commemorated each Holocaust survivor who made their home in El Paso, but who has died since moving here. I counted the nations.

Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

Bystanders and Upstanders

In looking for some of the references noted during the remembrance (such as the book, If This Is a Man, by Primo Levi), I found this 17-lesson course offered by Facing History and Ourselves.

The course title is Decision-Making in Times of Injustice.

The explanations of 'bystanders' and 'upstanders' grabbed my attention immediately:

" ... bystanders play a far more critical role in society than people realize: “Bystanders, people who witness but are not directly affected by the actions of perpetrators, help shape society by their reactions....Bystanders can exert powerful influences. They can define the meaning of events and move others toward empathy or indifference. They can promote values and norms of caring, or by their passivity of participation in the system, they can affirm the perpetrators.

"... Facing History uses the term “upstander” to describe individuals, groups, or nations who, when bearing witness to injustice, decide to do something to stop or prevent these acts from continuing."

View from Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

There is a Holocaust Museum in El Paso. It includes a page that introduces us to some Holocaust survivors who made El Paso their new homes. You can watch some of their stories online.

Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

The congregation chose a most magnificent site to build Mount Sinai Temple. Atop a hill, when you stand outside, you can look across the basin, to the mountains, to the horizon, to eternity.

View from Temple Mount Sinai, El Paso, Texas. April 2017.

What kind of bystander am I to be? Will I be an upstander?