First Meeting Notes

Kristallnacht 70

First meeting notes.
March 20, 2008
Unitarian Church
11:30 a.m.
NEXT MEETING: APRIL 17th, 11:30 a.m. Unitarian Church, 3707 Eastern Avenue, Davenport

Our event's name: “Beyond Kristallnacht: Lessons for today”
(The night of broken glass)

The dates for the 70th anniversary observation
November 7-9, 2008

In attendance
Rabbi Henry Karp
Bill Zessar
Allan Ross
Rabbi Michael Samuel
Rev. Ron Quay
Rick Weinstein
Marietta Castle
Ida Kramer
Rev. Roger Butts

Some thoughts about why this is important, or why people have come together for this project:
**Rabbi Karp: More education events in the QCA about the holocaust. With a spring event—Yom HaShoah service and a fall event—Kristallnacht, we’ll hopefully build momentum for the other. Plus, it will be good to have an event that will not be the same as Yom HaShoah (i.e., a service).
**Bill Zessar: Committed to any event that relates to holocaust awareness.
**Allan Ross: Father was 26 years old when Kristallnacht took place. His big concern: How does Kristallnacht affect us today? What should we be doing today?
**Rabbi Michael Samuel: There is always talk of six million victims. He wants it known that there are more like 24 million victims of Nazi hatred. He also wants to bring to light the terrible loss—what scientists, philosophers, poets were killed before their time…
**Rev. Ron Quay—an American Baptist pastor (and head of Churches United of the QCA), he wants the church to wrestle with its historic role of anti-semitism. When you are a dominant cultural expression (e.g., the Christian church), there are many missed chances to see, notice and appreciate the other.
**Rick Weinstein—Increasingly sensitive to the idea that the generation of first hand witnesses are beginning to thin out. So we bear witness as we can. Yom HaShoah, which he chairs, gives voice to the aftermath—voice to the survivors of the carnage. Kristallnacht is an opportunity to give voice to the opening salvo in the Shoah.
**Marietta Castle. My late husband was born on the night of Kristallnacht, so while his parents were celebrating, in Europe there was crisis and chaos. She has a deep personal connection to this issue.
**Ida Kramer. Lost a cousin in the holocaust. Is deeply involved in these issues.

2. Is this worth doing?
Everyone agreed that this is worth doing.

3. Dates:
November 7-9.
Rabbi Karp explained that we wanted to do a whole weekend of events, culminating in a Sunday afternoon series of workshops about what to do now. Starting Friday at a Temple Emanuel service, including a Saturday evening showing of Bonhoeffer and concluding on Sunday.

Venues:
The Figge auditorium was mentioned as a possibility for showing the film. The Figge was also mentioned as showing a series of prints (10) by an artist Erwin Eisch, whose work covers Kristallnacht.

Temple Emanuel, Tri City Jewish Center, Schools

There was a long discussion about involving the public schools. It was decided that Marietta Castle would chair this subcommittee and that Ida, Art and others would be recruited to help. It was also mentioned that perhaps a consultant could be found who knows how to gain entrance into the school system, a kind of social studies coordinator.

5. Audience/Publicity. We did not talk much about this question. Other than the audience of the whole community and the school children.

During the conversation about having Victoria Barnett speak in Temple Emanuel as part of Friday night service and/or Tri City Jewish Center on Saturday morning, Rev. Quay mentioned that it might be intimidating for Christians to go to that site. It was suggested that we should provide another opportunity for Victoria to speak to a broader audience if she was agreeable to that. See below for more information.

6. Some possibilities:
Martin Doblmeier. Martin is the PBS documentarian whose movies Bonhoeffer and the Power of Forgiveness have been warmly received by critics, as well as the Quad Cities. More than a capacity crowd gathered to watch his movie the Power of Forgiveness at an auditorium at Augustana last year. A wide range of faith leaders were involved in that showing—including Rabbi Karp, Rev. Quay, Rev. Peter Marty, Rev. Becky David and others. It was a powerful experience. Martin has agreed to come to show his movie Bonhoeffer to the Quad Cities on Saturday, March 8, in the evening.

Victoria Barnett (invited). Victoria is a leading scholar on “Bystanders.” She is the director of church relations at the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. She is considering our invitation.

Allan Ross is in conversation with Sean O’Harrow, Ph.D. director of the Figge Art Museum to house a series of 10 prints by Erwin Eisch. (An example of his work can be found here...
http://www.turchincenter.org/exhibits.detail.php4?exhibitsid=54)

School outreach will be conducted by the education subcommittee, headed up by Marietta. This includes the possibility of a teacher workshop on kristallnacht, and a teacher’s kit. Rabbi Samuel discussed the possibility of an essay contest with prize.
Travel the exhibit at the Figge to the schools?
If we involve a teacher’s workshop, Allan suggested perhaps they could get continuing ed credit.

There is an outside shot at getting David Bowlin (Oberlin Conservatory; Director, Chamber Music Quad Cities) to put together a performance of Different Trains (See post on First Meeting Packet for additional information.)

8. Who else should be at the table:
Sean O’Harrow, Ph.D. (Marietta will invite.)
John Kiley, Catholic Diocese. Rabbi Karp will invite.

ACTION ITEMS
Allan Ross will work on grants from RDA and Scott County…
We need a secretary for the next meeting.
We need an education subcommittee.
We need to get a specific invitation to Art.
We need to have a focus for each meeting.

NEXT MEETING: April 17, 11:30 a.m., Unitarian Church Davenport (3707 Eastern Avenue).