Meet Mira Rosenblatt. She is a mother, grandmother, and a great-grandmother. She is a New Yorker, and a Polish native. She is also a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Mira Rosenblatt’s childhood was like any other Jewish child. She was raised by a Polish mother and father, and had three brothers and two sisters. She was taught how to help her parents work in a store, how to speak Yiddish, Polish, Hebrew, and German, and that being Jewish was a birthright, not a lifestyle. The Rosenblatt family lived in a 39 brick-tenant building, built by Mira’s grandfather, in a densely populated Jewish neighborhood. Every day Mira would get up at 5 o’clock…
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Radical Empathy: An (Un)complicated Act
“It’s complicated!” So opens the film “Wrestling Jerusalem,” a line shouted in frustration by the sole actor, Aaron Davidman. That’s right, you read correctly, Aaron is the only actor in “Wrestling Jerusalem,” but by no means is he the only character. Before the film is over, his face will reflect many other faces, and his voice will hold many other voices as he strives to shed light on the people he has met in preparation for the film. Davidman has listened to the stories of Israelis and Palestinians, whose views clash and harmonize within him in endless ways. “It’s complicated,” as he attempts to answer the questions of “What…
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Faith groups provide local solutions to climate change
Religious and secular groups joined together on Nov. 11 at the Blackbox Theater in Rathaus Hall to talk about climate change and solutions to it. The Center for Ethnic, Racial & Religious Understanding, along with other city-wide groups, created the event to unite groups of different faiths—Christianity, Islam and Judaism—as well as non-religious groups, like the New York Public Interest Research Group. Yael Rosenstock, director of programming at CERRU, said the organization’s fourth Innovation Exchange program is different than before, as it would feature different sessions. “This year, we decided to transform the structure into a more participatory event. That’s why, when the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and the Central Queens Y approached us about doing…
