Witnessing the Horrors of Hamas
2023-12-08 10:00 (America/Phoenix) | Arizona
Friday, December 8, 2023 – 10AM (MST)
A VIRTUAL SEMINAR
Featured Guest: Steven J. Hilton

Steven J. Hilton is the co-founder, executive chairman, & former CEO of Meritage Homes Corporation. Steve is also the son of Holocaust survivor & US Korean War Veteran, Samuel Hilton, who survived multiple Nazi death camps, including Majdanek, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, & was liberated at Theresienstadt.
On Oct. 7, Hamas killed more Jews since the Holocaust in a senseless & egregious act of terrorism on Israel. Just two days later, Arizona resident, Steven J. Hilton traveled to Israel in the aftermath of the brutal massacre, rape, and kidnapping of thousands of Israeli civilians by the terror organization Hamas. Please join us, on Dec. 8, as Mr. Hilton will discuss what he experienced and witnessed, less than a month ago in Israel during his visit, as well as the many ways he and others like him provided aid and comfort to the victims of these atrocities, perpetrated by Hamas.
Register: https://www.azjhs.org/surviving-humanity-series

Documentary Film Series of the Reckonings
2023-12-11 10:30 - 2023-12-17 10:30 | Valley of the Sun JCC, 12701 N. Scottsdale Rd, Scottsdale, az, 85254
Online Streaming: December 11-16
The film discussion will be held on
Sunday, December 17 at 10:30 am in person only
The Valley of the Sun JCC
12701 N Scottsdale Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85254
RSVP: elainegoldenthal@gmail.com
They met in secret to negotiate the unthinkable compensation for the survivors of the largest mass genocide in history. Survivors were in urgent need of help, but how could reparations be determined for the unprecedented destruction and suffering of a people Reckonings explores this untold true story set in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Directed by award-winning filmmaker Roberta Grossman, Reckonings recounts the tense negotiations between Jewish and German leaders. Under the constant threat of violence, they forged ahead, knowing it would never be enough but hoping it could at least be an acknowledgement and a step towards healing.

Chanukah in Carefree with Phoenix Holocaust Association
2023-12-11 17:30 | Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion, 101 Easy Street, Carefree, AZ, 85377, United States
Monday, December 11th
5:30pm MST
5th NIGHT
Phoenix Holocaust Association
Featured Speaker:
Holocaust Survivor and Author Dirk Van Leenen
On this 5 th night of Chanukah, December 11, The Phoenix Holocaust Association will lead the lighting of the Menorah with Holocaust Survivor and author, Dirk Van Lennen. Mr. Van Leenen
will share his family’s harrowing story of survival and courage in the face of evil of the Holocaust, an especially important story to share based on today’s headlines.

For More Information Visit: https://chanukahincarefree.com/

Addressing Antisemitism: Contemporary Challenges
2024-01-28 10:00 | Arizona
January 28, 2024, 10AM (MST)
In person and live on YouTube
This event by the Center for Jewish Studies seeks to explain the recent upsurge of Jew hatred in the contemporary world. The symposium brings together prominent scholars to discuss the challenge of defining antisemitism, explaining its explosion in Europe and the United States, understanding its dissemination through digital media, and determining how scholars and activists should best combat it in an era of intensifying global turmoil.
https://programs.cjh.org/tickets/addressing-antisemitism-2024-01-28

Documentary Film Screening Undying Love
2024-02-14 | Arizona
Online Streaming: February 14, 2024
Film Link: Undying Love

On Valentine’s Day, February 14, we will be screening Undying Love.
Undying Love tells the poignant, enduring and miraculous love stories of the survivors of World War II. Against the brutalized landscape of post-war Europe, this film focuses on how survivors struggled to reconstruct personal identities and forge intimate relationships. Using searing testimonies, poetic dramatizations, archives and images of romantic love from the pre- and post-Holocaust era, Undying Love is a textured retelling of several extraordinary love stories which emerged “out of the ashes”.

Israel Close to Home
2024-02-15 19:30 - 20:30 | Arizona
Feb 15, 2024 07:30 PM

Discover the inspiring journeys of three remarkable women within our Jewish community, freshly returned from their enriching experiences in Israel. Immerse yourself in their captivating tales, accompanied by vibrant photos, as they recount meaningful encounters and unforgettable moments from their remarkable journey. Join us in celebrating the diverse narratives and connections forged in the heart of Israel.

Register: https://hillel.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcsf-CsrjIuHNSFt949PPEXk5rTmzXKLj5i#/registration

Descendants’ Forum with Jay Levinsohn
2024-03-10 11:00 | Arizona
Sunday March 10, 2024 @ 11AM on Zoom
In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the rescue of 1564 Torah Scrolls from the Czech Republic to London PHA is pleased to have Jay Levinson speak at our next Descendants’ Forum.
Jay Levinsohn, who taught a class called Character Development Through Holocaust Studies for B’nai Mitzvah students for ten years at Temple Solel participated in the program. In his teaching mode, Jay is known as Dr. Jay. His goal was/is to have the Event serve as a starting point for the Community to spread the understanding of the miracle of having these Torahs in our Phoenix communities and to be able to spread the message from generation to generation.
Join us for a zoom discussion where Dr. Jay will elucidate the rescue story and its role in educating and inspiring multiple generations about the miraculous survival of the Torahs. Learn how this narrative is utilized to impart knowledge about the wartime experiences to today’s children.
Please watch the link before the ZOOM meeting.It will provide a great introduction to the history of “The Holocaust Torahs / The Czech Torah Scrolls.”
link: https://vimeo.com/11488749
RSVP: elainegoldenthal@yahoo.com or 480.330.1547.
ZOOM link will be provided only to those who RSVP

12th Rosenbluth Family Charitable Foundation Genocide Awareness Week 2024
2024-04-15 - 2024-04-19 | Arizona
This year’s conference theme of nationalism, state violence and genocide revolves around the role of the state in facilitating and shaping the perpetration of genocidal violence.
Plan to attend 2024 Genocide Awareness Week in person or virtually. All in person events on are hosted at the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies in Lattie F. Coor Hall on Arizona State University Tempe Campus unless noted otherwise.
For more information and program Schedule: https://shprs.asu.edu/gaw2024
Registration: https://specialevents.asu.edu/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=785374&
Held April 15-19,2024 Genocide Awareness Week is a series of lectures, exhibits and storytelling by distinguished survivors, scholars, politicians, activists, artists, humanitarians and members of law enforcement. This week-long event seeks to address how we, as a global society, confront violent actions and current and ongoing threats of genocide throughout the world, while also looking to the past for guidance and to honor those affected by genocide.
Programs of particular interest include:
From Kishinev to Sderot: Considering ‘Spectacular Violence’ and Mass Murder against Jewish Communities: Speaker Edward Westermann. Monday April 15 from 7 – 8:30 p.m. at Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center
(12701 N. Scottsdale Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85254) Edward B. Westermann received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is a Regents Professor of History and a Piper Professor of 2023 at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. He has published extensively on the Holocaust and military history, including Hitler’s Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars: Comparing Genocide and Conquest, Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East and Flak: German Anti-aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945. He is a former Fulbright Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, a three-time fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service, a Fellow of Keene State College’s Genocide Studies and Prevention Program and a J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow at the USHMM. His latest book, Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany appeared with Cornell University Press in 2021 and received the 2023 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research. From January 2019 until September 2021, he served as a Commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission.
Survivor Testimony: Second-generation Holocaust survivor and PHA board member Monique Mendel. Wednesday, Wednesday, April 17 from 9 am to 10:15 am at Lattie F. Coor Hall, 4403: Monique Mendel is a second-generation Holocaust survivor born in Brussels, Belgium in 1947. Her mother and father, Meta Neufeld and Gunther Mendel jumped off separately from Convoy XX train, destination Auschwitz on April 17, 1943 and were hidden in an attic for eighteen months by a Belgian sympathizer.

2024 Yom HaShoah Commemoration
2024-05-05 15:00 - 17:00 | Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus., 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ, 85254
Yom HaShoah Commemorative Events:
Sunday, May 5, 2024
3:00pm “Memories Among the Generations”
4:00pm Community-wide Yom HaShoah Commemoration
Location: Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus.
12701 N. Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale.
In partnership with the Center for Jewish Philanthropy, please join the Phoenix Holocaust Association (PHA) at its annual community-wide Yom HaShoah observance. Memorialize your loved ones, honor survivors, and express your feelings about the loss of over 6 million lives in the Holocaust in the 2024 Yom HaShoah Book of Remembrance.
Click HERE to RSVP for the 2024 Yom HaShoah Commemoration: https://phoenixhsa.formstack.com/forms/2024_yom_hashoah_rsvp

Visiting the Past: An online discussion with 3Gs Jennifer Sosnow and Adena Bernstein
2024-11-14 18:30 - 20:00 | Arizona
REGISTER: 3gaz@phxha.com

Courage and Memory: Bridging Holocaust Education with Commemoration of October 7th
2024-12-11 19:00 - 20:30 | Arizona
Registration: https://tinyurl.com/5bv5w7rs

Chanukah in Carefree Nightly Menorah Lighting
2024-12-29 17:30 - 19:00 | Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion, 101 Easy Street, Carefree, AZ, 85377, United States
For More Information: https://chanukahincarefree.com/

AJHS Book Discussion We Were the Lucky Ones
2025-01-09 14:00 | Arizona
We Were the Lucky Ones
By Georgia Hunter
Discussion led by Sheryl Bronkesh, Phoenix Holocaust Association
Thursday, January 9, 2025 at 2PM
Discussion via ZOOM
Inspired by the incredible true story of one Jewish family separated at the start of World War II, determined to survive—and to reunite—We Were the Lucky Ones is a tribute to the triumph of hope and love against all odds.
It is the spring of 1939 and three generations of the Kurc family are doing their best to live normal lives, even as the shadow of war grows closer. The talk around the family Seder table is of new babies and budding romance, not of the increasing hardships threatening Jews in their hometown of Radom, Poland. But soon the horrors overtaking Europe will become inescapable and the Kurcs will be flung to the far corners of the world, each desperately trying to navigate his or her own path to safety.
As one sibling is forced into exile, another attempts to flee the continent, while others struggle to escape certain death, either by working grueling hours on empty stomachs in the factories of the ghetto or by hiding as gentiles in plain sight. Driven by an unwavering will to survive and by the fear that they may never see one another again, the Kurcs must rely on hope, ingenuity, and inner strength to persevere.
An extraordinary, propulsive novel, We Were the Lucky Ones demonstrates how in the face of the twentieth century’s darkest moment, the human spirit can endure and even thrive.

Rosenbluth Family Charitable Foundation Genocide Awareness Week 2025
2025-03-31 - 2025-04-04 | Arizona
With special focus on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide and the murder and displacement of Native American communities, Genocide Awareness Week 2025 will bring different cultures of remembrance, memorialization and repair after genocide in conversation with each other. The importance of survivor testimony, the need to bring perpetrators to justice, the power and limits of representation in text and art, as well as the difficulty to represent the complexity of genocide through memorialization are shared features of confronting genocide. Equally important is the need to counter genocide denial and distortion. Starting from common themes such as these, GAW fosters dialogues among survivors, academics, activists, artists, and government officials through presentations, performances, discussions, and exhibits.
https://jewishstudies.asu.edu/GAW25

Author Discussion
2025-10-12 13:00 - 14:00 | Arizona
Award-winning author Mark Hass will discuss his acclaimed historical novel, The Days Before Tomorrow.
Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/XeklzV2VRfKhxDLXtCHEYw
Winner of the 19th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for New Fiction, The Days Before Tomorrow is a gripping coming-of-age novel set in Eastern Europe between the World Wars. When violence shatters their world, siblings Wolchi and Leja embark on a perilous journey that exposes the depths of history and humanity.

8th Night of Chanukah Phoenix Holocaust Association
2025-12-21 17:30 - 19:30 | Sanderson Lincoln Pavilion, 101 Easy Street, Carefree, AZ, 85377, United States
Sunday, December 21st
5:30pm MST
8th NIGHT
Phoenix Holocaust Association

Featured Speaker: Holocaust Survivor Dr. Michael Markson

For More Information: Chanukah in Carefree – Carefree, AZ
Livestream Available

(Traditional sufganiyot and hot coffee will be served.)
