Dear Friend,
Today marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day on which we are called upon to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism.
For the Jewish community worldwide, it’s a somber day of reflection and sadness for the millions of Jewish families, including many of the families living here in Taiwan, who lost loved ones and friends. And it’s a reminder of the need to be vigilant about the reality that antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred, continues to be a real threat to the Jewish community.
In Taiwan, we are fortunate to be living in a place that is friendly to Jews. And we are grateful for the outpouring of support and friendship that we have witnessed in the past month since announcing the opening of our new community center.
But we can never remain complacent in the face of the rising tide of antisemitism that we are witnessing in the rest of the world. And it’s not just something we read about in history books. It’s real, and it’s still happening now. Less than two weeks ago a terrorist held a rabbi and three Jewish congregants in Texas hostage for over 11 hours. Over the past few years we’ve seen several horrific incidents at Jewish houses of worship, at kosher supermarkets, at Jewish homes where families were gathering to celebrate Chanukah, incidents that sadly saw the loss of many innocent lives.
At the Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association, we are committed to doing our part to educate the broader community about the Holocaust and antisemitism, and we are planning programs that we hope will raise awareness and deepen understanding around these two complex topics.
One such initiative which we have shared with you in a previous newsletter is our cooperation with Austrian Service Abroad. This remarkable organization, founded by Dr. Andreas Maislinger, dispatches more than 100 young Austrians annually to Holocaust education centers and Jewish community centers around the world in an effort to help them understand the full extent of the horrors of the past. As they return to Austria and pursue their education, it is hoped that they can become permanent ambassadors for greater awareness and understanding around these topics.
This March, we look forward to welcoming Adrian Kron, the first student volunteer from Austrian Service Abroad, to our new Jewish Community Center in Taiwan.
Before we end this note, we wanted to share some news. We were honored and humbled to learn recently that NaTang and myself, along with Glenn Leibowitz, have been named by the Board of Austrian Service Abroad, with the endorsement of Mr. Roland Rudorfer, the Director of the Austrian Office Taipei, as the 2022 recipients of the annual Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award.
Initiated in 2006, the award is “conferred annually to a person or an institution, which has shown special endeavors for the memory of the Shoah and/or made special contributions to Jewish life.”
On behalf of myself, NaTang, and Glenn, as well as the entire JTCA, we would like to extend our deepest gratitude to Dr. Maislinger, Michael Procházka, Daniel Schuster, the Board of Directors at Austrian Service Abroad, and Director Roland Rudorfer for this tremendous honor.
Shabbat shalom,
Jeffrey D. Schwartz & NaTang
Co-founders, Jewish Taiwan Cultural Association (JTCA)
