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Articles by Abraham Peck
For Jews in Maine and across America, never again is now | Opinion
Yom Hashoah (in Hebrew the Day of Holocaust Remembrance), which Jewish communities across the globe commemorate this year on April 24, is a somber occasion to remember and honor the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust years of the Hitler regime between 1939-1945. We spend this day hearing from survivors and their descendants.
Opinion: Giving peace a chance
More than six months ago in the pages of this newspaper, after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre in Israel that killed at least 1,200 men, women and children and kidnapped several hundred more, we wrote an impassioned plea for both Israelis and Palestinian Muslims to adhere to their teachings that to save one life is to save all of humanity. We wrote barely a week after the Israeli military invaded Gaza and we asked where these actions were going.
Commentary: How do we answer what is happening in Gaza and in Israel?
In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack, Muslims and Jews stood outside the Blaine House and proclaimed that the attack would not stop the efforts of both communities toward interreligious peace and understanding. In the more than two decades since 9/11, that effort has not stopped. It has focused on teachings that define both of our religious communities. Among the most relevant are the following.
Maine Voices: ‘Never again’ is not heeded by genocidal regimes
April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dead roots with spring rain – T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922) Each April or early May, Jewish communities and individuals mark Yom Hashoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. I am among those who mourn the millions of Jewish men, women and children who perished at the hands of the Nazis and their many collaborators. But April’s memory and the 20th century’s cruelty are shared by others.
Maine Voices: How Holocaust survivors first remembered their murdered millions
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is a day of commemoration for the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust. The Israeli parliament passed the legal observance of the day in 1959, and it was gradually adopted by most Jewish communities throughout the world. It is held on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan (which falls in April or May). This year, Yom HaShoah is held April 28.
Maine Voices: How Holocaust survivors first remembered their murdered millions
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is a day of commemoration for the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust. The Israeli parliament passed the legal observance of the day in 1959, and it was gradually adopted by most Jewish communities throughout the world. It is held on the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan (which falls in April or May). This year, Yom HaShoah is held April 28.
Maine Voices: Genocide inflicts wounds that last long after the killing stops
In 1942, in the midst of the Nazi effort to implement a “final solution” to the “Jewish Question” that had been posed by much of Christian Europe for centuries, my father, Shalom Peck, stood in a portion of the Lodz, Poland, Jewish cemetery called the “Cemetery Fields.” His job, as a resident of the Jewish ghetto established in 1940, was to help bury the Jewish and Sinti and Roma (Gypsy) dead.
Maine Compass: When an ugly era in our state's history came to an end
On Dec. 30, Rosalyne Spindel Bernstein, scion of a prominent Jewish family, and a leader in Portland’s and Maine’s art and education communities, died at the age of 90. A few days later, Janet Mills, a member of one of Maine’s most important political families, was sworn in as the first female governor in the state’s history. The two events were front-page news but seemed to have little else in common. But the historical record tells us otherwise.
Maine Voices: A tale of two Maine families
On Dec. 30, Rosalyne Spindel Bernstein, scion of a prominent Jewish family, and a leader in Portland’s and Maine’s art and education communities, died at the age of 90. A few days later, Janet Mills, a member of one of Maine’s most important political families, was sworn in as the first female governor in the state’s history. The two events were front-page news but seemed to have little else in common. But the historical record tells us otherwise.
Reflections: Who will teach of Holocaust when survivors are gone?
Less than two weeks ago, Portland, Maine and the U.S. once again observed Yom Hashoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. More than 70 years after the last Jew was murdered and the last concentration camp inmate found freedom but was not yet free, every state in our nation and even our national government paused to remember the destruction of European Jewish life and civilization and to honor those few who survived the most extensive genocide of the 20th century.
Maine Voices: Christmas is a holiday in which all Americans can be merry - Portland Press Herald
I was in the fifth grade. My teacher, Ms. Foley, chose me to be the reader for the Christmas Nativity story. It was a great honor because it indicated that I was the best reader in the entire class. But it was also frightening. I would have to narrate a story that had nothing to do with my Jewish religious holidays and I would have to say the word Jesus. I ran home and told my mother, fully expecting her to tell me that I could not be the reader and to tell that to my teacher.
Reflections: Meetings with Hitler's spokesman were confrontations of good and evil - Portland Press Herald
In July 1935, a young American, Varian Fry, the editor of Living Age magazine, witnessed an anti-Jewish riot in Berlin. A few days later, seeking information about the causes of the riot, he paid a visit to the office of Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl, nicknamed “Putzi,” Adolf Hitler’s official liaison to the American press, among others. Both men had attended Harvard University, although at different times.
Maine Voices: Genocide survivors share 'soul wounds' - Portland Press Herald
Every April I remember and mourn. I mourn my maternal Jewish grandfather and the 12 uncles and aunts and their extended families murdered in the Holocaust by the evil that we call genocide. But I am comforted to some extent by the knowledge that I am not alone. Other communities share this month to commemorate their own genocides. Armenians, Cambodians, Rwandans and Darfuris share with me membership in a horrific fraternity/sorority of sorrow.
Reflections: Jews, Muslims come together in U.S. - Portland Press Herald
For over five decades, American Jews and American Christians have enjoyed a new era of interreligious relations. This is especially true for the Jewish-Roman Catholic relationship, created by one of the most extraordinary documents in all of religious history: Nostra Aetate (In Our Time) promulgated in 1965 at the very end of the yearslong meeting of Catholic clergy in a conference known as the Second Vatican Council.
Reflections: Addressing a dark legacy - Martin Luther and the Jews
The year 2017 will mark a milestone in German and in Protestant Christian history. It will celebrate the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation launched by a renegade Roman Catholic monk, theologian and academic named Martin Luther (1483-1546). There can be no doubt that Luther’s letter to his Roman Catholic superiors ,written on October 31, 1517,began a religious schism and conflict that would forever change the face and shape of Christianity.
Commentary: Judeo-Christian and Islamic values - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram
For as long as I can remember, I have been intrigued by the use of the term “the Judeo-Christian ethic” to describe the values and the moral, ethical and spiritual teachings that define American exceptionalism and this nation’s understanding of itself and its mission in the world.
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