Radomer Mutual Culture Center Annual Yizkor Service, 9/24

We gathered at our grounds at New Montefiore Cemetery in Pinelawn, NY on Sept. 24, for our annual memorial service. There was a terrific turnout on a beautiful Sunday morning. The number of first generation, the survivors, shrinks slowly now, but those who could make it were part of the four generations that gathered.

It was a moving service.

Here are 39 photos taken at the event. Depending on which browser you are using to view them, clicking on one might simply expand it to full size or open a slide show.

I hope you enjoy them.
Permanent link:

https://kayester.blogspot.com/2017/09/radomer-mutual-culture-center-annual.html

Second and third generation

The great-grandchild of a survivor and her mom in front of the memorial to those who have no grave.

A little personal history: my parents survived the Holocaust. Because they were Jews, and for no other reason, they were starved, enslaved, tortured, forced to witness the worst brutalities, yet the persevered and survived. When my father retired to Florida, he asked me to become more involved in the burial and social society he helped to found in the early 1950s. These people, the remnant of a thriving community of more than 30,000 Jews from the city of Radom and it's surroundings, pulled together to create a new community in the United States and Canada. They bought land at New Montefiore Cemetery,  for many years they published a monthly bulletin. Those in the NYC area met monthly, the third Saturday night of the month, if I remember correctly, at a rented hall in the District 65 building on Astor Place, where for those hours they could heal among their landsmen. 

It is my opinion that the society helped them heal.

Just another Sunday in the East Village while Irma stormed toward Florida

I owe myself a major post where I show pictures of the high plains of Montana, of oil derricks bobbing up and down in western North Dakota, of railroad crossings across the nation, and whatever else I feel like from my railroad trip from NY to Spokane, WA, but that's a ton of work - I took so many pictures that it's a major job just to choose which ones to use and then edit them, post them and try to think of something to write that goes with them.

But that will have to wait because while Hurricane Irma was hitting land in southwestern Florida, I was wandering around in NYC's own East Village, camera in hand. I took a few photos and at least a couple of people asked me where I'm posting them and I told them here. So there.

That said, first Mabel, that very handsome dog, and her human companion whose name I can't remember. It might have been Christine, or that might have been her friend with the orange sunglasses. Love those shades.

Next I ran into two poets who have been associated with the Unbearables, Eve Packer and David Huberman.





 Then in the bar at the Sidewalk Cafe I got into a conversation with John and Sarah, or is it Sarah and John who are a musical group called Sweet Lorainne - they are playing the Pianos on the Lower East Side on 9/24. They were definitely fun to talk to and they inspired me to tell stories I find so full of oddities and outrageousness that they just had to be true.

And finally on my way out I stopped to ask this quartet why they were toasting each other. Turns out it was a birthday toast. So this picture's my birthday toast to them.

Hope Florida survives the tempest.

permanent link:
https://kayester.blogspot.com/2017/09/i-owe-myself-major-post-where-i-show.html