metro 1 ,, FOR 100 YEARS THE ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE HAS EMPOWERED MILLIONS TO FIGHT PREJUDICE Adopt-A-Kaddish New Hebrew Memorial Chapel program keeps the memory of children lost in the Holocaust alive. Barbara Lewis I Special to the Jewish News H IMAGINE A WORLD without hate WE DO. Save the Date: Thursday, October 3, 2013 Join us for the ADL CENTENNIAL GALA at the GM Heritage Center, Sterling Heights Honoring: Mark Reuss, Vice President, GM, President, GM North America & Past Chairs and Directors of ADL: Peter Alter Fran Gross Linden Leonard Sahn Norman Beitner Richard Lobenthal Judi Schram Don Cohen Stuart Lockman Burton Shifman Robert Gordon I. Matthew Miller Linda Soberman Michael Horowitz Robert Naftaly Alex Stotland John Jacobs Richard Node! Elaine Sturman Betsy Kellman Ronald Rothstein Elaine Block Victor Howard Wallach Dan Levy 100 Anti-Defamation League For more information, call 248.353.7553 or email hbudaj@adl.org 8 August 29 • 2013 JN aia Faer was born in Romania in 1935 and per- ished in the Holocaust only eight years later. Her father's name was Haim. Her mother was Ruhlea. During World War II, she lived in Russia. That's about all we know of her. One and a half million children were among the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Now, thanks to an innovative pro- gram sponsored by Hebrew Memorial Chapel and the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, the names and lives of the children lost in the Holocaust will not be forgotten. In the Adopt-a-Kaddish Project, members of the community will "adopt" a child and say Kaddish, the memorial prayer, for that child every year on the anniversary of his or her death. Participants will receive a personal file about the child, includ- ing biographical information and a photo, if one is available. They'll get extra copies to share with family or with fellow congregants or organiza- tion members. They also will receive yearly notic- es of the child's yahrtzeit (anniversa- ry of death) from Hebrew Memorial Chapel in Oak Park. A similar program was created by Rabbi Allan Blaine at Temple Beth El in Rockaway Park, N.Y., said Otto Dube, managing funeral director at Hebrew Memorial. Forty families there participated. "My wife, Shelley, read about it and thought it would work well as a community-wide effort," said Dube, whose parents were Holocaust survi- vors. Dube said Otto Dube he considers the program a worthy memorial to his father. "One of my father's jobs was working in an orphanage he said. "There was constant turnover as the children were taken away to be killed, and it tore him up." The program is designed for syna- gogues and commu- nity organizations, though unaffiliated individuals also are welcome to par- ticipate. Dube presented the Adopt-a- Kaddish idea to the board of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, which oper- ates Hebrew Haia Faer Memorial Chapel. They voted unanimously to approve it. The fol- lowing day, board member Michael Eizelman, an attorney from Oak Park, adopted the memory of Haia Faer. "I think it's a terrific idea, espe- cially because there are fewer and fewer survivors around," Eizelman said. "This is a beautiful way of keeping the memory [of the Holocaust] alive, especially for chil- dren. I grew up in Oak Park with survivors living next door to me. But my son-in-law, who is 32 and an emergency room physician, told me he never saw anyone with a number on their arm:' Public Acknowledgement Dube said he hopes participants will make a public declaration during a Shabbat service or organizational meeting where they will announce the name of the child and pledge to say Kaddish for that child so that his or her memory won't be forgotten. The names of the adopted chil- dren will be remembered publicly in the congregation, the way family members are memorialized annually. Adopters who cannot come to ser- vices can ask someone else to recite Kaddish for the child. Information about the children comes from the Central Database of