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StandWithUs MICHIGAN

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS

5T"

ANNUAL GALA

CELEBRATING THE 14TH ANNIVERSARY OF STANDWITHUS

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2015 6:30 PM

ADAT SHALOM SYNAGOGUE, FARMINGTON HILLS, MI 48334

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HONORING
ANNETTE & RUSSELL
MESKIIN

FOR THEIR WORK
ON BEHALF OF ISRAEL

Keeping
Anna's
Memory
Alive

Bat mitzvah girl
twins her ceremony
with a girl slain at
Auschwitz.

Ellie Provizer with Richard David,

nephew of Anna Klein, a child who

was killed at Auschwitz, that Ellie was

twinned with for her bat mitzvah

Stacy Gittleman I Contributing Writer

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

HUSSEIN ABOUBAKR

•

•

TAH RI R SQUARE
VIOLENT RIOTS IN
EGYPT DURING THE
ARAB SPRING

CHAIR
REVA ROSEN

GALA

RECEPTION, PROGRAM,
AND DINNER

Music
STEFAN KUKURUGYA

FOR INFORMATION CONTACT
STANDWITHUS MICHIGAN

248.891.2563

STANDWITHUSMICHIGAN@GMAIL.COM

REGISTER ONLINE AT
STANDWITHUS.COM/MIGALA

T

aking on the mitzvah of zachor

or remembrance, 12-year-old
Ellie Provizer of Farmington
Hills not only preserved the memory of
a girl who died in the Holocaust before
reaching the age of bat mitzvah, but also
invited the girl's surviving nephew from
California to receive an aliyah at her Oct.
10 ceremony at Temple Israel in West
Bloomfield.
Ellie's mother, Kari Provizer, explained
that a fourth-grade trip to see the Anne
Frank sapling at the Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Farmington Hills sparked
Ellie's passion for learning more about
the victims and their survivors. From
there, the museum featured her in a
fundraising video and she attended
the museum's annual fundraising din-
ner where she heard Alan Dershowitz
speak on the importance of teaching the
Holocaust to future generations.
"Ellie was very troubled to see how
few survivors are still with us today:' said
Kari, who heads Temple Israel's Robert
Sosnick Family Life Center. She and her
husband, Jeff, also have two sons, Noah
and Jake.
The HMC dinner inspired the seventh-
grader at Dunckel Middle School in
Farmington Hills to raise $2,000 to help
pay for transportation costs so public
school children in Oakland and Wayne
counties could visit the HMC. Ellie hopes
to become a docent there, Kari said.
tillIl ,
—:-+.

StandWithUs

Supporting Israel Around The Wodd

StandWithUs is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to ensur-
ing the story of Israel's achievements and ongoing challenges is told on cam-
puses and in communities around the world. We believe that education is the
road to peace - that knowledge of the facts will correct common prejudices
about the Arab-Israeli conflict and will promote discussions and policies that
can help promote peace in the region.

2045700

18 November 12 2015

According to Yad Vashem, their twin-
ning project is a way "to strengthen a
child's identification with his or her
Jewish heritage by forging bonds with
individual children who perished during
the Holocaust.'
The museum provides the child with
a brief testimonial of the twin and a
certificate of participation. If the child
visits Israel, Yad Vashem arranges a
private customized tour so he or she can
better understand where and how the
child lived in the years leading up to the
Holocaust.
When Yad Vashem paired Ellie with
Anna Klein of Czechoslovakia, the only
information they received was that she
was killed at age 10 with her mother in
Auschwitz. Ellie wanted to know more.
So she and Mom did some research and
found that Anna's older sister, Edith, had
survived and had written her family's
testimonial for the Yad Vashem Archives.
Edith lived in California. Though she had
passed away, her obituary listed that she
had a son, Richard David.
By some twist of fate, Richard came
to Michigan last year for a bar mitzvah
at Temple Israel. Rabbi Josh Bennett was
able to put Ellie in touch with him. Over
the months, they talked on the phone so
she could learn more about Anna.
"It is almost as if Anna came through
the ages and connected them:' Kari said.
"It was very moving for Richard to have
an aliyah at Ellie's bat mitzvah:'
In her d'var Torah, Ellie spoke about
Noah, the flood and second chances. She
wrote that through this twining project,
Yad Vashem had given her the oppor-
tunity to give Anna a second chance to
be remembered and tied into her happy
occasion. *

At Ellie's bat mitzvah, this poster gave

For details on the Yad Vashem Twining Project,

information about Anna and her family.

visit www.yadvashem.org .

