{"id":3833,"date":"2012-07-24T19:01:13","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T18:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/?p=3833"},"modified":"2012-07-24T19:02:10","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T18:02:10","slug":"mayer-hersh-and-the-pain-of-remembrance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2012\/07\/24\/mayer-hersh-and-the-pain-of-remembrance\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayer Hersh and the Pain of Remembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This week Holocaust survivor Mayer Hersh received an honorary degree, a Doctor of Education from Edge Hill University.<\/p>\n

This was a fitting tribute to his dedication over many years to tell the story of his own experience of the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

I attended a ceremony at Whitefield Synagogue in Manchester.<\/p>\n

When it was Mayer’s turn to be called to reading desk there was an unforgettable moment when Chazan Muller and the choir sang a beautiful ‘yamod, literally, ‘stand up’, the usual formula for calling someone to the reading of the Torah. The entire congregation stood and clapped as Mayer was escorted to the bimah,\u00a0<\/em>now a stooped figure who needs a wheelchair to get about.<\/p>\n

It seems that the years of abuse at the hands of his Nazi oppressors are finally catching up with him.<\/p>\n

After the service several of the people he has inspired, Jews and non-Jews, spoke movingly about the work he has done for the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

A video of Mayer’s receiving of his DEd. can be be seen in the first 30 minutes of the video at the end of this post.<\/p>\n

I have known Mayer for about 20 years and I cherish that friendship. We even found that we are ‘landsleit<\/em>‘ with my family coming from his home town.<\/p>\n

I have previously written about a particular meeting with Mayer which is typical of the great man. You can read that here<\/a>\u00a0(My Friend, Dr Mengele). I said then that Mayer is a great man; as his physical stature shrinks, his moral stature seems to increase year by year.<\/p>\n

Mayer says:<\/p>\n

“Recalling and telling my story is painful, but nevertheless I treasure the opportunity to do so because in so doing I am able to cherish and preserve the memory of my family and community; the pain of remembrance is my only link to them.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When the last survivor has gone, we must all continue this ‘pain of remembrance’ on their behalf – for all time.<\/p>\n

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This week Holocaust survivor Mayer Hersh received an honorary degree, a Doctor of Education from Edge Hill University. This was a fitting tribute to his dedication over many years to tell the story of his own experience of the Holocaust. I attended a ceremony at Whitefield Synagogue in Manchester. When it was Mayer’s turn to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1062,82,560],"class_list":["post-3833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-edge-hill","tag-holocaust","tag-mayer-hersh","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3836,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3833\/revisions\/3836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}