I had a fantastic meeting today, acutally, two of them. The first I expected to go well, as it was a networking meeting with a non-rabbinic (non-Jewish, actually) colleague in LocalTown to talk about collaborative programming and community building.  We connected on so many levels, I look forward to continued work together.

This  afternoon I had a committee meeting for a LocalTown board that I was just asked to join. We are working on a new agency to combat hunger.  It was one of those meetings where we got a lot done in less than an hour.

 So what is the Jewish connection to this other than the fact that I am a Jewish professional?  I think the connection resides in the statement in Pirkei Avot (Ethics/Teachings of the Ancestors), "You are not required to complete the work, but neither may you desist from it."

 May your work be fuitful and enjoyable.

Shavuah Tov – a good week to you and yours.

May this second week of the month of Sivan be filled with hope, learning, Judaism, health and love.

While surfing the web, I found and article about something interesting. For years, Germany has known what happened to some 17.5 million people during World War II and the Nazi genocide. They have known all along what happened to millions of lives, but have refused to release the information. No matter who asked, the Red Cross, governments and others, including the families. Now, people can begin to know.

Here are some quotes from the Guardian’s article “Nazi death camp records reveal fate of millions”:

After the war 11 nations formed a commissions to look after the records, but as the decades passed the tracing service metamorphosed into an archive, processing individual requests for information about relatives and digitalising millions of papers.

Researchers have long called for the archive to be opened to build up a detailed picture of where people went: into exile, hiding or concentration camps. But Germany always argued against making them available, saying that doing so would breach its strict privacy laws.
….
The Washington Post has accused Germany and the Red Cross of conspiring to keep historians out of the archive. It said: “The backlog of victims waiting for information about their lives is now in the hundreds of thousands, evidence that the archivists hold back documents is overwhelming, survivors’ groups in Germany and elsewhere are protesting and historians are demanding better access.”

What will happen now?

According to the article, “The records will now be copied and distributed within the 11 commission countries, including Britain, where their sensitive content will be dealt with according to local laws, said Miss Zypries’s spokesman yesterday.”

I pray that families may now have some peace.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful end of Pesach.