500 DAFFODILS — Last week volunteers helped the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) plant 500 daffodils at the Memorial for Six Million located on the grounds of the Jewish Community Campus. The daffodils are in commemoration of MCHE’s 25 anniversary. It is anticipated the bulbs will bloom in time for the Yom HaShoah ceremony to be held at the memorial this spring. Along with the volunteers — including eighth-grade students from Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy — MCHE was able to do the project with assistance from the Campus and True North Outdoor.
This is all a part of The Daffodil Project (DaffodilProject.net). Am Yisrael Chai!, a nonprofi t Holocaust Education and Awareness Organization, established this worldwide project empowering Holocaust Education in 2010. The goal is to plant 1.5 million daffodils around the world in memory of the children who perished in the Holocaust, as well as to support children suffering due to humanitarian crises around the world today.
During the Holocaust, 1.5 million children died senselessly in Nazi occupied Europe. No one knows what kind of lives these children would have gone on to lead. Their potential for growth and fulfi llment was cut short. Am Yisrael Chai! chose daffodils to help build a Living Holocaust Memorial because the shape and color of the daffodils represent the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during the Holocaust. Yellow is the color of remembrance. According to the Am Yisrael Chai! website, daffodils “represent our poignant hope for the future. They are resilient and return with a burst of color each spring, signifying hope, renewal and beauty. The daffodils also honor those who survived the Holocaust and went on to build new lives after this dark and diffi cult period.”
Since the project began more than 475,000 daffodils have been planted.
MANISCHEWITZ HAS A NEW LOOK — Apparently Manischewitz has quietly changed it look and its slogan. Check out the new logo, which says: “Comfort food for the soul. Established 1888.”
FIRST ETHIOPIAN-ISRAELI PILOT GETS HIS AIR FORCE WINGS (JERUSALEM, JTA) — The Israeli Air Force announced its fi rst Ethiopian-Israeli pilot. Lt. Y, known only by his fi rst initial for security reasons, completed the rigorous three-year-long pilots course on Dec. 19 , Army Radio reported. He will begin his service as a navigator on fi ghter jets. Ethiopian Israelis have been slow to advance in the military. The lag has been attributed to the poverty in which many recruits grow up and the military’s slow response to cultural issues. There also have been allegations of racism both in the military and Israeli society as a whole