¡Buenos días! Una vez más, tengo el privilegio de representar a la comunidad judía de Puerto Rico en la inauguración de la Semana Nacional de la Policía. Gracias al sargento Axel Valencia por tramitar mi invitación. Desde los tiempos bíblicos, los judíos siempre hemos orado por el bienestar y la seguridad de los lugares donde […]
In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Puerto Rico has an exclusive opportunity to the memorable story of Eva Schloss, stepsister and childhood friend of Anne Frank. Eva Schloss will be traveling from London to share her story of triumph and survival with the Puerto Rio community. Like her stepsister, Eva went into hiding in Holland until she, […]
We sometimes get so used to the things around us that we stop seeing them. That is, we don’t consciously remember what the things mean or what they stand for. Consider the two framed documents on the sides of the bimah here. On my right is the document from the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London […]
Rabbi Norman Patz Temple Sholom of West Essex Shabbat Toledot November 9-10, 2018 / 2 Kislev, 5779 “Don’t send your boys to school in the morning.” That’s what a neighbor told the mother of John and Ernie Oettinger on November 9th 1938. The neighbor was a fireman who knew the SS plans for attacking Jews […]
On Thursday, September 20th, Rabbi Patz was one of the clergy invited to speak at the Ecumenical ceremony convened by the Puerto Rican Secretary of State to memorialize the one year anniversary of Hurricane Maria. The event included addresses by Governor Ricardo Rossello and Jeniffer Gonzáles -Colón, PR’s Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C. The Secretary […]
El gran abogado romano y figura política Cicerón describió la memoria como “el tesoro y guardián de todas las cosas” (siglo I aC) Ningún otro animal lleva en su cerebro tantos recuerdos de tal complejidad. Ninguna otra criatura viva en la tierra puede revisar regularmente esos recuerdos para la felicidad, para la seguridad y para […]
The great Roman lawyer and political figure Cicero described memory as “the treasury and guardian of all things”(1st century BCE). No other animal carries in its brain so many memories of such complexity. No other living creature on earth can regularly revisit those memories for happiness, for safety and for the accomplishment of complex tasks. […]
Cuando tenía nueve años, fui contratado para cantar la voz de varón alto en un coro que acompañaba al cantor en los servicios de High Holy Days en las sinagogas ortodoxas. Hasta el día de hoy, todavía recuerdo mucho de la música que cantamos: los pasajes de unísono, las armonías, mis pequeños solos y sobre […]
When I was nine years old, I was hired to be the boy alto in a choir that accompanied the cantor at High Holy Day services in Orthodox synagogues. To this day, I still remember a lot of the music we sang: the unison passages, the harmonies, my little solos and especially the rousing music […]