Abraham trophy

Jeremiah:  Day and night I cry for the martyrs of my people

"Sadly we remember all Jewish people who were innocently persecuted, humiliated and murdered in the years 1933-45 by the Nazis."

We attended a program of the Society for Christian-Jewish cooperation.  This organization was founded 4 years after the end of WWII.  And since 2001 they have given a "Abraham trophy" to one school in Mannheim and one school across the river in Ludwigshafen (LU) every year.  See below between the picture frames.

Each school promises to focus on promoting understanding between people of different religions.  They do this in many classes, outings, programs etc  for one year and then pass it on (done today to the 33rd and 34th schools).

Over 400 persons attended the program in the Jewish fellowship hall - speeches, theatrical presentations, slide show, pantomime, RAP music with their own words, all very authentic and meaningful.

In the hallway before the program we had time to admire the artwork of some of the students.

On stage and here on the poster one can recognize how many students from other nationalities are now part of the German classes and participating in this exercise.  It was quite moving to hear refugee and immigrant children in skits on respect, prejudice, fears, assistance, loneliness, and inclusion. The theme for this year's school is "Overcoming Fear and Building Bridges".

One of the adult speakers pointed out that it has always been a danger to fail to recognize a person as an individual and just consign him/her to a "group".  Then he added that nowadays in Germany this is more real and more challenging to now put into practice, than for a long time previously.  (Tolerance is something that German school teach as zealously as American school teach against smoking.)

I'm glad we attended.  It was fun to talk with these students afterwards and hear about how they prepared for the program.  On a lighter note, I thoroughly enjoyed being a spectator rather than a teacher on the spot with the responsibility for the many excited students.