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Current event related to the publication of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp

Symposium and Reception celebrating the publication of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp.
Held Tuesday, September 7, 2004, 7:30 p.m. at Congregation Moreshet Yisrael, Jerusalem

More than 75 people attended a symposium and reception sponsored by Beit Knesset Moreshet Yisrael in Jerusalem for the Israeli launching of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Symposium speakers were author Dr. Rochelle Saidel, Dr. Dalia Ofer, and Sali Solomon Daugherty, with Barbara Goldstein serving as moderator (see photos below). Dr. Ofer, a distinguished Holocaust historian, addressed general issues of gender, women, and the Holocaust. She heads the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry and is the Max and Rita Haber Professor of Holocaust and East European studies at Hebrew University. She is the representative of the Hebrew University on the Yad Vashem Academic Committee and a member of the management of the Research Center of Yad Vashem, as well as the Advisory Board of Remember the Women Institute. Together with Lenore J. Weitzman, she edited Women in the Holocaust (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998). She is also the author and editor of numerous other books on Holocaust and Israeli history. Dr. Saidel, author of The Jewish Women of Ravensbrück Concentration Camp, spoke about the background of Ravensbrück, her own long-term interest in the camp, and gender issues in relation to the camp. She also read short excerpts of survivor testimony from her book. The founder and director of the Remember the Women Institute in New York, she is also a senior scientific researcher at the Center for the Study of Women and Gender, University of São Paulo and the author of two other Holocaust-related books. (More biographical information available on our Director's page.) Sali Solomon Daugherty, an articulate child survivor of Ravensbrück whose story is part of Dr. Saidel’s book, offered her moving personal recollections and insights. She was born in Holland and came to the camp with her mother, via Westerbork. She currently lives in Jaffa, Israel. Other survivors of Ravensbrück were in the audience. Moderator Barbara Goldstein, a member of Beit Knesset Moreshet Israel, is the Deputy Executive Director of the Hadassah offices in Israel. Avinoam Sharon, spiritual leader of the congregation, opened the evening with a touching personal story about his own family. Beit Knesset Moreshet Yisrael in Jerusalem is a Masorti congregation, affiliated with the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

Rochelle G. Saidel with moderator Barbara Goldstein.	Ravensbruck survivor Sali Daugherty, author Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, and symposium lecturer Dr. Dalia Ofer.
Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel signs copies of The Jewish Women of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp.