At White Plains’ Garden of Remembrance on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Torahs, a shofar blast, and urgent voices confronted a community grappling with rising antisemitism.

The garden was quiet when the Torahs arrived. One by one, community members cradled ancient scrolls — some written in the mid-1800s, all having survived the Nazi attempt to erase Jewish life from Europe — and walked them in procession through White Plains’ Garden of Remembrance. On Tuesday, April 14, Westchester County’s annual Yom HaShoah commemoration drew together Holocaust survivors, elected officials, rabbis, and neighbors who stood in the spring evening air to bear witness.

Courtesy of  of Aaron Herman

It was, by all accounts, a ceremony whose weight felt different this year. Post-October 7, the phrase “Never Again” has acquired new urgency. Antisemitic incidents are climbing. Children in Westchester are being confronted at shopping centers. And the last generation of survivors who can say “I was there” is fading.

I was there with a microphone. Here is what they told me.

The Torah That Came Back from the Dead

Herb Beer, a congregant at Temple Beth Abraham, held a rescued scroll and tried to put into words what he was carrying. The Torah in his hands, he explained, had been written in the mid-1800s in a small village in Czechoslovakia. It survived the Holocaust, made a journey to London, and was eventually entrusted to congregations in Westchester County — to be held until, if ever, a Jewish community rises again in that village.

“It’s survived a long time. Written in the mid-1800s, survived through the Holocaust, made a journey to London and entrusted with us here in Westchester County to hold for the future.”

— Herb Beer, Temple Beth Abraham

For Beer, who grew up in the 1960s and ‘70s, the stories of the Holocaust once felt distant — already a generation removed. They no longer do.

He reflected on the long arc of that education: “You grow up with stories. It’s frightening, but also feel prepared to know that look, that education was there for a reason. We have to be ready to stand that way against nature.” — Herb Beer

Holding the Handles of History

Rabbi Ben Goldberg of Congregation Kneses Tifereth Israel (KTI) has carried one of the rescued scrolls at Yom HaShoah events before. But he said the physical act of holding it never loses its power. He focused not on the velvet mantle or the silver crown, but on the atzei chayim — the wooden handles at the bottom of the scroll, worn smooth by generations of hands.

Courtesy of Aaron Herman

“Just really putting my hand on it and imagining all the other people’s hands that have held this over many, many generations and many miles, and being able to feel that connection to all those people.”

— Rabbi Ben Goldberg, KTI

When I pressed Rabbi Goldberg on what the Torah’s survival means in an era of rising antisemitism, he pushed back against the idea of the scroll as a museum piece.

He told me: “There’s not a whole lot we can control about the world around us, but we can control who we are and the kind of Jewish lives we lead — embracing the Torah not just physically, but as something that really motivates and inspires how we live our own lives today. That is the secret and the source of that resilience.” — Rabbi Ben Goldberg

‘Something Marked for Death Is Alive and Teaching’

Richard Morris, a congregant at First Hebrew Congregation, carried a Torah with a particularly striking history. His scroll had been gathered by the Nazis from a small town outside Prague, intended either for destruction or — in a grotesque twist of fate — for a planned museum of an “extinct” Jewish race.

“This is a Torah that’s living. On Shabbat and on Thursdays, we read from this Torah. Something that was marked for death is alive and teaching.”

— Richard Morris, First Hebrew Congregation

Morris also made one of the most pointed observations of the evening, on the question of whether Jews should hide their identities in a hostile climate.

His answer was emphatic: “If we hide our Jewishness — if you normally wear a kippah and you don’t — then in some way, you’re conceding victory to the antisemitic population.” — Richard Morris

His prescription was disarmingly simple: conversation. Meet people. Let them meet you. Because hatred, he argued, often lives in abstraction — in social media caricatures of “Zionists” — and withers when it encounters a real human being.

A Legislator’s Family History, and a Warning

Judah Holstein, Legislator for the 10th District, did not need to reach far for personal connection. His grandmother and grandfather fled Gdansk on August 31, 1939 — one day before the Nazi invasion of Poland. The family members left behind — a grandmother’s mother, a sister, a brother-in-law, a nephew — died in Treblinka.

Holstein grew up in the 1970s and ‘80s, walking down North Avenue in New Rochelle to synagogue while slurs were shouted from passing cars. He remembered telling his own children how proud he was that they were growing up in a different world. That pride has curdled into alarm.

“We can’t be on this path. We have to speak up. We have to speak out. We have to protect ourselves, and we have to stand up for what’s right.”

— Judah Holstein, Westchester County Legislator, 10th District

He drew a direct line between contemporary anti-Zionism and historic antisemitism, noting that scapegoating Jews in the United States for events in Israel is not political critique — it is a familiar, dangerous pattern.

His warning was unambiguous: “When I grew up, they were talking about the communists. It seems like the modern-day communist is the Zionist. And it is so dangerous for us in the Jewish community.” — Judah Holstein

A Mayor’s Message: Memory Is Not Optional

White Plains Mayor Justin Brasch — whose own family carries the scars of both pogroms and the Holocaust — brought a direct challenge to the community: Jews must stop being insular.

He told the assembled crowd: “One of the problems in the Jewish community is that people misunderstand us, and they think we’re just selfish and we only care about ourselves. We need to be more involved in the broader community, so that people see we care about all the different communities.” — Mayor Justin Brasch

Brasch also honored a man he called a close friend: Ezra Berkowitz, a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor who passed away this past year. Berkowitz had spoken to him freely about his experiences, and the lesson he most wanted conveyed was a simple, chilling one.

“It happened so quickly — the hatred and the intolerance and the growth and the desire, from being friends and neighbors to wanting to kill us. That’s why we all have to be vigilant.”

— Ezra Berkowitz, Holocaust Survivor (as remembered by Mayor Brasch)

Brasch invoked the philosopher George Santayana — “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it” — and noted that Holocaust denial is on the rise even as the last survivors die. “Particularly in today’s era,” he said, “those are the kinds of things we have to fight.”

The Shofar That Stands in the Gap

The most unexpected voice of the event belonged to Maria Brown, a community member who has made a personal tradition of coming to the Garden of Remembrance whenever she visits White Plains.

She blows a shofar. Every time.

Courtesy of Aaron Herman

When I asked her why, her answer stopped me: “I want to remember everyone in the Holocaust, and not only the Holocaust people, but everyone that suffered from antisemitism. Because if I don’t remember them, who is going to remember them? I am the one who has to remember them. They are my ancestors.” — Maria Brown, Community Member

Brown spoke of the prayers she sends up for IDF soldiers in battle — men and women who, under fire, may not have the time to recite the Amida. “If you don’t remember the prayers,” she said, “you don’t have the time to say the prayers. I have to be the one to stand in the gap.”

Then she lifted the shofar. The ancient sound moved through the garden and over the memorial stones.

I am a third-generation Holocaust survivor. My grandmother’s stories shaped me. When I held my microphone up to these leaders, neighbors, and strangers in White Plains, what I heard was not just remembrance — it was an argument about how to live right now, in 2025, when my own 12-year-old son was surrounded at a shopping center and called a Zionist.

The Torah scrolls carried through the garden on Tuesday were written before any of us were born and outlasted those who tried to destroy them. The question everyone at the Garden of Remembrance was quietly asking is whether the people holding them will carry them forward with the same tenacity.

“The Torah is timeless. Even with the rise of antisemitism, we have this spirituality, this connection to our past, which leads to our future.”

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)