This past Saturday, January 24, our Jewish Federation brought the community came together for our 8th Annual Every Person Has a Name – our 25-hour Holocaust Commemoration and Vigil, supported once again by the City of Pasadena.

Like we have done in the past, we returned back to the steps of Pasadena City Hall, while simultaneously livestreaming so those who were not able to attend in-person were able to experience it. Our event began with a commemoration ceremony that featured remarks from:

* Jeanine Mann, President, Jewish Federation

* Jason Moss, Executive Director, Jewish Federation

* Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo

* Yael Eini, Consul for Public Diplomacy for Israel

* Congresswoman Judy Chu

* State Senators Susan Rubio and Sasha Renée Pérez

* Assemblymember John Harabedian

* Brendan Hidalgo, Assistant Field Deputy for LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger

* Abel Casanova, Field Rep for Assemblymember Blanca Rubio

We were also honored that Tony Thurmond, CA’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction was in town and invited him to offer remarks during the ceremony.

The ceremony also included a Cantor Allison Weiss (Temple Sinai of Glendale) singing Eili,Eili and The Last Butterfly, Solvej Schou reading the poem Every Person Has a Name (the poem that gives our event its name), Rabbi Josh Ratner (Pasadena Jewish Temple & Cenetr) shared an important perspective and lead us in the Mourner’s Kaddish, and Jason Moss concluded the ceremony by offering some closing remarks.

The Commemoration Ceremony was recorded and is avialable to be viewed on our YouTube channel.

Immediately following the ceremony, Pasadena City Councilmember Jason Lyon, Yael Eini, Rabbi Ratner, Brendan Hidalgo, and Jeanine Mann started the name reading. Over the course of the next 24 hours, more than 125 community members, not including students (and their parents) from four religious school classes from Temple Beth David, Pasadena Jewish Temple & Center, and TBI of Highland Park and Eagle Rock read the names of well over 8,000 Jews, along with countless family members our name readers were remembering, who were murdered during the Holocaust. It is important to note that even with this being our 8^th year holding this commemoration, we have only now read the names of just over 1% of the total number of Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust.

This year’s Holocaust exhibition, Stars Without a Heaven: Children in the Holocaust, was made available to us from Yad Vashem, Israel’s National Holocaust, and was sponsored by PJTC’s Sisterood. The exhibition tells some of the unique stories of Jewish children during the Holocaust, providing a moving and exhilarating glimpse at their lives through a selection of drawings, poems, letters, and more.

The Armory for the Arts partnered with us again this year and put together a special art project on Sunday morning for the religious school students who participated in the name reading.

Special thank yous to Party Pronto (Arcadia) for providing us folding chairs for the event and Grand Printing (Covina) for printing our Commemoration Ceremony programs.

Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in this event. Together, we made sure that we remembered not only the people's names that we read, but also the people whose names did not get read. We helped keep their memory alive.

We also wanted to share with you the ABC7 news segment that was shown during the Saturday 11:35pm news.