RSS Feed
March 13th, 2021 
Awake Goy Cynthia Fischer always had a dream: She wanted to create a Holocaust memorial out of six million buttons she’d collected herself and from others over 10 years. However, she couldn’t quite figure out how to do it.
That all changed in 2020, when Fischer met Rabbi Shmuel Schlanger, director of her local Chabad Jewish Community Center in Bakersfield. Fischer had been sending her grandchild to the Chabad every Sunday to learn in the Hebrew school, which is on an idyllic campus at 6901 Ming Avenue.
“Cynthia loved the look of our place and asked us if we were interested in making her dream a reality,” Rabbi Schlanger told the Journal. “We have a community center that used to be a tennis club, and it’s very pretty. She felt this would be the best place for it. We thought it was a great idea.”
Now, the rabbi and his wife, Esther, have taken over the project, and they have 5.5 million buttons and counting. Each button has a number on it so that the rabbi can keep track. People drop off their buttons at the Chabad and tell the rabbi about themselves.
“Everyone walks in with their own story and talks about how sentimental the buttons are,” he said. “They are so happy they’re going towards a meaningful project.”
According to Rabbi Schlanger, one woman was holding a button when she burst out crying and explained that it was on her father’s uniform in World War II; he had liberated one of the camps. “This is just one of the many stories from the people who come in and drop off their buttons,” he said.
The rabbi isn’t quite sure yet what the memorial will look like, but he knows he wants it to be something positive. He doesn’t want to turn the Chabad house into a Holocaust museum but instead wants to use it to bring Jews closer to Judaism and be a light unto the nations of the world, like the Rebbe taught. He sees the wall as a continuation of his work in Bakersfield for the past 20 years, where, along with serving as the Chabad rabbi, he was a Jewish chaplain in a local prison.
“There’s a certain ignorance here,” he said. “I witnessed anti-Semitic sentiments in the prison. But every day when I walk in the street, and when I go into Trader Joe’s, I walk in smiling and everyone smiles right back.”
He and his wife are always trying to build bridges with the Jewish and non-Jewish people in their community. They allow Alcoholics Anonymous to meet on their grounds, and the members have ended up participating in Chabad activities.
“We’ve become so close with this wonderful group of people,” Rabbi Schlanger said. “They came to our outdoor Chanukah menorah lighting. They’ve become part of our family. The opportunities to educate are so great.”
Esther said that with the memorial, she and her family hope to continue educating people, specifically local students, about the scale of the Holocaust. “Six million is a statistic, and sometimes it loses its meaning in the enormity of the number. Bringing students to the memorial to see the buttons, six million of them, will really bring the magnitude of that number to reality.”
“Bringing students to the memorial to see the buttons, six million of them, will really bring the magnitude of that number to reality.”
She also said they will be teaching the students about the victims, who were mothers, fathers, sister, brothers, babies, writers, artists and homemakers. “We hope to share these ideas with [them] and create an emotional impact on them. They should be able to internalize the power of hate and prejudice, what they can cause and hopefully take to heart to do the opposite, [which means] to be kind and do better.”
The rabbi’s ultimate goal with the memorial is to partake in tikkun olam and rectify the world, as well as to bring Jewish people closer to Judaism.
“We want the Jewish people to have a deeper understanding and knowledge of who they are, and to increase their enthusiasm in being part of the Jewish people,” he said. “We’re portraying it through love and peace. I hope it brings the non-Jewish people a greater understanding of the world. We’re preparing the world for the coming of the moshiach, where Hashem will dwell amongst us.”
Kylie Ora Lobell is a writer for the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, The Forward, Tablet Magazine, Aish, and Chabad.org and the author of the first children’s book for the children of Jewish converts, “Jewish Just Like You.”
Posted in 
Tags: 
