Alexandria’s Christian and Jewish communities joined together on April 28 for the city’s annual Holocaust Memorial Service. The event began at the community’s downtown Holocaust Memorial at which Gemiluth Chassodim’s Rabbi Judy Gisburgh sang and with Emmanuel Baptist Church’s Senior Pastor Dr. Chris Thacker read from Martin Niemöller’s “First They Came.” The attendees then walked to nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church for the main program.

Pastor Thacker welcomed the crowd after which a combined choir from Alexandria Senior High and Pineville High School performed Eili, Eili (O God, My God). Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy made a brief presentation after which the keynote speaker Michael Berenbaum who spoke on “Antisemitism, Then and Now”. After the speech, members of the Jewish community lit memorial candles and said the Kaddish Prayer. The service closed with the ASH and Pineville choirs performing “The Lord Bless and Keep You.”

The service was a fitting memorial to the past and a reminder of the resilience of the human spirit.