Commemorating the Holocaust, remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

More than half a century after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and 80 years since the beginning of the Holocaust the battle against anti-Semitism and racism remains a large part of life.

“The fight is not over,” said Robert Socoloff, the director of the Long Island Region of the American Jewish Committee, a 113-year-old Jewish advocacy organization. “We have a fight on our hands. Fights are not pleasant, fights are not pretty. The weapons are our collective memories and collective action.”

Socoloff was one of several speakers at the 17th annual Greater Long Island and American Jewish Community and International Holocaust Remembrance Day and celebrating the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at Temple Israel of Lawrence on Jan. 28. One day after the actual remembrance day. MLK’s birthday is Jan. 15.

The nearly two-hour program brought together rabbis from Five Towns synagogues and surrounding communities, and Christian and Muslim leaders. Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and Consul General of Germany in New York David Gill were the event chairs.

Curran noted a recent survey that showed knowledge on how Adolf Hitler came to power and the Holocaust is declining in the United States, while Germany has “owned the Holocaust” by teaching about it in school. “In this country we have some work to do,” she said. “We cannot forget what happened and cannot forget how it happened.”

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany released the findings to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Based on the data 33 percent of Americans think “substantially less” than six million Jewish people were killed in the Holocaust. The findings also show that 70 percent of U.S. citizens believe people care less about the Holocaust than previous generations, while more half — 58 percent — believe a Holocaust-like event could occur again. On the positive side, 93 percent said the Holocaust should be taught in schools and 96 percent believe that it actually happened.

“People have the responsibility to ensure ‘never again,’” said Dr. Isma Chaudhry, the head of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury. “As Martin Luther King said, ‘We brothers and sisters have to learn to be each other’s keeper.’”

Throughout the program songs were sung, including “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” “Shema Yisrael,” “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “We Shall Overcome,” meant to unite everyone and reverse the sentiments of bigotry and hatred.

Gill called the time of the concentration camps “the worst time, the most barbaric time.” He also noted the words of MLK saying that the slain civil rights leader reminds us to take action when confronted with anti-Semitism, hate and prejudice. “It may might not be an easy path, but it is one we should take and we shall,” he said.

Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis and senior rabbi at Congregation Mt. Sinai in Brooklyn, is the only surviving child of Holocaust survivors. Five siblings perished in the genocide.

Noting the mass shootings in a Charleston church in 2015 and a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, Potasnik said, “All of us need to open doors for each other. All faiths came together after to say we stand with you.”

Recalling a conversation with someone about the phrase “never again,” he said we have to work to ensure that, “never again is an exclamation mark not a question mark.”