“I think that we have an obligation towards the victims of the Shoah, to remember them,” he added. “The street sign is a kind of monument to the Shoah that will trigger reflection—reflection about the past, reflection about the present and reflection about the future.”
A dedication ceremony for the new street name was held across the street from the new sign, at Park East Synagogue. Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, was on hand, as were local officials such as Representative Jerry Nadler, New York City Council member Keith Powers and Manhattan borough president Mark Levine.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the rabbi of Park East Synagogue, speaks at a ceremony marking the designation of Yad Vashem Way on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Jan. 30, 2025. Photo by Vita Fellig. | Vita Fellig[Missing Credit]
Rabbi Arthur Schneier of Park East Synagogue, a Holocaust survivor, told attendees that he hopes the sign will inspire people to visit Yad Vashem in Israel.
“This is a very personal moment,” he said. “I was liberated in Budapest in January 1945, and Auschwitz was liberated on Aug. 27. Millions of Jews were still under the yoke of the Nazis, and thanks to the allies, the United States, France and England who were united at the time with the Soviet Union, we were liberated.”
“I could have been one of the one-and-a-half million children who never made it,” he said.
“I have stressed Holocaust remembrance for 63 years,” he added. “Never forget. It can happen again. Hatred is taught. We are not born with hatred. Children are born with love, and so we have to be the bridge builders to remember never again."
The street sign in Manhattan, Photo by Vita Fellig[Missing Credit]
Powers, who represents the City Council’s District 4, told attendees that there are deep ties between New York City and Israel.
“For us in New York, it is extremely painful now to see that in 2025, the scale of the Holocaust is being downplayed,” he stated. “Outright Holocaust denialism is on the rise, and the ancient beast of antisemitism is rearing its ugly head not just around the world but here in New York City on the streets of Manhattan.”
“The language and symbolism of the Holocaust are now being weaponised against the Jewish people here in New York, around the world and in Israel,” he said. “It’s extremely painful for us and it is important now that we are standing up and saying as New Yorkers that this memory will not be erased.”
“This institution of Yad Vashem, which is more necessary than ever, is now going to have a rightful place on the streets of New York,” he added.
‘Crossroads of generations’
Dayan told JNS that the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation means that Yad Vashem must prepare for the time that it will have to continue to remember the Holocaust without access to survivors.
“We are in the doorsteps of what we call ‘the crossroads of generations,’” he said, “Unfortunately but also inevitably, we have to prepare the world for the post-survivor era, in which there will not be witnesses left for us to speak to.”
“I think survivors are a kind of bridge,” he told JNS. “One side of the bridge is in front of you, and the other end of the bridge is in Auschwitz. There is nothing that can compare to that.”
Yad Vashem will be developing immersive audio and visual projects to bolster education initiatives, according to Dayan.
“We are opening a Yad Vashem theatre and have commissioned four monodramas, each one telling the story of one object in our collection in a way that engages the audience,” he said. “We will fail if we are not zealous about authenticity.”
Dayan told JNS that Holocaust denialists cannot “present authenticity, because they lie, and we, therefore, should use the advantage of our authenticity to educate.”
“We have to find innovative ways to spread knowledge, to tell the story of the Shoah through education, through museums, through exhibitions, through films—through all kinds of ways that engage new audiences,” he said.
But Holocaust education alone is insufficient to combat Jew-hatred.
“It is important to support legislation, at the city, state and federal levels, to support Holocaust education, but I’m not claiming that Shoah education is a silver bullet and the cure for antisemitism,” Dayan told JNS. “It’s an integral part in fighting antisemitism, but one of the most important things is really to be an involved citizen at all levels of government.”
