WEST HARTFORD – Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, renowned speaker, author and historian, will be this year’s keynote speaker at the 4th Annual Margot Jeremias Memorial Kristallnacht Commemoration Lecture on Sunday, November 14, 2021 at 7:30 PM.

Rabbi Dr. Schacter will discuss “Commemorating Kristallnacht: On The Obligation To Remember.” The lecture will be held at the Young Israel of West Hartford (2240 Albany Ave) and will also be streamed on Zoom at YoungIsraelWH.org/Zoom.

This year’s lecture is a collaboration of the Young Israel of West Hartford and Voices of Hope. The Margot Jeremias Memorial Kristallnacht Commemoration Lecture is an annual event planned to coincide with Kristallnacht (November 9-10) and dedicated to perpetuating the memory of the Holocaust, in general, and the events of Kristallnacht, in particular. This project is sponsored in loving memory of Margot Jeremias by her family, Helen & Les Loew.

Margot Jeremias was only 12 years old on that infamous November night. Kristallnacht, for her, represented the moments that would irrevocably alter the course of her life. Born in 1926, Margot Jeremias survived the Holocaust, came to America and raised two daughters, seven grandchildren, and 18 great-grandchildren. She devoted her life to telling her story as a Holocaust survivor and teaching the next generation about peace, tolerance, and standing up in the face of evil.

Past speakers include Holocaust historian and Nazi-hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff, UConn Judaics Chair Dr. Avi Patt and Rabbi Brahm Weinberg. An archive of past lectures and personal testimony from Margot Jeremias z’l are available at youngisraelwh.org/JeremiasMemorialLecture.

Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter is University Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Jewish Future at Yeshiva University. From 2000-2005 Rabbi Schacter served as Dean of the Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Institute in Boston. He was the first Rabbi of the Young Israel of Sharon, MA, from 1977-1981, creating a new, vibrant and committed community. From 1981-2000, he served as the Rabbi of The Jewish Center in New York City, moving the congregation from 180 to over 600 members over the course of his tenure.

Dr. Schacter holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from Harvard University and received rabbinic ordination from Mesivta Torah Vodaath. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1973, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with the Abraham S. Goodhartz Award for Excellence in Judaic Studies. In 1995, he was awarded the prestigious Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University and in 2014 he was awarded the Chelst Grant for Publication Assistance from Yeshiva University.

Dr. Schacter is a prolific writer, author of the award-winning A Modern Heretic and a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Judaism, The Lord is Righteous in All His Ways: Reflections on the Tish‘ah be-Av Kinot by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (2006) and close to one hundred articles and reviews in Hebrew and English.

Rabbi Schacter holds a number of prominent Jewish communal positions. He served as Founding President of the Council of Orthodox Jewish Organizations (COJO) of the Upper West Side from 1994-2000, is a member of the Board of Governors of the Orthodox Union and is on the Editorial Boards of Tradition, Jewish Action, BDD (Bechal Derachecha Da’ehu) and Jewish Educational Leadership. He was awarded several fellowships and grants to further his scholarly research. In November, 2007, Rabbi Schacter was the Scholar-in-Residence at the General Assembly of the United Jewish Communities in Nashville, TN. In March, 2016, he was invited to address the opening plenary of the Jewish Funder’s Network Conference in La Jolla, CA and he was invited to open the 2020 AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington. From 1991-2018 he served as a member of the faculty of The Wexner Foundation

Dr. Schacter is presently completing a new Hebrew edition of the autobiography of Rabbi Jacob Emden, an eighteenth century Jewish figure.