First, Tink Hill gave an update regarding the current legal issues of Boy Scouts related to past sex abuse claims.
Feb is Peace and World Understanding Month in Rotary, so our program was presented by Dan Birbaum, a former club member, Rotarian at heart, and the son of Holocaust survivors. Dan showed us a 4-minute film on about Holocaust that he made. His parents were Polish Jews who went through the ghettos and concentration camps, where many of their families, including Dan’s grandparents were killed. His parents both went to Sweden after the war and got married and then came to US. The film he made was being shown at the San Antonio Holocaust Museum but was pulled because of concerns about “concentration” camps on the border. Dan says that education is not enough to stop anti-Semitism, which goes back centuries. He suggests that we need to build bridges of good will with other groups - i.e. Jews and Muslims or other groups working together on projects and sharing the experience through social media. Volunteering together inspires understanding! Dan is working on putting together an event that is a service project with many groups involved and wants to make a video and have it go “viral.” Thus, creating a positive story to counteract all the negativity in the world. As Rotarians committed to Peace and World Understanding, let’s see what we can do to help Dan with his project.