2002: WALLENBERG TRIBUTE TO HONOR EICHENWALD

WALLENBERG TRIBUTE TO HONOR EICHENWALD

Wednesday, February 27, 2002 10:25 AM

The Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding of Muhlenberg College will honor local educator and community leader Jeanette Eichenwald at its 2002 Wallenberg Tribute on Sunday, March 17 at a 4:30 p.m. reception and 5:30 dinner in Congregation Keneseth Israel, 2227 Chew Street. Reservations for the Wallenberg reception and dinner can be made by contacting the Institute at 484.664.3470 or [email protected].

The honor recognizes the contribution that Mrs. Eichenwald has made to interfaith understanding in the Lehigh Valley through both her volunteer and professional involvement. The reception and dinner will be followed by an 8 p.m. performance of "A Table Before Me" by Claudia Stevens at Trexler Pavilion, Muhlenberg College. Admission to the Wallenberg Tribute performance at Trexler Pavilion is free and open to the public, thanks to the continuing support of local philanthropists Joe and Rita Scheller. Claudia Stevens is the author, composer, arranger and performer of the 2002 Wallenberg presentation, "A Table Before Me," which she describes as "a work of theater-with-music." Working with oral history, recollections and memorabilia provided by her mother, Stevens has shaped a testimony to the strength of music and the human spirit in resistance to profound evil.

Jeanette Eichenwald directs the Florence Melton Mini-School in Allentown, promoting Jewish identity among professional and lay leaders, and is Vice-President of MicroAge DataSys Technologies, where she works alongside her husband, Eduardo. She has given generously of herself to the Jewish Day School, the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, campaign and women's division, the United Jewish Appeal, several local synagogues, and the Allentown School District board of directors, among other causes. Professionally, she has headed the religious school at Congregation Keneseth Israel in Allentown, served as Campaign Director and Executive Director at the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, and taught at every level from elementary school to university.

The event annually commemorates the work of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who led the efforts in Budapest, Hungary, to save Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps in the closing months of World War II. Wallenberg is credited with saving the lives of at least 20,000, and perhaps as many as 100,000 Jews. He disappeared just after the Soviet army captured Budapest and, after years of uncertainty regarding his fate, the Russian government released information late in 2000 that Wallenberg died in a Soviet prison in 1947. The circumstances of his death are not yet known.

The Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding is a program agency of Muhlenberg College dedicated to nurturing more appreciative understanding between the Jewish and Christian communities. It sponsors living room dialogues, an annual Youth & Prejudice series for area middle school and high-school students, monthly First Friday discussions, a regional Clergy Colloquy, and various seasonal and occasional educational forums and workshops.

The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Jeanette Eichenwald has told her parents' story and her own in hundreds of classrooms to thousands of children and adults. While she led the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, a partnership developed with the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding of Muhlenberg College to present a Youth & Prejudice workshop and a Holocaust teachers workshop for local schools. Eichenwald's commitment to education and to the strengthening of interfaith understanding throughout the community distinguish her as for the honor of IJCU recognition at the 2002 Wallenberg Tribute.

Additional opportunities to explore this topic will be available at Lafayette College, presented by partners of the IJCU. They include "Solibor," part of the Jewish & Israeli Film Series, Saturday, March 16, 7:30 p.m., Kirby Hall, Lafayette College; and Claudia Stevens in "An Evening with Madame F," Wednesday, March 20, 7:30 p.m., Williams Center for the Arts, Lafayette College. Admission is free for both events.