72 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • DECEMBER 2017 72 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • SEPTEMBER 2017 72 LONGISLANDPRESS.CO M • SEPTEMBER 201-----------TUTU111
BUSINESS
The mensch who saved Chanukah
Judaica dealer’s menorah pays it forward for local Holocaust center
By JESS WINANS
The Jewish Gift Place, an online Judaica dealer,
is spreading Chanukah spirit by donating to The
Holocaust Resource Center of Temple Judea in
Manhasset proceeds from a menorah inspired
by Janusz Korczak.
Korczak was a famous Jewish pediatrician,
educator, author, radio host and children’s rights
advocate who ran an orphanage for Jewish children
in Warsaw, Poland during World War II.
On the menorah, his likeness is depicted leading
a line of children, symbolizing their march toward
the train to the Nazi extermination camp
at Treblinka. It’s a scale model of a sculpture of
Korczak outside Temple Judea.
“That would make a great menorah,” Risa Borsykowsky,
owner of the Long Island-based Jewish
Gift Place, recalls her husband saying when they
saw the sculpture during a bar mitzvah at the
temple.
She agreed. Borsykowsky and Irving Roth, a Holocaust
survivor and director of The Holocaust
Research Center, worked with renowned Judaica
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artist Gary Rosenthal to design the menorah.
Their goal is to raise $25,000 for the center. So
far, they’ve raised about half that amount.
“Our mission is two-fold: to raise money for Mr.
Roth’s Holocaust Resource Center, and to raise
Holocaust awareness through the life story of
Janusz Korczak,” Borsykowsky said.
“In the 20th century, children were to be seen,
not heard,” recalls Roth. “Korczak’s position
was that children have opinions, the child has
a voice, the child can express himself and the
adult needs to listen.”
The mission of the center is to educate young and
old on the evils of prejudice, to teach the lessons of
the Holocaust, and to combat ignorance, hatred,
and violence. The Korczak sculpture outside the
center that the menorah is based on is believed to
be one of only two in the nation, Borsykowsky said.
The menorahs, which come in two designs, are
made from copper, brass, steel and fused glass.
They can be personalized or purchased per their
original design at jewishgiftplace.com. For more
information about Korczak visit jewishgiftplace.
com/Janusz-video.html.