ALICE LOK CAHANA meets Pope Benedict XVI in October 2006 when the Pope accepted her painting "No Names" for permanent exhibit in the Vatican Museum’s Collection of Modern Art.
Yom HaShoah spotlights art of Alice Lok Cahana
By JEWISH REVIEW
article created on: 2009-04-01T00:00:00
Portland’s Jewish community and the Catholic Archdiocese of Portland will collaborate in a community-wide Holocaust Memorial Day observance hosted by Portland Center Stage on the Main Stage of the Gerding Theater at the Armory on April 20 at 7 p.m.—erev Yom HaShoah.
In keeping with annual tradition, Holocaust survivors will be on hand for the lighting of candles of remembrance.
The keynote address will be given by Archbishop John G. Vlazny of the Portland Catholic Archdiocese, followed by “Through My Mother’s Eyes,” a program of the poetry and remembrances of Holocaust survivor Alice Lok Cahana presented by Rabbi Michael Cahana of Congregation Beth Israel and Cantor Ida Rae Cahana with Yiddish art songs. Acclaimed pianist Janet Guggenheim will accompany. Rabbi Cahana is the artist’s son.
The Archbishop will be introduced by Emanuel Rose, CBI rabbi emeritus and a leading expert on Catholic-Jewish relations and “Nostra Aetate,” (in our time) the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
The Yom Ha Shoah observance this year will be a week-long affair. It will begin prior to the Yom Ha Shoah memorial.
On Sunday, April 19, CBI’s annual Daniel J. and Elizabeth O. Cohn Lecture will take place also at Portland Center Stage, beginning at 11:30 a.m. This year the lecture will be presented as a moderated conversation between Alice Lok Cahana (Rabbi Cahana’s mother) and independent curator Prudence Roberts moderated by Oregon Jewish Museum Director Judith Margles.
Alice Cahana is a highly regarded painter. An exhibit of her work will be installed in the PCS lobby and at the Oregon Jewish Museum April 1 through May 24. After the Cohn Lecture, the artist will lead a tour of her artwork. A brunch reception will follow.
The first artwork that Cahana made was as a young girl during World War II while she was interned at Guben, a Nazi concentration camp, where the Nazis challenged the children to decorate the barracks for Christmas.
Cahana’s abstract representations of her Holocaust experiences are in major museums and collections around the world, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC; Yad Vashem; The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, Israel, and the Holocaust Museum Houston.
In addition to her incarceration at Guben in eastern Germany, Cahana also was interned at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen in Poland.
Cahana also will take part in the April 23 Portland Jewish Film Festival screening of “The Last Days” in the Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum. “The Last Days” is a Steven Spielberg-produced Academy Award-winning documentary about five Hungarian Holocaust survivors. See the film festival stories on page 24 for details.
Learn more about the full week of Yom HaShoah observance online at www.bethisrael-pdx.org/yom_hashoah.htm.
- Login or register to post comments
- Email this Article
