The Tucson Jewish Community Center will present “Why We Keep Going Back to Auschwitz-Birkenau,” a lecture exploring the confluence of the Jewish, Buddhist and human experience in song, story and silence, by the Rev. Francisco Genkoji “Paco” Lugoviña and Reb Shir Yaakov Feit on Thursday, Feb. 25, from 6-9 p.m.
For 25 years the Zen Peacemaker Order has been sponsoring pilgrimages to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The retreats are based on the foundational tenets of the order — not knowing, bearing witness and loving action — and are an opportunity to connect with a place where the extremes of human experience were present. Even in Auschwitz, there were moments of kindness amid the horror.
Lugoviña is an ordained Buddhist priest in the Zen Peacemaker Order. He is a member of the Zen Peacemaker Circles and Peacemaker International, and is the founder of the Hudson River Peacemaker Center-House of One People in Yonkers, N.Y.
Feit is a singer, composer, designer, producer and teacher. In 2014, he started Kol Hai: Hudson Valley Jewish Renewal, a spiritual community in New Paltz, N.Y. He has recorded four albums of original music and co-founded and performs with The Darshan Project. He served as creative and music director of Romemu, New York City’s largest Renewal synagogue; director of engagement at ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal; ritual consultant for Eden Village Camp; visiting faculty at Academy for Jewish Religion, the Institute for Jewish Spirituality and the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is a member of the Zen Peacemaker Order and a rabbinic student in the ALEPH ordination program.
