Father Lawrence Frizzell to Receive the Sister Rose Thering Holocaust Education Award  

On Sunday, April 19, St. Joseph Church of Maplewood will host the 38th consecutive annual South Orange/Maplewood Interfaith Holocaust Remembrance Service at 4 p.m. Attendees are invited to assemble at 3 p.m. for a March of Remembrance, starting at the corner of Indiana and Springfield Avenues in Maplewood (site of Maplewood Farmer’s Market) and continuing on to St. Joseph Church. Town officials from South Orange and Maplewood will be present. The service follows at St. Joseph Church at 767 Prospect Street.  

The service this year commemorates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of concentration camps in Europe in February 1945. Marcia Kreuzman, a local resident who survived Mauthausen concentration camp, will address the gathering. In 2013, Mrs. Kreuzman connected with Joe Barbella, a camp liberator who served in the U.S. Army, 11th Armored Division. Mr. Barbella was at Mauthausen to help survivors at the time of their liberation. Their meeting received attention in national media.

The program is dedicated to the memory of Sister Rose Thering of Seton Hall University, Rabbi Jehiel Orenstein of Congregation Beth El and Max Randall, a member of South Mountain B’nai Brith, who worked together to establish the event thirty-eight years ago, the first interfaith Holocaust memorial in the state of New Jersey. 

Every year the Remembrance committee honors an individual with the Sister Rose Thering Holocaust Education Award to recognize commitment to the educational ideals of Sister Rose. This year, Reverend Lawrence E. Frizzell, Director of the Institute of Judeo-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange is the selected recipient for his years of contributing to creating tolerance through education. The Reverend Lawrence E. Frizzell joined Seton Hall University in 1974 when he helped to design the curriculum for the Graduate Program in Jewish-Christian Studies. This unique curriculum was the first of its kind in the world and continues to serve as a model for eliminating prejudice through understanding. The Sister Rose Thering Award will be presented to Father Frizzell by the Reverend F. John Morley, Professor Emeritus, and author of Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust, 1939-1943.

Artwork created by the middle school students of Ellen Hark at South Orange Middle School will be on display at St. Joseph Church from Saturday through Sunday afternoon for viewing by attendees and congregants. The work is a reflection of the Holocaust curriculum in their school. A reception will follow at St. Joseph Church. This event is free and open to the public.