Never Forget: Hip-Hop Artist Looks to Youth

‘Does anybody have a tissue?” Grammy Award-winning hip-hop violinist Miri Ben-Ari asked. “I’m having a moment.”

Ben-Ari’s “moment” came in the middle of a Yom HaShoah kickoff event for the Gedenk Foundation, the Holocaust education program she recently founded. Gedenk plans to raise awareness of the Shoah through popular music and media, and to reach young people who, according to Ben-Ari, “don’t know about the Holocaust and don’t want to know.”
In contrast to existing Holocaust education programs, Gedenk is “not a museum; we’re not an institute,” the tiny, golden-haired musician explained. “We’re a movement of young people to young people. Because of that, we’re not subject to any rules, regulations, tradition.”
“This is probably the most nontraditional Holocaust memorial service I’ve ever been a part of,” she added, gesturing to an audience that included the rapper Pras, formerly of the Fugees, as well as Sylvia Metzger, an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor.
Ben-Ari, who studied with violinist Isaac Stern and has collaborated with such hip-hop artists as Kanye West, Jay-Z and Wyclef Jean, helped produce three public service announcements for Gedenk that were screened at the event. Two of the PSAs feature “typical” scenes from contemporary American life — people getting out of a subway car, a suburban family sitting down to dinner — that turn nightmarish when Nazi-like figures intrude.
At the end of each announcement, Ben-Ari appears on the screen and says, “The Holocaust happened to people like us.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture In ‘Andor’ season 2, a Wannsee Conference reference, and a new sort of space Jew
-
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
-
Opinion The profound Yom HaShoah lesson we desperately need to remember under Trump
-
Opinion How Trump’s attacks on the university target what has made America great for Jews
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.