Holocaust Beauty Pageant Held for Survivors

Image by getty images

Tacky or Moving? Elderly Holocaust survivors competed in a beauty contest. Image by getty images
A beauty pageant for Holocaust survivors was held in Haifa, Israel, and featured female survivors walking down a red carpet and sharing details of their travails during World War II.
Fourteen women, aged 74 to 97, participated according to news reports. Romanian native Hava Hershkovitz, 79, was crowned the winner.
Organizers called the event a celebration of life, but critics denounced it as trivializing the horrors of the Holocaust.
Shimon Sabag, who organized the event, said the 14 finalists had been chosen from hundreds of applicants based on their personal stories and later roles in their communities in Israel, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation.
?It?s not easy at this age to be in a beauty contest,? the silver-haired Hershkovitz said, according to the Associated Press. ?But we?re all doing it to show that we?re still alive.?
Collete Avital, chairwoman of the umbrella group the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel, said ??It sounds totally macabre to me,? according to the AP. ?I am in favor of enriching lives, but a one-time pageant masquerading [survivors] with beautiful clothes is not what is going to make their lives more meaningful.?
[]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/world/middleeast/holocaust-survivors-pageant-taps-into-a-conflict-in-israel.html?hp&gwh=3906974186B1642B43565184668A5B1F
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
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
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.