Gift of Jewish Artifacts Highlights Rockhurst University Holocaust Remembrance Day

Since 2004, Rockhurst University has marked the solemn occasion of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, with an interfaith ceremony in partnership with the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

This year, in addition to a ceremonial reading on Kinerk Commons of names of those killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust – a list that includes 152 members of the Society of Jesus — the day included another symbolic gesture of interfaith cooperation and companionship.

The University officially received the gift of 17 pieces of Judaica — Jewish ritual objects and artifacts — from the family of Norman Kahn, a 1985 graduate of the University’s MBA program and former chair of the board of regents.

The objects will be displayed in the Greenlease Gallery as part of the Van Ackeren Collection of Religious Art upon the gallery’s reopening in 2022, according to Emily Rose, campus minister for faith, justice and solidarity.

“One of the future gallery display cases will feature liturgical objects that describe and interpret elements of a Catholic Mass,” she said. “The adjacent case will feature Judaica from the Kahn family gift to allow visitors to compare and contrast objects used in worship in the Jewish tradition to that of Catholicism.”

The gift is also a symbol for the long-standing relationship that the Kahn family, and Norman himself, has had with Rockhurst University. Barbara Kahn, Norman’s daughter and one of a number of family members present at Thursday’s ceremony, said her father had been close to the Rev. Nick Rashford, S.J., and other Jesuits from his time as an MBA student. And it led to more than board appointments and teaching opportunities — they embraced the exploration of each other's faith and traditions.

“It is in that spirit of cultural and spiritual exchange that we are giving this gift of Judaica to Rockhurst University,” she said.

The Rev. Thomas B. Curran, S.J., University president, said in comments that the gift from the Kahn family is a reminder of the power of shared experience for eveyone. And he extended an offer in gratitude for the gift.

“To remember and to cherish,” he said. “To remember your family in our thoughts and our prayers and to cherish our friendship, our experience and our time now, in the past and what is to come.”