JUF Board Chair Bill Silverstein offered the following remarks at Sheerit Hapleitah’s 71 ^st annual Holocaust Memorial Service, held Sunday, May 8, 2016, at Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue. The event, considered the largest gathering of Holocaust survivors in the Midwest each year, was co-sponsored by JUF.

On behalf of the Jewish United Fund, I thank all of you for being here today. This is a sacred event that JUF has been proud to support for many years, and it is humbling for me, personally, to be part of such a significant program.

Thank you, particularly, to Sheerith Hapleitah for its profound role in honoring the memory of the six million. Charlie Lipschitz and Sheerith Hapleitah’s leaders truly are living examples of what it means to be “a light unto the nations.”

They are a light illuminating the lives and memories of the six million. They are a light, as well, shining on the horrors of that era and keeping them from fading into the shadows. And they are a searing beacon focused on those who deny what happened then, even as they prepare to repeat it.

Today, we remember. For us, true remembrance requires action by keeping faith with our survivors, here in Chicago and worldwide. Our city has one of the largest and youngest survivor communities, and its unique needs will have to be met for many years to come.

That is why JUF launched our special Holocaust Community Services program. Whether the need is financial, medical or social, whether those survivors need food or housing or care or simply companionship, we, the entire Jewish community, are helping them.

Last year, we served nearly 900 survivors. That’s almost 90 percent more than just two years earlier. The need is growing rapidly.

We’re also providing similar help to survivors in Israel, Ukraine, Russia and Europe.

And we are relentless in countering the escalating attacks on Jews and Israel around the world. For we remember too well where they can lead.

Next year, on March 23 at Symphony Center, JUF will sponsor yet another form of remembrance — the first Chicago performance of “Defiant Requiem,” a powerful symphonic retelling of the remarkable resistance and resilience of the valiant prisoners of Terezin. It is a story every person, Jewish or not, must hear. And the dollars raised will, of course, support our survivors.

We remember. We act. We care. Together we mourn, and together, in the face of those who continue to seek our destruction, we will go from strength to strength.