{"id":12368,"date":"2025-10-23T12:01:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12368\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T12:01:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T12:01:15","slug":"80-years-after-end-of-wwii-bethlehem-and-its-sister-city-in-japan-celebrate-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/12368\/","title":{"rendered":"80 years after end of WWII, Bethlehem and its sister city in Japan celebrate peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under a nearly cloudless September sky, some hundred community members gathered at Payrow Plaza in Bethlehem to honor the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II <\/a>with a celebration of peace and friendship, as part of the Bethlehem-Japan Peace Project. <\/p>\n

On Sunday, the daylong program also commemorated the 61st anniversary of the Bethlehem-Tondabayashi Sister City Commission<\/a>, a commitment to peace and education. <\/p>\n

The event opened with a taiko drum performance by Iroha Taiko and was followed by a live calligraphy demonstration by Shuho Kondo. This calligraphy completed the Kid\u2019s Guernica Peace Mural<\/a>, part of the International Children\u2019s Peace Mural project, which came to the Lehigh Valley. <\/p>\n

The mural, painted by artist Rick Garcia, depicts Picasso\u2019s \u201cGuernica,\u201d but is embellished with paintings of love and hope from the preschool children at Reibman Hall at Northampton Community College <\/a>and students from Tracy Elementary School in Palmer Township. Students visiting from Tondabayashi, Bethlehem\u2019s Japanese sister city, also contributed to the mural. <\/p>\n

\u201cI decided to have the children participate because I feel so strongly about utilizing the arts to build the children\u2019s understanding about important ideas and values, such as peace in the world,\u201d Sally Jeffreys, a preschool teacher at Reibman Hall, told lehighvalleylive.com by email.<\/p>\n

The mural was hung outside the Bethlehem Area Public Library during the peace festival, where many of its preschool artists\u2014now in kindergarten\u2014admired their artwork. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the children first saw the [Guernica] piece and the sheer size of it, we were in awe,\u201d Jeffreys said. \u201cBut they got right to work sketching \u2026 They took a long time to sketch their ideas: family, rainbows, flowers.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds addressed the guests, calling the occasion \u201crare\u201d to be able to celebrate something that\u2019s been going on\u2014the sister city relationship\u2014for decades. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor for me to be a small part of this,\u201d Reynolds said. He highlighted the city\u2019s recent honor of becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site, but added, \u201cThe people of Bethlehem, long before we were part of any world heritage group, understood that we are stronger together, and we are connected to people throughout the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

The mayors of Tondabayashi, Hiroshima and Nagasaki shared messages of peace and hope via video recordings. <\/p>\n

The celebration of peace also featured a peace chant with the Rev. Dr. T. Kenjitsu Nakagaki, a Buddhist priest along with musical performances by Udi Bar-David, an American-Israeli cellist; Amane Sakaguchi-Kosaburo Kineta IV, a shamisen player, pianist and composer; and Rachel Andie, a Japanese-American instrumentalist, songwriter and visual artist. <\/p>\n

In the evening, the Lehigh Valley Jewish Clergy Group presented Strings of Hope, which featured stories of violins that survived the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Under a nearly cloudless September sky, some hundred community members gathered at Payrow Plaza in Bethlehem to honor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-12368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}