St. Thomas Synagogue - prayer from a breast cancer survivor

At the St. Thomas Synagogue, the synagogue's cantor, Diane Becker Krasnick, relates her personal story as a 10-year breast cancer survivor, and sings a prayer in Hebrew and English with a great deal of passion and spirituality.
She describes how this beautiful and special prayer helped her overcome the challenges of chemotherapy and her illness.

The synagogue is located in Charlotte Amalie, the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands, on the island of St. Thomas.

This was recorded on Wed., Nov. 2, 2011 during a Caribbean Princess cruise stopover; there were 6 ships in port that day, and the Cantor was busy all day doing tours for the continuous flow of visitors that day.

See another video on YouTube where the Cantor describes the torahs in the synagogue, including two that are 300-400 years old, a 200-year old Sephardic torah and a Czechoslovakian torah that was recovered from the Nazis after WWII.

The floor of the St. Thomas Synagogue is completely covered in sand, and is derived from the synagogue's Sephardic founders more than 200 years ago. The sand originates from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, when Jews were forced to convert to Christianity or face execution. Many secretly continued to practice Judaism, praying in their basements, covering the floor with sand to muffle the sound of their voices.

The synagogue still retains all of the architecture and style of its Sephardic founders, including two rows of pews that face each other, and is designated as a U.S. national historic site.

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• St. Thomas Synagogue
• Synagogue
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• Hazzan
• Cancer Survivor
• Breast Cancer Survivor
• Spirituality
• faith