Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day is tomorrow Nisan 27 and Revealed: Israel Is Storing 1 Million Frozen Embryos, Some From the '80s and Shalom Pollock asks "Why a Jewish State?"
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day is tomorrow Nisan 27
Yom Hazikaron HaShoah ve-laG'vurah (Hebrew: יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה, lit. 'Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day'), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day.
The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th of Nisan (which falls in April or May) unless the 27th would be adjacent to the Jewish Sabbath, in which case the date is shifted by a day.
Rabbinate-instituted day (1949–1950)
Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel took place on December 28, 1949, following of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel that an annual memorial should take place on the Tenth of Tevet, a traditional day of mourning and fasting in the Hebrew calendar. was marked by the burial in a Jerusalem cemetery of ashes and bones of thousands of Jews brought from the Flossenbürg concentration camp and religious ceremonies held in honor of the victims. A radio program on the Holocaust was broadcast that evening. The following year, in December 1950, the Rabbinate, organizations of former European Jewish communities and the Israel Defense Forces held memorial ceremonies around the country; they mostly involved funerals, in which objects such as desecrated Torah scrolls and the bones and ashes of the dead brought from Europe were interred.[3]
Knesset-instituted day (1951–1958)
In 1951, the Knesset began deliberations to choose a date for Holocaust Remembrance Day. On April 12, 1951, after also considering as possibilities the Tenth of Tevet, the 14th of Nisan, which is before Passover and the day on which the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (April 19, 1943) began, and September 1, the date on which the Second World War began, the Knesset passed a resolution establishing the 27 Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, a week after Passover, and eight before Israel Independence Day as the annual Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day.[3][4][5]
On May 3, 1951, officially organized Holocaust Remembrance Day was held at the Chamber of the Holocaust on Mount Zion; the Israel Postal Service issued a special commemorative envelope; and a bronze statue of Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, was unveiled at Yad Mordechai, a kibbutz named for him. From the following year, the lighting of six beacons in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis became a standard feature of the official commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day.[3]
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Law (1959)
On April 8, 1959, the Knesset officially established when it passed the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Law with of instituting an annual "commemoration of the disaster which the Nazis and their collaborators brought upon the Jewish people and the acts of heroism and revolt performed." was signed by the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, and the President of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. It established that the day would be observed by a two-minute silence when all work would come to a halt throughout the , memorial gatherings and commemorative in public and educational institutions would be held, flags would be flown at half mast, and programs relevant to the day would be presented on the radio and in places of . to in 1961 mandated that cafes, and clubs be closed on the day.[3][6]
Commemoration
Israel
Date
The date is set in accordance with the Hebrew calendar, on 27 Nisan, so that it varies in regard to the . Observance of the day is moved back to the Thursday before, if 27 Nisan falls on a Friday (as in 2021), or forward , if 27 Nisan falls on a Sunday (to avoid adjacency with the Jewish Sabbath, as in 2024). The fixed Jewish calendar ensures 27 Nisan does not fall on Saturday.[2]
Evening
Yom HaShoah opens in Israel at sundown[7] in a state ceremony held in Warsaw Ghetto Square at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Authority, in Jerusalem. During the ceremony the national flag is lowered to half mast, the President and the Prime Minister both deliver speeches, Holocaust survivors light six torches symbolizing the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and the Chief Rabbis recite prayers.[8]
Daytime
On Yom HaShoah, ceremonies and services are held at schools, military bases and by other public and organizations.[9]
On the eve of Yom HaShoah and the day itself, places of public are closed by law. Israeli airs Holocaust documentaries and Holocaust-related talk shows, and low-key songs are played on the radio. Flags on public are flown at half mast. At 10:00, an air raid siren sounds throughout the and Israelis are expected to observe two minutes[10] of solemn reflection. Almost everyone stops what they are doing, including motorists who stop their in the middle of , standing beside their vehicles in silence as the siren is sounded.[11]
Sirens blare at 10:00 as motorists exit their and stand in silence in front of the Prime Minister's House in Jerusalem and throughout Israel on Yom HaShoah.
Jewish communities and individuals throughout the world commemorate Yom HaShoah in synagogues as well as in the broader Jewish community. Many hold their commemorative ceremonies on the closest Sunday to Yom HaShoah as a more practical day for people to attend, while some mark the day on April 19, the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Jewish schools also hold Holocaust-related educational programs on or near Yom HaShoah.[12][13]
Commemorations typically include memorial services and communal vigils and educational programs. These programs often include talks by Holocaust survivors (although this is becoming less common as time passes and there are fewer survivors who remain alive), candle-lighting ceremonies, the recitation of memorial prayers, the Mourner's Kaddish and appropriate songs and readings. Some communities read the names of Holocaust victims or show Holocaust-themed films.[13]
Since 1988 in Poland, a memorial service has been held after a three-kilometer walk by thousands of participants from Auschwitz to Birkenau in what has become known as "The March of the Living".[14][15]
Religious observances and liturgy
In the last few all the prayerbooks of Conservative[16] and Reform Judaism[17] have developed similar liturgies to be used on Yom HaShoah. The siddurim of these groups add passages that are meant to be added to standard weekday service, as well as stand-alone sections. These liturgies generally include:
Lighting of a candle (often each member of the congregation lights one)
Modern poems, including "I believe in the sun even when it is not shining..."
El Malei Rahamim (God, full of mercy, dwelling on high)
In response to the lack of liturgy dedicated to Yom HaShoah, Daniel Gross composed, in 2009, I Believe: A Shoah Requiem, a complete musical liturgy dedicated to the observance of Yom HaShoah. An a cappella oratorio scored for cantor, soprano solo, adult chorus and children's chorus, I Believe features several traditional prayer texts such as the Mourner's Kaddish (Kaddish Yatom) and the El Malei memorial prayer, and also includes of Paul Celan and Primo Levi. On April 7, 2013, I Believe had its world premiere[18] presentation at Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit, Michigan.
Orthodox Judaism
While there are Orthodox Jews who commemorate the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah, others in the Orthodox community, Haredim, including Hasidim, remember the victims of the Holocaust in their daily prayers and on traditional of mourning that were in place before the Holocaust, such as Tisha B'Av in the summer, and the Tenth of Tevet in the winter, because in the Jewish tradition the of Nisan is considered a joyous month associated with Passover and messianic redemption. The moment of silence is by some purposely ignored because of the non-Jewish origins of this sort of memorial.[19] Some ultra-Orthodox rabbis recommend adding piyyutim (religious poems) about the Holocaust to the liturgy of Tisha B'Av; some adherents follow this .[20][21]
Revealed: Israel Is Storing 1 Million Frozen Embryos, Some From the '80s
A million embryos, created during fertility treatments, are languishing in liquid nitrogen in Israeli hospitals. Some belong to couples who are well past the age of parenting or have died. Storage space is growing scarce and preserving the embryos costs billions – but no one dares destroy them. The reason, in part, is the Holocaust
Yael, who's 60, was very surprised by the news: She has an embryo that is waiting in a tiny test tube in the hospital. The discovery threw her back decades in time. Yael and Shlomo (their names have been changed to protect their privacy) were married when they were in their 20s. For four years they tried to have a child, unsuccessfully. Finally they embarked on fertility treatment at a hospital in the center of the country.
The rest of the story is on Haaratz, a paper I refuse to subscribe to because of their many anti-Jewish articles, but the provide news like this, so I include in the blog
Shalom Pollock
Mr. Dobov, I read your article in "Matzav Ruach" In it, you draw attention to the non-Jews in Israel who have made contributions to the Jewish state; even fell in battle against our enemies. The flavor of your message was, don't take intermarriage in Israel too seriously. Wonderful, non-Jewish "Israelis" who marry Jews should not be shunned but rather fully accepted and even celebrated. Sir, why have Jews come from all over the world to build a Jewish state? Why did I and others leave New York for Israel? It was not to create yet one more functioning country for all its citizens or even to be a haven to protect Jews physically. It was a place where the future of the Jewish people would be protected. It was not a country where any citizen who defended it became a part of the Jewish people in body or spirit. You point out that in recent terror attacks, non-Jews were killed as well as Jews. Does that make us one people? The Muslim terrorists targeted what they assumed were Jews. Non-Jewish casualties are a mistake Was the attack part of the war a war against Jews or were it just a random act of violence? You seem to diminish the Jewish aspect and consequently, if not consciously the very Jewish nature of the country If intermarriage in the Jewish state is not fought with the same urgency as the physical threat, we will not have a Jewish country. In that case, I might have stayed in a safe Jewish neighborhood in the USA All non-Jews who contribute to our country should be recognized and appreciated but when they marry into our people it is a long-term, fatal threat that no weapon will defeat. Our society should discourage it and not celebrate it or make light of it. Please do not underestimate this ultimate threat. We will not have a second chance. Shalom Pollack author:"Jews, Israelis and Arabs"
