Holocaust Remembrance Day 2018 Yom HaShoah

A note from Rabbi

Today, the 27 th  day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, is Yom HaShoah v’Hagvurah , The Day of Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance. That elongated name was created by the Israeli Knesset to also remember those Jewish fighters who participated in armed resistance against the Nazis.   Below are three articles with different first-hand accounts of Holocaust survivors and an inspiring video of Israeli Holocaust survivors, children and grandchildren, gathered to sing a popular Israel song: Chai (Live!).   Even with all of the books and movies about the Holocaust, we still struggle to understand and internalize its lessons for us, a fact made clearer by the obvious and painful waning of social decency in our society today.   Never forget – remember  and  live so that those deaths were not in vain.   Rabbi Bonnie Sharfman

Holocaust Love Story A powerful true story of Jewish heroism.

Frank Foley: The Spy who Saved 10,000 Jews This unassuming man was a hero who led a dangerous double life in Nazi Germany as head of Britain’s intelligence service.

One Survivor’s Chilling Experience in Auschwitz Leslie Kleinman arrived in Auschwitz on his 15th birthday and never saw his family again.

Chai

As Israel commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day, 600 Holocaust survivors and their families met in Jerusalem and celebrated their life through song.  As the  Arutz Sheva  staff wrote on April 9:

Leading up to Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day), six hundred Holocaust survivors and their families, including second, third, and even fourth generation survivors, gathered at Jerusalem’s  Beit Avi Chai  to unite in recording, in Hebrew, Ofra Haza’s Chai   (Hebrew for “alive”). The song  Chai  was specifically chosen for this event. It was written by the late Ehud Manor and composed by Avi Toledano for the 1983 Eurovision Competition in Munich. Manor noted that the words were written as an expression of defiance and victory of the Jews, directed at those who made every attempt to destroy the Jewish people. Indeed, the song proudly declares that the Jewish people are very much alive: “This is the song that our grandfather sang yesterday to our father, and today, I, I am able to sing it.”  As the song was being recorded, many of the survivors were overcome with emotion. Hands shaking, some with concentration camp numbers visible on their arms, yet hands planted firmly on their Israeli children and grandchildren, they described their memories of the horrors – and survival. Many family members arrived from all over the country, some from abroad, to join their grandparents and great-grandparents in this unique event.