In the ashes of the Holocaust, the State of Israel was born three years later, in 1948. This marked one of the themes of tonight's commemoration of Yom Hashoah v'Gvurah in Ra'anana, Israel. We attended the one-hour commemoration in the Ra'anana city centre - Yad Lebanim - along with thousands of other Ra'anana residents many of whom were wearing white. Restaurants and shops had all closed at 6 p.m. to commemorate the evening. This moving commemoration included testimonials from Holocaust survivors, readings of poetry, letters and diary entries, of survivors and victims, as well as several moving musical performances. The ceremony concluded with the reading of "Nizkor," El Maleh Rachamim and a power Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem.
We came home from the city commemoration and turned on the national commemoration, shown on Israel's different television stations. Like the Ra'anana ceremony, the national program included testimonials from survivors (Including the mother of famous comedian Adir Miller). The musical performances were powerful and included a Hebrew version of "Bring Him Home" (from Les Miserables) by well known Israeli singer Amir Dadon - and several songs by Christian Israeli singer Valeri Hamaty (a two-time runner up in Israeli season long singing contests). There were also several performances by singer and pianist Rami Kleinstein.
Israeli commemorations of the saddest days on the calendar - Yom Hazikaron (Israeli Remembrance Day for Soldiers and Terror Victims) and Yom Hashoah v'Gvurah - are generally marked by some of the most powerful, moving and emotional musical performances of the year.
In any case, it is on days like Yom Hashoah v'Gvurah that we feel the overwhelming privilege of being able to live in Israel - of being part of a country that has been built to serve as a haven for worldwide Jewry and to mark a return to our ancient ancestral homeland. Especially these days, where we look around the world and see such a tremendous resurgence of anti-Semitism in so many places, we take some comfort in knowing that Israel will do whatever it can to safeguard, protect and foster Jewish identity and the Jewish people - not just in Israel but across the world.
I was going to add comments on a range of other topics - but I decided that Yom Hashoah v'Gvurah should have its own individual entry. I am off to attend, virtually, the Law Society of Ontario's annual Yom Hashoah program. I will spend a good part of the day tomorrow watching special programming and perhaps attending in person at other nearby events (while also trying to get some work done).
Even after 80 years, it remains unfathomable that an advanced, industrialized country would set up a wide ranging murder industry complete with dedicated trains, gas chambers, death camps - and would enlist so much of its citizenry and the citizenry of other countries to assist and participate in trying to eliminate every last Jewish person in Europe. Indeed, the Nazis were hoping to eliminate all of world Jewry. The murder of some 6 million Jewish in this fashion surely marks the depths of humanity's evil. How could the German people and their accomplices do this? How could the world not intervene? How can human beings carry out such despicable and evil acts?
These are unanswerable questions. They are questions that shake faith in humanity for many people - and for others, they even shake faith in God. What kind of omni-powerful, omni-benevolent being could allow these atrocities to occur? These are questions for another time - perhaps an in-depth theological blog.
But these questions remind us that we have so much work to do to create a world without these types of horrible atrocities. While one of the key purposes of Yom Hashoah, is to remember and commemorate these horrible events as Jews and in the interest of ensuring that these types of events can never happen again to the Jewish people - Yom Hashoah also reminds us and the world of the work that we must do to prevent these kind of atrocities from taking place anywhere in the world.
