Yesterday was Yom Hashoah, a modern Jewish holiday established in the early 1950s to commemorate the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust 1939-1945. The Hebrew date is the 27th of Nissan, corresponding to the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; it also falls during the traditional mourning period marked by the counting of the Omer. Yom Hashoah often involves prayers, lighting of memorial candles, and listening to stories of survivors. In Israel, Yom Hashoah is commemorated by a two-minute siren where all activity nationwide comes to a halt. See photos of Israel’s Yom HaShoah commemoration here. Two news stories about survivors grabbed my attention this week. 

First came the sad reminder of the shrinking number of survivors. Right now, 80 years after the Holocaust, there are an estimated 200,000 survivors still living (almost 1500 of whom are over 100 years old!). However, the expectation is that within the next 10 years, 70% of them will be gone. We are running out of time for our children and grandchildren to hear survivor stories firsthand. And we as a community need to work together to figure out how best to carry forward the vital history of the Holocaust to new generations. I feel privileged to live in a community where we have strong partners like the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine and the Maine Jewish Museum’s Delet program (sponsored by us!) on the cutting edge of these efforts. 

Then another headline, this one announcing that 40% of Holocaust survivors live below the poverty line. This shocking finding should make us all ashamed. We are failing to protect the most vulnerable among us and leaving people who experienced a trauma like no other to spend their waning years without even their basic needs being met. We must redouble our efforts to make sure that our elders can age with dignity, not only provided for but cherished.

On Yom Hashoah we commit ourselves to Yizkor, remembrance. May our souls be soothed, our memories amplified, and our resolve strengthened. As we remember, helps us to move through to action so that we can prevent such horrors from happening again. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Leslie