Summary of the day

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day) is observed on 27 Nisan, a day of remembrance for the six million murdered by the Nazis, and for the heroism of the fighters and rebels. At ten in the morning a siren sounds throughout Israel, and in the synagogue memorial prayers, Psalms and Kaddish are said.

Mitzvot and customs of the day

• The siren of two minutes, standing in silence.
• Lighting memorial candles and saying El Malei Rachamim and Kaddish for the victims.
• Reading names of the murdered, and community study of the history.
• Reading Psalms (for example chapters 22 and 79), and singing “Ani Ma’amin”.
• There is no formal halachic obligation for the day, but some do not hold weddings or parties on it.

Origin in history

Between 1933 and 1945 the Nazis and their allies murdered about six million Jews across Europe, in the Shoah, through cold, systematic planning. The date of 27 Nisan was chosen by the Knesset in 1951, close to the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19 Nisan 1943, the eve of Pesach), but after the festival and before Independence Day. The victims were not only Ashkenazim: Sephardic communities were murdered too, among them the great community of Salonica in Greece. In North Africa as well, in Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, Jews lived under anti-Jewish laws and forced labor.

It is also right to remember Operation Torch in Algiers on 8 November 1942 (29 Cheshvan 5703): about 400 young men, mostly Jews, many of whom held a weapon for the first time in their lives, took control of the city in one night and eased the Allied landings in North Africa, halting the German advance. This is a Jewish heroism that has been forgotten.

The message for today

The word “Remember” recurs in the Torah about Amalek, and in the Shoah we fulfil it with tears. Our responsibility is not only to remember the dead, but to do good among the living. Memory obliges us to protect every person and every weak one, and to teach the next generation that hatred begins with words. And beside the grief, the heroism: people who chose to remain human, even in the valley of the shadow of death.