Yom HaShoah

Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is often shortened and rarely
referred to by the day’s full name—Yom HaShoah Ve-HaGevurah, Day of the
Remembrance of Holocaust and Heroism, which captures its deeper
significance. Yom HaShoah Ve-HaGevurah is strategically placed on the 27th
of Nisan, right in the middle of Passover and Yom HaZikaron. As the calendar
transitions from the celebrations of liberation to the memories of those
fallen, we arrive at Yom HaShoah Ve-HaGevurah as a time to remember the
victims of the Holocaust and to honor the heroism that emerged.

Listening to my grandfather’s stories of concentration camps and my
grandmother’s stories of the Kindertransport—stories contrasting one
community’s silence and another’s action in the face of genocide—I learn
how to commemorate both those who perished and the heroism. From the
faces of brave men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to the
poems and life of Hannah Senesh, to the stories of my grandfather lighting
oil in peanut shells during Hanukkah, it is a reminder that this day honors
both the tragedy and the courage of those who stood against it. Yom
HaShoah is also a call to action, asking us to renew our pledge of “never
again” and work toward making it a reality. As someone whose Judaism is
deeply tied to compassion and social change, I believe this day challenges us
to do more than remember—it urges us to act.

In Israel, a two-minute siren pauses the nation for reflection, and I invite us
all to take two minutes of silence on Yom HaShoah Ve-HaGevurah to
remember, reflect, and recommit. What is your “never again” that you
will work to make a reality in your lifetime?

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