Shofar Nisan/Iyar 5771
Jewish Family Congregation www.jewishfamilycongregation.org
May 2011
From the Rabbi‟s Desk On March 4, 1959, the Knesset in Israel passed a law which designated the 27th day of the month of Nisan as Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date chosen was between the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (which was on the first day of Passover) and Israel Independence Day, which is the fifth of Iyar (May 14 in 1948). It is interesting to note that until 1959...14 years after the end of World War II...there was no official date for remembering the Holocaust. And it is also interesting to note that the events which bracket the chosen date are distinguished by their recognition of Jews as assertive of their own rights: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was one of the major acts of defiance against the Nazis, and Israel Independence Day was the triumphal realization of the ageold dream of Zionism. Before the law was passed in 1959, there were those who advocated that the Holocaust should be remembered, along with many other tragedies in Jewish history, on Tisha b’Av, the ninth day of Av. That date saw the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem twice...once 586 BCE and again in 70 CE; also, the expulsion from Spain in 1492 was on or about that date, and many events during the Holocaust coincided with it as well. But the designation of a separate and specific occasion for Holocaust remembrance took place as survivors were just beginning to make known their experiences. The capture and trial of Adolph Eichmann was beyond the horizon. And the subject of the Holocaust was neither an academic discipline nor a prominent part of the literary and motion picture production of the western world. From today’s vantage point, it seems clear that providing a separate date for Holocaust remembrance was a wise choice though it was not universally accepted for a while afterward. In fact, the observance of Yom HaShoah is undoubtedly more widespread than the observance of Tisha b’Av now.
This may be due to the remoteness of the two destructions of the Temple, and it may also derive from the fact that, aside from some subsets of the Orthodox, most Jews do not seek or even pray for the rebuilding of the Temple. Certainly the Reform Movement’s most recently published prayerbook, Mishkan T’filah , omits any reference to such a possibility, as Reform has been doing since its beginnings, just 200 years ago. But, as the Holocaust recedes in time, and as the number of living witnesses inevitably diminishes, the obligation to remember the unspeakable events of 1933-45 intensifies, and every coming generation will need to work actively to keep fresh those horrors, as both a memorial to its victims and as a lesson to the world about what humans can do to each other when the rest of the world abdicates its moral responsibilities. Sadly, that lesson must be taught over and over again. Since the Allied Forces brought down the Nazis, there have been numerous instances of genocide in the world. And in that passage of time, our communications capacities have grown and changed enormously, so that we can no longer excuse our moral failures by claiming ignorance of what is going on. We know today all too clearly what Qaddafi has done to his own people in Libya, we know about the genocide in Darfur., we knew about Rwanda, we knew about the Balkans..we know. As Jews we have the urgent obligation to call attention to these modern-day atrocities, and to call for intervention to protect innocent people. Had more righteous voices been raised while the Nazis flourished, the death toll might never have reached its sickening peak. Had those voices been raised in protest, and had politicians everywhere been courageous enough to confront what Hitler was doing to the Jews, the people whose names we read from the data base would have gone on with their lives, and the Torah scroll we cherish would have (Continued on page 23)
From the Rabbi’s Desk Service Schedule Next Month’s Oneg Hosts Donations to JFC Early Childhood Center The Religious School Social Action Committee ECC pictures Religious School pictures
page page page page page page page page page
1 2 2 4 6 8 11 14 15
JiFTY Kids Ask the Rabbi JFCAdults Summer Fun form Yahrzeit/Annivs/Birthdays Ask the Rabbi Donations Form JFC Calendar
page page page page page page page page
16 20 22 25 26 28 30 31
Please Support Our Advertisers