Yom Hashoah

Aims:  To learn about Yom Hashoah as the State of Israel’s commemoration of the Holocaust.  To think about the tragedies that occurred to the Jewish people in the Holocaust.  To think about how we remember what happened and ensure it will never happen again. Volume 27 Issue 22 Shabbat Shemini 5770

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Dear Madrichim, I hope you all had an enjoyable Pesach holiday and you’re excited for yet another day of no creative labour! But for those in need of something different, this week sees the restart of svivot up and down the UK! This week’s choveret is on the topic of Yom Hashoah, since it is coming this Sunday night/Monday. This choveret is part of Bnei Akiva’s participation in the Yom Hashoah Commemorations being held by the Office of the Chief Rabbi. We would really like all of you to attend as it is a very important event. We would like to thank the Office of the Chief Rabbi for much of the content of this Choveret. Although this is a difficult subject to educate about, we should not just focus on the tragedies that occurred but also talk positively about what we can do to remember them and look to the future in hope and expectation. Bevirkat Chaverim L’Torah Va’Avodah, Michael 2

Background Yom Hashoah is the official day designated by the State of Israel to commemorate the Holocaust, in which 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in Europe from 1939-45. The full title of the day is ‫יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה‬, Day of Remembrance for the Shoah (Holocaust) and Heroism. Originally, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate decided that the day for remembering the Holocaust should be on an already existing day and chose 10th Tevet, a fast day, as ‘Yom HaKaddish HaClali’. As a result, those who do not know the yahrtzeits of loved ones say Kaddish on this day and we insert Holocaust ‘kinot’ (mourning poetry) in our tefillot. However, in 1951 the Knesset voted by law for the establishment of a day in Nisan to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest incident of Jewish resistance against the Nazis. The date of the Uprising was on 14th Nisan but due to it being the day before Pesach, a compromise was reached and the date is now fixed for 27th Nisan.

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Memorial to the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw.

Although admittedly Nisan is a happy month where there is no mourning (we do not say tachanun the whole month), the idea of Yom Hashoah was not to mourn, but to remember what happened. The addition of the word ‘gevurah’, meaning ‘strength’ or ‘heroism’, to the title of the day, shows that the intent was to focus on the heroism and incidences of Jewish resistance rather than the hopelessness and tragic side of things. It is no coincidence that Yom Hashoah comes a week before Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut. Nowadays, the end of Nisan and the month of Iyar are a yearly process that the Israeli nation goes through. First we revisit the Holocaust then the soldiers who died in defending the Jewish State. This is followed by celebrating our independence, culminating in the celebration of sovereignty over the Jewish capital, Jerusalem.

The annual Yom Hashoah service that takes place at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem in the presence of the President and Prime Minister of Israel.

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In this choveret, we will not be looking in depth at the Holocuast and finding out more about it – there are many books and websites on the matter. Rather, we will think about how we can continue remembering and educate others to do so too. Let’s first look at the following letter from a mother, written in 1939 before she was forced to give up her child before the Nazis came to take them away. It was read out at last years’ Yom Hashoah event with the Chief Rabbi, entitled ‘From Grief to Hope: Handing the Memory On’. Dear Mirele, I can’t believe I have one night to stuff a lifetime of love into this letter. Tomorrow morning – if 4am can be called morning, I am giving you up. I am taking you, Mirele, to the back entrance of dear, brave Hermann’s grocery and the child rescuers will be waiting there for you and the thirty-two other children under the age of three. They’ll inject you with a sedative so you won’t cry and then they’ll slip off in the predawn with you – my life, my love, out of this barbaric country to safety. We pushed it off, Mirele. We didn’t want to believe we would have to give up our child, probably never to see her again. But this is the 5

last child rescue. After this there will be none left to rescue, because tomorrow, our informers tell us, is the last big round up. Tomorrow they come for men, woman and children. And I have been convinced by these words, spoken by our trusted informer, Hermann, the brave gentile doctor, “Any child they take away either dies immediately or dies on the way to the death camp”. The word death three times in one sentence! We were the last ones to be convinced to be giving up our child. He said finally, with the deepest sadness in every exhausted wrinkle in his face, “I cannot force you. But if you keep her with you, she will be dead in a month. They have no use for babies, she cannot work for them. If you want to give her to us, bring her to the back entrance of my grocery at 4am. No belongings, whatever food you have. Goodbye”. Mirele, do you see why I have to give you up? He said no belongings, but I will beg, I will plead that this letter be allowed to go, sewn into your undershirt. And then, I will pray to G-d that the letter stays with you until you are old enough to read it. You must know that we love you. You must know why you are alone, without parents. Not because they didn’t love you … but because they did! Mirele, do you see why I have to give you up? He said no belongings, but I will beg, I will plead that this letter be allowed to go, sewn into your undershirt. And then, I will pray to G-d that the letter stays with you until you are old enough to read it. You must know that we 6

love you. You must know why you are alone, without parents. Not because they didn’t love you … but because they did! It’s 2am already. Only two more hours with my love, my baby, my life, my Mirele. I’m going to hold you now, Mirele, for two hours. Your father and I are going to wake you, feed you and tell you over and over how much we love you. You’re barely two years old, but maybe, if G-d is good, maybe, you’ll remember it and maybe you’ll keep this letter until you’re old enough to read it. There will be bad times for you, Mirele, I know. But just think about me holding you, rocking you to sleep in the sunlight. Keep that sunlight in your heart always. I love you. Your father loves you. May G-d help us all. Mama

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‘We Remember’, by the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks: “Tonight we remember what happens when hate takes hold of the human heart and turns it to stone. We remember what happens when victims cry for help and there is no one listening. We remember what happens when people are condemned because they are different, because a world that has no space for difference has no space for humanity. We remember and pay tribute to the survivors, who bore witness to what happened, without hate or desire for revenge, but simply to remember the victims, so that robbed of their lives, they would not be robbed also of their deaths; and to teach us that the road that begins with hate ends, if unopposed, at the gates of hell. We remember and give thanks for the righteous of the nations who saved lives, often at the risk of their own, teaching us how in the darkest night we can light a candle of hope. And we hand on these memories to a new generation.

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How can we relate to the Holocaust and appreciate the scale of what happened? What is our role in the ‘memory chain’ given that we are the last generation to see, hear and meet those who lived through the Holocaust? How much of a role should Holocaust education play in the world today? Think about this with regard to Bnei Akiva, Jewish schools and non-Jewish schools. We began with a mother's letter to her daughter Mirele. We end with the voices of Mirele herself, many years later, and then her mother, back then; and with this prayer: Miracles happen – my mother's letter stayed with me, sewn into my undershirt…..my mother's faith in G-d, even at that dreadful hour, never ceases to amaze me. Even though she is almost certain that she will soon die, as indeed she did, she believes firmly in G-d to whom she can turn both before and after her earthly life ends. This strengthens my faith and perhaps it will strengthen yours. After almost fifty years of keeping it private, I translated it from the Yiddish and decided to share it with you now?

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Hope for the future Adapted from the Chief Rabbi’s ‘Israel: Home of Hope’ CD (Track 23) It was the most haunting of all prophetic visions. The prophet Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones, a heap of skeletons. G-d asked him, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekiel replied, "G-d, you alone know." Then the bones came together, and grew flesh and skin, and began to breathe, and live again. Then G-d said: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, ‫אבדה תקותנו‬, our hope is lost.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what the G-d says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel… 26 centuries later, in 1945, one third of the Jewish people had become, in Auschwitz and Treblinka and Bergen Belsen, a valley of dry bones. Who could have been blamed for saying ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is lost.’ And yet, three years after standing eyeball to eyeball with the angel of death, the Jewish people, by proclaiming the State of Israel, made a momentous affirmation of life. As did every Jew who had the courage to stay Jewish and have children and bring new Jewish life into the world.

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And a day will come, when the story of the Jewish people after the Shoah will speak not just to Jews, but to all who believe in the power of the human spirit as it reaches out to God, as an everlasting symbol of the victory of life over death, hope over despair.

Activities  Put evocative (but appropriate) pictures around the room and ask the chanichim to choose one each and say what comes to mind.  Get chanichim to come up with their own ‘syllabus’ for how to hand on the memory of the Holocaust.  Do an extended tekes-style Mifkad with chanichim speaking or reading poems out. Hadracha Tip of the Week Remember to ensure that the activities are targeted at the right age. For older groups you want to have more discussion based activities, but for younger groups, concentrate on things they can relate to, such as children’s stories etc. It’s better not to talk about too much death, rather focus on stories. It’s also good for them to focus on appreciating what they have (such as beds, clothes etc) to contrast with what children their age in Nazi Europe did not have. 11

Sviva of the Week: South Woodford

Roshim: Esther Rainsbury & Keziah Berelson

Facts about South Woodford: The sviva was founded on Shabbat Zachor 5739 and celebrated its 30th Anniversary at Shabbat Ha’Irgun 5769 on the very same Hebrew date – 11th Adar. At the first sviva there were only 8 chanichim and since then, not much has changed – South Woodford has always prided itself on being a small sviva! Since the mid-1980s the Roshim of South Woodford have come from only 7 families. The famous South Woodford BA song, over 25 years old, is sung as part of Mifkad. There is even a YouTube version! It is possibly the only sviva to have ever gone abroad as a tochnit (France 2001) as well as to have its own ‘BA room’ in the local Shul. Two members of next year’s Mazkirut are from South Woodford! Sir Winston Churchill was the MP for Wanstead & Woodford 1945-64. South Woodford Shabbat Ha’Irgun is this Shabbat!

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