 Holiday:
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG'vurah (יום הזיכרון
לשואה ולגבורה; "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day"),
known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah (יום
השואה) and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or
Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration
for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the
Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi
Germany and its accessories, and for the Jewish resistance
in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day. It
was inaugurated in 1953, anchored by a law signed by the
Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion and the President
of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. It is held on the 27th of Nisan
(April/May), unless the 27th would be adjacent to Shabbat,
in which case the date is shifted by a day. In other
countries there are different commemorative days—see
Holocaust Memorial Day.
Yom HaShoah was inaugurated in 1953, anchored in a law
signed by the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion,
and the President of Israel, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.
The original proposal was to hold Yom HaShoah on the 14th of
Nisan, the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising (April
19, 1943), but this was problematic because the 14th of
Nisan is the day immediately before Pesach (Passover). The
date was moved to the 27th of Nisan, which is eight days
before Yom Ha'atzma'ut, or Israeli Independence Day.
While there are Orthodox Jews who commemorate the Holocaust
on Yom HaShoah, others in the Orthodox community—especially
Haredim, including Hasidim—remember the victims of the
Holocaust on days of mourning declared by the rabbis before
the Holocaust, such as Tisha b'Av in the summer, and the
Tenth of Tevet, in the winter, because in the Jewish
tradition the month of Nisan is considered a joyous month
associated with Passover and messianic redemption. Ismar
Schorsch, former Chancellor of Conservative Judaism's Jewish
Theological Seminary of America held that Holocaust
commemoration should take place on Tisha b'Av.
Most Jewish communities hold a solemn ceremony on this day,
but there is no institutionalized ritual accepted by all
Jews. Lighting memorial candles and reciting the Kaddish—the
prayer for the departed—are common. The Masorti
(Conservative Judaism) movement in Israel has created
Megillat HaShoah, a scroll and liturgical reading for Yom
HaShoah, a joint project of Jewish leaders in Israel, the
United States and Canada. The booklet was subsequently
converted into a kosher scroll by sofer Marc Michaels for
reading in the community and then into a tikkun—copyist
guide for scribes—'Tikkun megillat hashoah'. In 1984,
Conservative Rabbi David Golinkin wrote an article in the
journal Conservative Judaism suggesting a program of
observance for the holiday, including fasting.
Source:
Wikipedia: Yom HaShoah |
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