With the same reverence that Canadians have for Remembrance Day on November 11, Israelis stand for the lost and fallen victims of the Holocaust every year. In the tradition of Jewish holy days, the mournful day began last night at sundown when stores shut down across the country, to pay tribute the the fighters and those slain by Nazis more than 60 years ago.
The traffic yesterday afternoon around Tel Aviv was insane, and was clogged in every direction that my taxi tried to turn. It’s because of Yom Hashoa, the driver says as we inched our way home to Jaffa. That and the hot, dusty air sweeping over us from Saudi Arabia, or Africa or wherever this hamsin originated. It’s the same hot wind that seems to blow around the country around the same time, same day, every year.
Yom HaShoah is the the colloquial term for the official Holocaust memorial day in Israel which translates to “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day”. By nightfall the stores and restaurants are closed all over Israel, even in Muslim neighbourhoods, and as the tradition goes, a number of ceremonies to mark the day start. On TV last night were televised speeches, sad songs, movies, and events that mark the spirit of remembering.
Most Israelis settle in early for the night, and spend the hours “remembering” in their own way – usually by watching movies and programs about the Holocaust. Popular films include The Pianist by Roman Polanski, and of course, anything related to Anne Frank.
There are many Israelis who were witness to the Holocaust and I personally know some of them. You can’t miss the numbered tattoos on their arms. But it may come to a surprise to some people who aren’t Jewish, that although the Holocaust was a tragedy for the Jewish people, it mainly touched the lives of Jews who are European in descent, the Ashkenazi Jews from Poland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. Those from the Sephardic tradition, however, accept the annual tradition and mourn as though they’d lost their own direct family members too.
Even though I grew up in Canada as a non-Jew, the Holocaust has affected my life. It’s drawn me closer to the Jewish people; to understand what kind of spirit they have to be able to rebuild so quickly after being decimated. Now that I’m Jewish, and Israeli, the Holocaust is my memory.
After living in Israel for a decade, I’ve grown to know some survivors, one good friend in her 80s was experimented on by the Angel of Death. She doesn’t talk about it. And that’s the point of Holocaust Day, which my Catholic High School in Newmarket, Ontario taught me about in our world religions class: the importance of collective memory. Sometimes we have to remember for those who can’t or who are no longer with us. “Lest we forget,” is what we say every year on Remembrance Day in Canada. And it’s the same message that Jews around the world, and especially in Israel, take to heart.
I stood for that 2 minute siren today that sounds off at 10 am. Cars stop. People stand in their tracks while walking down the street, and like the rest of the nation thought about the Holocaust and the souls that perished. I saw the Arabs in Jaffa stand in respect for the Jewish nation –some of the people who moved to Israel when no other nations would take them in, and rubbed my belly and felt the beauty and pain of life in Israel: many people here have suffered because of the Holocaust. Not just the Jews, but the Arab people who were also here before the Holocaust began and who share this Promised Land.
I rubbed my belly to touch the life inside of me – a fetus in her 6th month – and shed a tear: now I know that the Holocaust story will one day be hers too.
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