Yom HaShoah

Yesterday was Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGvura (יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה – literally Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day), known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day [1]. It commemorates the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, and also the heroic Jewish resistance in that period. In 2008 I wrote of it thus [2]. I feel the same now. Only more so.

Yesterday IDF Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi (pictured) said: ‘…in the name of all the millions who never got to witness the realization of their dream, I stand here today as the commander of the Jewish defending force, the Israel Defense Forces, and pledge on behalf of us all: We shall never again stand defenceless and in the mercy of others. Never again will Jewish children stare in fear begging to be spared. Never again will we let our enemies determine the fate of the Jewish people. We will be able to protect our sons’. [3]

Yesterday over in Foxs Lane, darling Kate wrote of gratitude and she invited her readers to write of their top four reasons to be grateful [4]. Me? I’m grateful my birth in 1947 was in Australia and not Europe. I’m grateful Israel exists. I’m grateful the IDF is strong and brave. And I’m grateful Israel and the IDF will face down Iran when literally the entire rest of the world is too immoral and cowardly to do so.

Never again.

Amen.

farmdoc's blog post number 13

I can hardly grasp the concept of six million people. Over 25% of Australia’s population. Sixty MCGs full. It’s a huge number of people. To be killed. To be murdered in cold blood, actually, for no other reason than they were Jewish. And to be remembered. But remembered they were – every single one – yesterday, which was the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day; in Hebrew Yom Ha'shoah. Yesterday was a day not only to remember and honour the slaughtered millions, but also a day of rededication to the prevention of all future genocide. It is no coincidence that the Holocaust deniers – you and I know who they are, the President of Iran is number one on the list – are the same lunatic racist megalomaniacs who rant on about obliterating Israel from the map. Israel! That tiny nation born a couple of years after the Holocaust, is the new element in the equation, and she is under no illusion that when push comes to shove, as increasingly it looks like doing, her sons and daughters will be responsible for their own destiny. Whereas the yellow stars that the Nazis forced the Jews to wear signified powerlessness, the blue Star of David is a symbol of freedom, democracy, pride and power – which is perhaps the most meaningful way of all to remember and honour the six million.