Yom HaShoah online services, commemorations and activities
TJP Staff
This year the coronavirus pandemic makes in-person gatherings of Yom HaShoah impossible.
In North Texas, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum will host a memorial service at 6:30 p.m., Sunday, April 19. The Jewish Federation of Fort Worth and Tarrant County and Congregation Kol Ami have remembrances scheduled for 7 p.m., Monday, April 20, and Akiba Yavneh Academy will present Max Glauben and his story of survival at 7:30 p.m., Monday, April 20. Details and registration information follow:
Sunday, April 19
Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum Virtual Yom HaShoah Commemoration (Facebook Live and YouTube)
6:30 p.m.
The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum observes Yom HaShoah with a commemorative service each year to remember the 6 million Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. This year, the museum will host the service virtually through Facebook Live and YouTube live. Mark your calendars and join us for this inspirational and moving event.
This virtual event is FREE.
Visit www.facebook.com/dhhrm or www.youtube.com at 6:30 p.m., Sunday, April 19, to join the live broadcast event.
Each year, we create a Book of Remembrance that includes the program and honors family members killed during the Holocaust as well as Survivors, Refugees, Kindertransportees, Hidden Children, Liberators and Rescuers. Thank you to everyone who so thoughtfully submitted tributes this year!
Monday, April 20
Fort Worth & Tarrant County’s Yom Ha’Shoah Virtual Commemoration (ZOOM)
7 p.m.
Registration in advance is required.
Leading the virtual commemoration will be Rabbi Andrew Bloom and Cantor Jeffrey Weber (Congregation Ahavath Sholom); Rabbi Brian Zimmerman and Cantor Shoshana Abrams Kaikov (Beth-El Congregation); Rabbi Charlie Cytron Walker (Congregation Beth Israel); Bob Goldberg, executive director Jewish Federation of Fort Worth & Tarrant County; Sandy Hollander, president Jewish Federation of Fort Worth & Tarrant County; and Howard Rosenthal, associate director Jewish Federation of Fort Worth and Tarrant County. The service is expected to last between 30 and 40 minutes. Register at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4S6XM8bKS8q2xejJxVCh7Q.
Congregation Kol Ami Light from the Darkness – A Ritual of Remembrance for Yom HaShoah (Webinar)
7 p.m.
Congregation Kol Ami will observe Yom HaShoah as a global community, together while we are separate. Join us for Light from the Darkness, a special, virtual, ritual of remembrance.
This new ritual, modeled on the Passover Seder, will change your view of Yom HaShoah. Filled with song and story, ritual and remembrance, this powerful experience helps us to fulfill the responsibility that survivors have entrusted to us – to remember, to tell the story, and to act.
For more information, see https://www.teachtheshoah.org/yom-hashoah-2020
Register for this event here. Your information will not be shared with any other organization.
The event is expected to last about an hour and a half.
Akiba Yavneh Academy Yom HaShoah Tekes: Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony (Zoom)
7:30 p.m.
Hear from Max Glauben, a local Dallas hero, Holocaust survivor and Dallas Morning News 2019 Texan of the Year who will share his experience as a teenager surviving several concentration camps. Max will be introduced by Jori Epstein (Akiba 08′, Yavneh ’12), who attended the March of the Living with him.
To hear Max Glauben’s story at 7:30 p.m., Monday, click here.
There are also some international events that may be of interest:
International Events
Monday, April 20
11:45 a.m.
Adopt-A-Safta, Israel Forever Foundation, American Zionist Movement, iCenter & Israeli Jewish Congress Are Honored to Invite You:
Yom HaShoah 2020: Israel’s Yad Vashem Memorial Siren
Stand Together & Remember Together
Join others from all over the globe online to be unified as one people to hear Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial siren. Let’s be inspired from home isolation for our Yom HaShoah candle lighting in memory of the 6 million, say Kaddish, and hear a Survivor’s testimony in-English.
Free RSVP: https://YomHaShoahIsraelSiren.eventbrite.com
Tuesday, April 21
The Jewish Agency to Host Virtual ‘Zikaron BaSalon’ Events to Commemorate Yom HaShoah
7 p.m.
While official in-person ceremonies are canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak, The Jewish Agency for Israel will host two special virtual Yom HaShoah events, bringing Jews around the world together to hear from Holocaust survivor Leah Hason. Her heartbreaking story will be presented on the organization’s Facebook page and will be broadcast in eight languages as part of The Jewish Agency’s Shlichut Institute program, together with the “Zikaron BaSalon” (Memories in the Living Room) Project.
The broadcast will conclude with a somber song from Israeli singer-songwriter Harel Skaat. At the end of the program, Jewish Agency Shlichim (emissaries) will hold virtual discussions with their respective communities to discuss the emotional story they just heard.
Hason’s testimony will be broadcast i testimony will be broadcast at 7 p.m., Central Standard Time on The Jewish Agency’s English page with Spanish subtitles. Additionally, as part of the Shlichut Institute program, Jewish Agency shlichim will present the video to their respective communities where it will be translated to Portuguese, Russian, Italian and Greek so world Jewry can appreciate Hasson’s words in their native languages.
Jewish Agency Chairman Isaac Herzog noted that considering today’s climate of isolation — especially among the elderly — hearing testimonies from Holocaust survivors is more important than ever.
“With physical face-to-face encounters put on hold for now, on this Yom Hashoah it is even more important to listen to Holocaust survivors sitting alone in their homes and leverage every means of technology at our disposal to make sure their voices and memories are heard,” he said. “As we lose more and more Holocaust survivors each year, it is our responsibility to convey the memory of the Holocaust and continue to tell their story from generation to generation.”
Of all the members of her immediate family, only Hason and her mother were able to escape Nazi brutality.
“We were the only ones who survived. Everyone else was murdered. It was an avalanche of death — I saw huge puddles of blood around me. We waited until they were satisfied that no Jew was left alive and it was only then I realized – I no longer have a cousin,” she recalled.
Hason was only 4 years old when her father was taken to a concentration camp where he was murdered. Then, together with her mother, the two managed to escape the Jewish ghettos and hid in both a pig barn and desolate forests until the war was over. They were finally rescued by the Russian army in 1945. Hason and her mother then spent three years as refugees until they finally were able to make aliyah in 1948 and settled in Kibbutz Mizra in Northern Israel.
In the broadcast, Chairman Herzog will also share his own personal connection to the Holocaust. He will discuss how his father (and Israel’s sixth president), Chaim Herzog, was a combat officer in the British army during WWII. As a young man, the elder Herzog was one of the first soldiers to set foot in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and liberate those imprisoned there.
“My father often repeated his experience and how he came face to face with survivors in the camp,” Herzog said. “To this day, I still remember his words vividly and when I meet Holocaust survivors, many of whom are now living their last days alone in nursing homes, I recall his harrowing experience in Bergen-Belsen.”
“Zikaron BaSalon” is a social initiative that allows Holocaust survivors to share their stories with subsequent generations from the comfort of a living room. Often, a joint discussion follows the survivor’s testimony. The founder of the initiative, Adi Altschuler, who also launched the Krembo Wings youth movement, was selected to be one of the torch lighters in this year’s Independence Day ceremony.
The English broadcast will begin Tuesday at 7 p.m. (CDT) with this link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/s/remembering-at-home-israels-ho/269948377372300/
Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance April 20-21
Special Online Commemorative Activity for Holocaust Remembrance Day
#RememberingFromHome #ShoahNames
Worldwide Name-Reading Campaign to Mark Holocaust Remembrance Day 2020
(Jerusalem) To mark Holocaust Remembrance Day this year, Yad Vashem invites the public to participate in an international campaign to record themselves reciting the names of Holocaust victims, and share the video on social media using the hashtags #RememberingFromHome #ShoahNames
The campaign #RememberingFromHome #ShoahNames encourages people of all ages, from all walks of life, from all corners of the world, to join this global name-reading initiative and thereby help restore the identities of the millions of Holocaust victims – men, women and children.
On the Yad Vashem website, access will be provided to:
1. A list of adult names and children’s names
2. A link to names of Holocaust victims by country
3. A link to the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, in order to allow a search for family names
All the participants in this campaign are kindly requested to video themselves (15 seconds maximum) reciting names, and then share their video in their social media with the hashtags: #RememberingFromHome #ShoahNames. Yad Vashem will then collect videos from all over the world and create an online Holocaust Remembrance Day Global Name-Reading Ceremony.
“Join us and mark Holocaust Remembrance Day this year from your homes,” said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. “Help us to restore the memory of those murdered during the Holocaust, as you do each and every year. Although the circumstances this year are unique, the message is still the same: We will never forget them.”