![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rhuWe were invited to participate in the UN's first annual observance of a Holocaust memorial day. They chose January 27 because it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
(As unseemly as it is to have been able to take pleasure from anything associated with this occasion, I must admit that it was exciting to stand at the same podium as some of the twentieth century's greatest leaders -- and some heinous ones, too.)
The program itself was very well-run.
There were remarks from the leadership of the UN and the permanent representative from Israel. Sure, his comments may have included some hollow patriotic rhetoric, but on this occasion and after nearly 2,000 years, maybe a little hollow rhetoric from a sovereign Jewish state isn't such a bad thing.
Next came the remarks by survivors. Although I am a little jaded by now, I found these incredibly moving and I was all choked up. Even after an interlude of victims' images and biographies, provided by Yad Vashem, my throat was closed up tight when it was time for us to take our places and sing.
We sang four pieces. The first, Tsen Brider, was written in the camps. A parody of a Jewish folk song about ten brothers who leave home one by one to enter business, in this version they are taken away one by one to be murdered. That was followed by the Eil Malei Rachamim, the prayer for the souls of the dead, chanted by Chazzan Jack Mendelson with Zamir singing the part of the mitshorrerim. Even the incomparable chazzan Mendelson clearly had not recovered from the emotions of the first part of the program. We then sang a medley of two traditional melodies for Ani Ma'amin, "I believe (with unshakable faith that the Messiah will come; even when he is delayed, I will await his arrival)" which many Jews sang as they were led into the gas chambers. Finally, we sang Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Ge'ulah, "The Redemption Should Come Soon," a song written in the DP camps after the war, which includes the incredible lyric, "Dear little Father in Heaven, perhaps you're sending Messiah a little bit too late?"
After our participation, the program closed with a brilliant and stirring speech by an Israeli professor who works for Yad Vashem and, I believe, as a consultant to the UN on genocide prevention. He described what made the Holocaust unique and what traits it shares with other genocides.
Video of the entire 2-hour program is still available on the UN website. I urge you to take the time to watch the speeches.
The morning's program made me think the following (synthesizing what several speakers presented): When we violate the commandment "Do not stand idly by while your neighbor's blood is shed," we allow the murders of our families to become meaningless. When we speak up and act against genocides such as Darfur, we turn their deaths into a warning to the world, and it is that which gives their deaths meaning. When we, spurred by their memory, hold the entire world to a higher moral standard, only then does their slaughter become a kiddush ha-Shem.
(As unseemly as it is to have been able to take pleasure from anything associated with this occasion, I must admit that it was exciting to stand at the same podium as some of the twentieth century's greatest leaders -- and some heinous ones, too.)
The program itself was very well-run.
There were remarks from the leadership of the UN and the permanent representative from Israel. Sure, his comments may have included some hollow patriotic rhetoric, but on this occasion and after nearly 2,000 years, maybe a little hollow rhetoric from a sovereign Jewish state isn't such a bad thing.
Next came the remarks by survivors. Although I am a little jaded by now, I found these incredibly moving and I was all choked up. Even after an interlude of victims' images and biographies, provided by Yad Vashem, my throat was closed up tight when it was time for us to take our places and sing.
We sang four pieces. The first, Tsen Brider, was written in the camps. A parody of a Jewish folk song about ten brothers who leave home one by one to enter business, in this version they are taken away one by one to be murdered. That was followed by the Eil Malei Rachamim, the prayer for the souls of the dead, chanted by Chazzan Jack Mendelson with Zamir singing the part of the mitshorrerim. Even the incomparable chazzan Mendelson clearly had not recovered from the emotions of the first part of the program. We then sang a medley of two traditional melodies for Ani Ma'amin, "I believe (with unshakable faith that the Messiah will come; even when he is delayed, I will await his arrival)" which many Jews sang as they were led into the gas chambers. Finally, we sang Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Ge'ulah, "The Redemption Should Come Soon," a song written in the DP camps after the war, which includes the incredible lyric, "Dear little Father in Heaven, perhaps you're sending Messiah a little bit too late?"
After our participation, the program closed with a brilliant and stirring speech by an Israeli professor who works for Yad Vashem and, I believe, as a consultant to the UN on genocide prevention. He described what made the Holocaust unique and what traits it shares with other genocides.
Video of the entire 2-hour program is still available on the UN website. I urge you to take the time to watch the speeches.
The morning's program made me think the following (synthesizing what several speakers presented): When we violate the commandment "Do not stand idly by while your neighbor's blood is shed," we allow the murders of our families to become meaningless. When we speak up and act against genocides such as Darfur, we turn their deaths into a warning to the world, and it is that which gives their deaths meaning. When we, spurred by their memory, hold the entire world to a higher moral standard, only then does their slaughter become a kiddush ha-Shem.