Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Rememberence Day)

Sunday and Monday were normal work days, and then Monday night was the start of Yom HaShoah. There was a ceremony for all the people in Yerucham that we went to. There were a few speakers, a few people who sang, and a small play about a Righteous Gentile named Wanda who lives in Yerucham. At the end they presented Wanda with an award for her heroism. After the ceremony we watched a movie about the Holocaust called The Counterfeiter. It was in German with English subtitles, and I think it won an Oscar for best foreign film at some point within the past few years.

Tuesday morning we did a normal Shacharit and then read Megilat HaShoah, a piece written by Rabbis in the Conservative Movement in an effort to unite Jews all over the world on Yom HaShoah. After that we went to another ceremony at the religious elementary school in Yerucham called Kol Ya'akov. At 10 a.m. a nation-wide siren sounded for 2 minutes in commemoration of Yom HaShoah. It was really, really powerful. The rest of the ceremony included some singing and poetry reading. After that we did an activity where we looked at some art and poems written by Jews in concentration camps, and then we had to either draw or own picture or write something. We had a break for lunch, and then visited a small museaum in Yerucham talking about WWII heroes. A few different people who were involved in WWII in some way spoke to us. It was kind of annoying because they spoke in Russian and their translators were not that good at English, but it was still really interesting. After that we got on a bus and met up with the rest of Nativ at Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. The Kibbutz is named after Mordechai Analewitz, and there is a giant statue of him there that we learned about in art history at Hebrew U last semester. The ceremony at Yad Mordechai was extraordinary. They sang a bunch of songs, all powerful and amazing. There was an interprative dance that was so moving. There were a few speakers who spoke in Hebrew which was a little hard to understand, but it was okay. The way it was set up was there was a giant stage in front of a tell, and at the top was the statue. On the tell there were little signs of different countries in Europe where Jews lived, and there were probably 60 Israeli soldiers standing up there. Towards the end, they blew a shofar and then there were these firework/sparkler type things that went off and it was really powerful. Then the Israeli soldiers marched back out all holding Israeli flags and then we all sang Hatikva, which was so moving. Then they lit a candle by the name of each country, and then they lit the words "Lizkor v'Lihakir" which means "Remember and Remind", so you could read the words when they were on fire. It was truly amazing.

Yesterday I took a day off of work (we're allowed to have 3 all semester) and went into Jerusalem with a few friends. It was a really, really fun day.

That's about it!

-Sarah