In Israel, on Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) each spring, the day begins with the sounding of a siren across the nation. For two minutes, everything and everyone stops. Even people driving cars pull over and stand in silence. The two minutes are spent remembering the 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.
While Yom Hashoah is an observance in Israel (and in many Jewish communities outside of Israel), Jan. 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. So designated by the United Nations in 2005, it is an annual day of commemoration and education observed widely across the world. The date marks the anniversary of the liberation of the death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the words of the U.N. resolution establishing the day, it is a time to remind us to fight all forms of “religious intolerance, incitement, harassment, or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief” anywhere in the world.
The Jewish Clergy Association of New Hampshire invites you to take two minutes sometime during your day today and stop what you are doing. Consider why, 72 years after the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, we still need International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
One reason is that in the past year, anti-Semitic acts in our nation have increased dramatically. This month alone, nearly 50 Jewish community centers nationwide have received bomb threats. The entire Jewish community of Whitefish, Mont., is under attack from anti-Semitic neo-Nazis.
Across our own state, adults and children have been harassed for being Jewish. Last summer, a Concord Monitor reporter found her name on a list of Jews that an anonymous Twitter user dreamed of sending to the gas chamber. Nazi swastikas have been painted in acts of vandalism – from Dover, where a high school football stadium was defaced with swastikas and other graffiti; to Keene, where a swastika was found burned into the ceiling of a dormitory; to Auburn, where a Girl Scout project “Buddy Bench” was similarly defaced.
We know where this can lead if we don’t rise up to fight it. We know, too, that Jewish people are not alone today as targets of hate in speech, intimidation and violence.
For these reasons, as often as we can, we join with Granite Staters of every religion, race and national origin to fight against hate and to teach about the many faiths, ethnicities and cultures that make up our great state.
As Jewish clergy, we are active broadly on interfaith councils and narrowly with individual churches, mosques and other faith communities. We make ourselves available to schools, bringing advice and resources to teachers and administrators when anti-Semitism erupts, revealing how far our society is from eradicating hate. We stand up because we are committed to ensuring that no group is ever singled out or targeted because of religion, race, ethnicity, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status or any other reason.
So today, when the world remembers the victims of the Holocaust, we ask you to stand for two minutes – two minutes to remember the 6 million Jews, and the millions more who were murdered for being gay, Roma, disabled, Jehovah’s Witnesses, socialists or political opponents of the Nazi regime. As you stand in silence, please reflect on the many different acts of hate in our state. And when the silence ends, join us in saying “never again.” Then figure out how best to put those words into action.
(Rabbi Robin Nafshi and Cantor Shira Nafshi, both of Concord, and Cantor Claire Metzger of Bow are members of the Jewish Clergy Association of New Hampshire.)