Author's note: I feel like I write about the Holocaust a lot on this site, but obviously, it's for a good reason. Anyways, today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day and I have a lot to say about it.
I am going to Israel this summer. My group of 20 young people ages 18-22 will travel the country, climb Masada, go to the Dead Sea, and explore the streets of Tel Aviv where the drinking age is only eighteen. We will also stop at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. Yad Vashem literally translates to "Hand and Name" and there we will see the faces of children like us and adults like us and babies like us and old people like us who were killed simply for being who I am. We will walk the darkened halls-I assume they are darkened in order to shed light on the subject at hand-and turn our faces to the ground with solemn horror. We will not laugh. It will be hard. We will then go outside into the blazing Israeli sun and we will move on with our lives. The scar, however, will remain. And today, before I have even set foot on the El Al 787 that will take me to the promised land, a siren will sound across Israel. The country will come to a standstill for two whole minutes. I'm not quite sure when it will happen in terms of Eastern Daylight Time, but I will hear it anyways. I hear it all the time. I hear the siren, the voiceless scream every time I read the news. I hear the siren, the cry that stops cars on the highway when I see the silence of my peers on this hard, cold, dark day. I hear the siren when the prayer for our country and the prayer for the state of Israel are recited at synagogue by the cousin or sister or distant aunt of some kid whose bar mitzvah it is that day. I hear the siren with every beat of my heart. I know that sounds melodramatic, and that's because it is. It's a little hard to be understated when my heart cries never again. All this to say-I guess there's a reason that Yom Shoah falls right after Passover. We were freed from slavery into an uncertain future. And yet-we continue on.
I am going to Israel this summer. My group of 20 young people ages 18-22 will travel the country, climb Masada, go to the Dead Sea, and explore the streets of Tel Aviv where the drinking age is only eighteen. We will also stop at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum. Yad Vashem literally translates to "Hand and Name" and there we will see the faces of children like us and adults like us and babies like us and old people like us who were killed simply for being who I am. We will walk the darkened halls-I assume they are darkened in order to shed light on the subject at hand-and turn our faces to the ground with solemn horror. We will not laugh. It will be hard. We will then go outside into the blazing Israeli sun and we will move on with our lives. The scar, however, will remain. And today, before I have even set foot on the El Al 787 that will take me to the promised land, a siren will sound across Israel. The country will come to a standstill for two whole minutes. I'm not quite sure when it will happen in terms of Eastern Daylight Time, but I will hear it anyways. I hear it all the time. I hear the siren, the voiceless scream every time I read the news. I hear the siren, the cry that stops cars on the highway when I see the silence of my peers on this hard, cold, dark day. I hear the siren when the prayer for our country and the prayer for the state of Israel are recited at synagogue by the cousin or sister or distant aunt of some kid whose bar mitzvah it is that day. I hear the siren with every beat of my heart. I know that sounds melodramatic, and that's because it is. It's a little hard to be understated when my heart cries never again. All this to say-I guess there's a reason that Yom Shoah falls right after Passover. We were freed from slavery into an uncertain future. And yet-we continue on.
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