{"id":1383,"date":"2014-04-29T07:07:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T07:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/?p=1383"},"modified":"2014-05-12T21:19:12","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T21:19:12","slug":"yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thejerusalemgiftshop.com\/israelnews\/yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nicole Sivan<\/p>\n

This past Sunday evening in Israel marked the beginning of Yom HaShoah (Day of the Catastrophe) or Holocaust Remembrance Day. Holocaust is derived from the Greek words Holos, meaning whole, and Kaustos, meaning burnt. Shoah is the Hebrew word for catastrophe. Holocaust Remembrance Day is the official day when Israelis remember and commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children systematically murdered by the German Reich during WWII. In 1939, at the start of the war, there were approximately nine million Jews living in Europe. By the end of the war in 1945, two thirds of this population had been annihilated, including one million Jewish children.<\/p>\n

This year, Yom HaShoah began at sundown on Sunday, April 27, and ended at sundown on Monday, April 28. All Jewish holidays and memorial days are observed from sunset to sunset. Yom HaShoah is a national memorial day in Israel, inaugurated in 1953 by Israel\u2019s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion. This day of commemoration is held each year on the 27th of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which usually falls during the Gregorian month of April or May. The Hebrew calendar follows a lunar year, and if the 27th of Nisan falls on Shabbat (Sabbath), the day is shifted back to the preceding Friday or moved forward to the following Sunday, as it is never observed on Shabbat.<\/p>\n

\"Holocaust<\/a>

Holocaust Memorial Day – Photo by Ouria Tadmor<\/p><\/div>\n

Most communities in Israel hold a solemn ceremony to commemorate the day. No formal institutionalized ritual has ever been established, and most ceremonies include the lighting of memorial candles, the reciting of the Kaddish (the prayer for the deceased), and many will include the reading of all known names of Holocaust victims. Schools will teach about the Holocaust in the week leading up to Memorial Day and many survivors will offer to share their personal stories.<\/p>\n

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