2010-04-07
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Judaism 101: the various calendar dates for Holocaust commemoration and NY Yom Hashoah observances
In my January 24, 2010 article I reported on severalevents marking International Holocaust Commemoration Day. That day is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp by the Soviet army and is the day the international community remembers the Shoah. Most Jews, however, commemorate the Holocaust on Yom Hashoah whichIsrael's parliament set in 1951 as 27 Nissan (in between the end of Passover and Israel's Independence Day) which this year falls on Sunday April 11th. Most Jews but not all Jews. On the secular end of the spectrum Yiddish speaking secularists who associate with theInternational Jewish Labor Bund insist on marking the day on April 19th each year irrespective of the Jewishcalendar to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprisingof 1943. On the opposite religious end of the spectrum many (but not all) Ultra-Orthodox Jews have never accepted the 27 Nissan date because they believe that the entire month of Nissan should be imbued with the joy of Passover (15-22 Nissan). These religious opponents of the official Yom Hashoah tend to fold the commemoration of the Shoah intoTisha B'Av, the summer day of fasting which commemorates the destruction of the two Temples and numerous other Jewish catastrophes, though some argue for a separate day (10 Tevet) in the winter to commemorate the Shoah. These ultra-Orthodox objectors note that to commemorate the Shoah on a day associated with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, whose participants were largely secular, ignores the many Orthodox victims of the Shoah. I recommend to my readers Rabbi Yitz Greenberg's article on how the 27 Nissan date was agreed to and why he thinks it was the correct decision.