Yom HaShoah

Q: Why do we celebrate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day?

A: Not so long ago we remembered the victims of Nazism on Tisha B’Av, not on a separate day.  Tisha B’Av commemorates the saddest events of Jewish history: the destructions of two Temples, the exile of our people, the desert wanderings, and the Spanish expulsion….

Since Tisha B’Av recalls so many tragedies throughout the ages, it was felt that the holocaust should be folded into its observances of weeping and fasting.

The immensity of the Holocaust coupled with the proximity to our lives threatened to turn Tisha B’Av solely into a day of mourning for the Six Million.  In addition, the enormity of the evil was so profound that the people felt it needed a day of its own to mourn and remember.

It was agreed that Yom HaShoah should be positioned during the counting of the Omer, a sober time for all Jews.  During those weeks following Passover we do not perform weddings.  The ill-fated Bar Kochba rebellion was squashed during this period and a plague attacked scholars under Rabbi Akiva.  In keeping with the solemnity of those weeks, Yom HaShoah was given its own place after Pesach.