Yesh Li Blog: Yom HaShoah 5769: Holocaust Remembrance Program

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Yom HaShoah 5769: Holocaust Remembrance Program

Holocaust Remembrance Day

The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is Yom HaShoah Ve-HaGevurah—literally the "Day of (the remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism." It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan—a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for Israel's fallen soldiers).

This year we were privileged to attend the Governor's 28th Annual Holocaust Remembrance Program with some friends. It was an amazing program, featuring a woman by the name of Kristine Keren née Krystyna Chiger, who at the age of seven survived in the sewers of Lvov, Poland, for over a year.

Her story is told in the book The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow.

Below left is the synopsis given in the program for the event. Below right is a copy of the prayer that was so magnificently chanted by Cantor Zachary Kutner of BMH-BJ Congregation.

The evening's program was presented by the Anti-Defamation League's Mountain States Regional Office.

2 comments:

Kayren said...: Hi, Bonnie's Dad,

I came by after reading about you over on Simple Beauty. My post I just finished up (scheduled to go up in a few minutes) is about my grandpa. His birthday was on the 24th, and he was a WWII veteran. In relation to WWII, I just finished up a lengthy discussion with one of my girls about the Holocaust (specifically in Poland, then branching out to other areas) before I started reading blogs and came over here. It was a surprise to see this same topic, but I didn't realize there was a Remembrance Day this last week.; 10:15 PM
Vickie Atencio said...: I am anxious to read The Girl in the Green Sweater. Thanks for this post. Will this be an annual event?; 9:35 PM

Post a Comment

Why Yesh Li Blog?

Why do I have a blog? Quite simply, I have a blog to share my favorite things with others. The right side of the blog has a long list of links to some of the places on the Internet that I visit often. In addition to sharing those with others, I often come here myself to find a quick link to where I am going.

Bonnie, our eldest, led the way into blogging with her Simple Beauty Blog, and later with her extremely popular Beans Blog. I decided I would give blogging a try and thought "I have a blog" might be a clever name, but in English it sounded rather lame, so I did it in Hebrew, a language I love more and more the more I learn it.

What does Yesh Li Blog mean?

We would translate (i.e. interpret) yesh li blog to mean "I have a blog" in English, but the literal Hebrew means "There is for (or to) me a blog." You cannot literally say "I have" something or other in Hebrew. It is always "there is for me," or "there is for you," or "there is for us," etc. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is showing us that we are really stewards of what has been provided for us and for our use. Rather than private ownership, perhaps a better term for what we "own" would be private stewardship.

Languages have been my passion since at least the fourth grade, when I studied Spanish from a library book called Fun with Spanish. In high school, I was the rara avis that became enamored of Latin. In later U.S. Navy tours of duty in Spain, Italy, and Japan, we did our best to learn the local languages. Along the way, I studied some Russian and picked up some Greek by studying etymologies and some Chinese by studying Japanese writing systems.

My first introduction to Hebrew was in the early 1980s, when I took a correspondence course, but it was not until the past decade that my primary focus has been on this wondrous language. It has been deeply rewarding, and especially in the past few years since we met Ori, an amazing Israeli woman, who has become not only my primary Hebrew mentor but also our good friend. Moreover, the small group of people who meet weekly to study Torah in Hebrew in Boulder have become dear to us and enriched our lives greatly. Further, reading Jewish commentaries on the Web of the weekly Torah portions has deepened my own faith and opened up new understandings of the scriptures we share and of Christian writings based on those scriptures.

The pursuit of words has been an essential part of my life for many years (since birth?). Many things have changed in my life, but I don't see that part of it changing any time soon (until death?). Lehitraot! Shalom, Chaverim!