Yom haShoah - Day of the Holocaust
- Gene Keener
- Apr 23
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 29
Yom haShoah
Day of the Holocaust
Yom haShoah is the remembrance of the Nazi holocaust in Europe (1939-45), where six million Jews were murdered. By extension, it is also a remembrance of all such holocausts faced by God’s people throughout time.
Shoah literally means whirlwind. It is a modern application of the word to mean Holocaust or catastrophe.
Yom haShoah is observed on 27 Aviv (Nisan)
Traditional Readings
D’varim (Deuteronomy) 4:30-40
30 In your distress, when all these things have come upon you, in the acharit-hayamim, you will return to ADONAI your God and listen to what he says;
31 for ADONAI your God is a merciful God. He will not fail you, destroy you, or forget the covenant with your ancestors which he swore to them.
32 “Indeed, inquire about the past, before you were born: since the day God created human beings on the earth, from one end of heaven to the other, has there ever been anything as wonderful as this? Has anyone heard anything like it?
33 Did any other people ever hear the voice of God speaking out of a fire, as you have heard, and stay alive?
34 Or has God ever tried to go and take for himself a nation from the very bowels of another nation, by means of ordeals, signs, wonders, war, a mighty hand, an outstretched arm and great terrors — like all that ADONAI your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?
35 This was shown to you, so that you would know that ADONAI is God, and there is no other beside him.
36 From heaven he caused you to hear his voice, in order to instruct you; and on earth he caused you to see his great fire; and you heard his very words coming out from the fire.
37 Because he loved your ancestors, chose their descendants after them and brought you out of Egypt with his presence and great power,
38 in order to drive out ahead of you nations greater and stronger than you, so that he could bring you in and give you their land as an inheritance, as is the case today;
39 know today, and establish it in your heart, that ADONAI is God in heaven above and on earth below — there is no other.
40 Therefore, you are to keep his laws and mitzvot which I am giving you today, so that it will go well with you and with your children after you, and so that you will prolong your days in the land ADONAI your God is giving you forever.”
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