My Dear Friends:
April 24: Israel Commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day With Two Minutes of Nationwide Silence
In attendance at the Yad Vashem ceremony are PM Netanyahu, President Herzog and Holocaust survivors. This year's commemorative events center around the theme of '80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany'
for Phil Chernofsky, author of And Every Single One Was Someone ("Holocaust Told in One Word, 6 Million Times," Jodi Rudoren's review)
line upon line
page after page
the word
Jew
six million times
(FYI: April 25: Beyond Jewish Suffering: Israel's Holocaust Education Finally Includes Other Victims of the Nazis
For the first time, the Education Ministry has approved a curriculum about the non-Jewish groups targeted by the Nazis, from gays they considered reeducating to the people sent for sterilization and those who were the first victims of the gas chambers
Sarit Zeibert, an Israeli academic who studies persecuted minorities in Nazi Germany, would like to remind everyone that the United Nations Charter calls for the commemoration of all minorities persecuted by the Nazi regime. "When you examine the media and the curricula in other countries, you do see reference to all groups of victims.")
Opinion, April 23: My Thoughts During the Siren
Like every year, I will stand at attention when the siren sounds, and my thoughts will wander. They will move from remembering my grandmother and grandfather, Sophie and Hugo, whose names I saw engraved on the commemoration wall at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, to the sights from Gaza, which won't leave me.
Since childhood, I've always imagined a great fire consuming everything during the siren. Before the Gaza war, I envisioned Jews burning in it; this year, I will also see the babies burned alive last week in their shelter tent in Khan Yunis, and with them thousands of children, women and men whom Israel has killed without mercy.
How is it possible to stand at attention today and not think about the horrifying investigation by Yaniv Kubovich on the execution of 15 Palestinian rescue workers by Israeli soldiers, who shot them in cold blood and then crushed their ambulances and buried the bodies in the sand? Without thinking about the resident of Sinjil in the West Bank, whose home settlers set on fire, after which soldiers came and threw tear gas at him until he had a heart attack and died, as Hagar Shezaf reported on Wednesday? Without thinking about the shepherding community of Umm al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills, and the incessant pogroms these peaceable people endure at the hands of the army and settlers, who have joined forces to expel them from their land?...
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXVII: "Holocaust and War on Gaza"
written on Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day
at 10 A.M
a two-minute siren blares
across Israel ...
a skeletal house's shadow
darkens a Gazan's lined face
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXII: "Holocaust Remembrance Day "
inspired by the following remark by Marek Edelman, the deputy commander of the "Warsaw Ghetto" Uprising and the only leader to survive the war
To be a JEW means always being with the Oppressed and never the oppressors.
a standstill
for two minutes in Israel ...
fifty miles away
fighter jet after fighter jet
silencing everything below
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXIX: "starving babies"
smoky twilight ...
will starving babies in Gaza
heal the broken heart
of an Israeli mother
whose children were kidnapped
my Jewish friend
turns off the TV and asks
in barely a whisper
can one's fragmented heart
contain two pains at once?
April 24: Activists hang signs of Gazans harmed during war on eve of Yom HaShoah: 'Remembering the Holocaust means looking at reality'
Activists hung signs throughout Jerusalem on Wednesday night, showing the harm to residents of the Gaza Strip during the war. "As Jews, we feel that remembering the Holocaust means looking at reality directly and fighting against dehumanization," the activists who hung the signs said. "On this day, it is important to remember that 'never again' should be a message of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of all of us to oppose starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CLXXVIII: "just one pita"
just one pita
to split among our four kids
for tomorrow ...
with news on mute, I feel bombarded
with questions of what's left unsaid
FYI: Haaretz, April 25: 'We'll Die Whether From Hunger or the Bombing': Gaza Faces Critical Food Shortage
The food shortage is the biggest challenge for most Gazans now. Eight weeks have passed since Israel stopped allowing aid into the Strip, and experts are warning of a sudden and rapid decline in health due to the shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
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