Forgive and Never Forget

On the wall in France in a site of the deportation of nearly 200,000 (mostly) Jews it is written (translated and recalled from memory): “we can forgive but we must never forget.”   On Yom HaShoah it is time to remember and it is time to forgive and it is a time to work for peace.

The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah”— in Hebrew literally translated as the “Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan — a week after the end of the Passover holiday and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers). It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

For all those who struggle for freedom today – those who come to mind first are the Palestinians who are irreparably oppressed by the state of Israel – let this day be one of remembrance and of forgiveness and of peace.