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Remember The 6 Million

Rosh Hashanah Greetings

W

T

e are in the holy month of
Tishrei. It includes Rosh
Hashanah, Yom Kippur
and Sukkot. On Rosh Hashanah,
HaShem (God) writes in the Book of
Life for the coming year: Who should
live? Who should die? Who by fire?
Who by water? Who by hunger?
Yom Kippur is the
holiest holiday on
the Jewish calendar.
We go to shul to
pray. We stay there
a whole day dressed
in a white kitel
(white robe) and
white yarmulke as a
Michael Weiss
sign of purity and a
reminder of mortal-
ity. We ask HaShem
to forgive the sins
we committed dur-
ing the year.
I remember my father, God bless
his soul. On Yom Kippur, he kept
the yahrtzeit for his father who was
killed in the first World War. He lit
one yahrtzeit candle. Now I keep
the yahrzeit on Yom Kippur for my
father and, at the same time, I keep
the yahrtzeit of the 6 million martyrs
who died in the Holocaust.
I always debate with myself how
many candles I should light. Neither
my father nor my mother nor the 6
million Jewish martyrs ever had a
funeral, nor did they have a grave
in a cemetery, nor do they have a
matzeva (tombstone).
That’s why the members of our
organization put a matzeva at the
Hebrew Memorial Cemetery. Just
coming to this matzeva to stand
and read the names of our parents
… to read the names of the con-
centration camps where they were
murdered brings back memories of
when we came through the gates
of Auschwitz, where we saw the gas
chambers and the crematoria and
smelled the stench of burning flesh.
Over the years, many of us won-
dered and asked the question, “Why
were the Jewish people singled out
for hatred and to be killed?”
The Jewish people of Europe got a
bad verdict in the six years between
1939 and 1945. The Amalekim, the
Hitlers, the Nazis and the anti-
Semites forced us out of our homes.
They put us into ghettos. They took
us to death camps like Auschwitz,
Majdanek, Buna and many others.
We found killing factories equipped
with gas chambers and crematoria
where the Nazi government and
many people volunteered to murder
6 million of our people.
Our history has recorded mass-

10

September 6 • 2018

jn

murders before. The Jewish people
lived through persecutions and suf-
fering during the Crusades and the
Inquisition. We also went through
pogroms in Czarist Russia. However,
the 6 million Jews murdered in the
Holocaust exceed the combined
total of all these catastrophes.
Nazis murdered our fathers and
our mothers. They murdered our
children. They murdered our zaydies
and bubbies. They murdered 6 mil-
lion of God’s chosen people. These
people were rabbis; they were
tzadikkim (righteous). They were
chassidim, they were Orthodox and
Conservative. They were rich and
poor. Those years, the Jewish people
were isolated and neglected. No
country on this planet came to our
rescue; instead, we were treated as
subhuman.
If we examine what happened
after our liberation, after the Shoah,
it will forever dominate Jewish his-
tory. The miracle of the transition
from misery and suffering to the new
heights of pride, the emergence of
the state of Israel is God’s answer to
the German design of Jewish extinc-
tion. Within a short time after the
defeat of Nazism, the Jewish people
established our own country that
God gave us thousands of years ago.
There is a definite connection com-
ing from Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen
and Majdanek to Jerusalem and
Tel Aviv, Israel, our own God-given
country.
As the years have passed, memo-
ries fade and our survivors’ numbers
continue to decline. Many mem-
bers who were with us at last year’s
Yizkor service are not here this year.
They passed away.
It is of the utmost importance
the world never forgets! I urge the
entire Jewish community of Detroit
to attend this important and inspira-
tional event — this Yizkor, this Kever
Avot of the 6 million kedoshim,
including 1.5 million children, will
be held at the Hebrew Memorial
Cemetery at Gratiot and 14 Mile
Road in Mount Clemens on Sunday,
Sept. 16, at 1 p.m.
I wish the entire Jewish commu-
nity a happy and blessed new year.
May God inscribe each and every
one of us in the Book of Life, and
may the sound of the shofar sum-
mon us and be heard speedily in our
days! •

Michael Weiss, a Holocaust survivor, is a
speaker at the Holocaust Memorial Center in
Farmington and author of the book Chimneys
and Chambers.

he High Holidays are my favor-
course, did not start in 1948, nor did it
ite time of year because they
begin with the Holocaust. Our enemies
are a time of coming together
have tried to convince us of this so
as a community. In fact, many
many times that some of us
Jewish laws and traditions
even start to believe it.
focus upon not being alone
To the contrary, to walk
and upon coming together. In
through Israel is to bear wit-
prayer, birth, marriage, even
ness to thousands of years of
after death as our body awaits
Jewish history. This history, as
burial, Jewish life compels us
proven by documents, archi-
to be in the presence of oth-
tecture, science, archaeology,
ers and to feel a community
literature and cartographers,
Aviv Ezra
togetherness. And yet, the
is frankly impossible to rea-
looming danger of a divide
sonably deny.
between American and Israeli
This special place is the
Jews threatens just that; it is
homeland of all Jews, where
threatening to make us feel
we can cherish the Jewish
separate and to stand alone.
nature of our state alongside our pro-
Given that American and Israeli
found regard for freedom and equality
Jews have always faced tremendously
for all.
different challenges, it makes sense
I have no doubt that Americans and
that we might both turn inward
Israelis can maintain our strong con-
toward ourselves. Instead, we must
nection for millennia to come. This
turn toward one another. Close rela-
3,000-year peoplehood transcends
tionships are not “all or nothing.”
eras, administrations and world politi-
Rather, we allow our dynamic to be
cal climates.
ever-changing and to hold one anoth-
During this season of introspection
er’s hand as we make space for the
and renewal, let us pray for a year of
other to grow.
security, peace and unity for Israel and
I believe that Israeli and American
the Jewish people everywhere. •
Jews have the capacity for this deep
relationship, where we can walk along- Aviv Ezra is Consul General of Israel to the
Midwest.
side one another in all of each other’s
complexities and dimensions.
Israel has proven in the last 70
years that it can have a religious com-
ponent, Judaism, and be a democ-
racy. Christian and Muslim places
of prayer are protected. The Masorti
and Reform movements are vibrant
and growing, and non-Orthodox
Jews have a proud, prominent place
in society. Non-Jewish Arab Israelis
make up the third-largest party in
ROSH HASHANAH
the Knesset. Israel’s democracy is
It’s Rosh Hashanah and in shul mir vel
so vibrant that it even gives parlia-
gayn
mentary representation to explicitly
Mir zaynen farputzt un di shul azay
anti-Zionist members — unthink-
shayn.
able in any other nation. And, Israel’s
Mir zitzn un shtayen , zayn a Yid is azay
Supreme Court is one of the most
shver
independent judiciaries in the world.
Ich bin mid, zayer mid, avu is my chair?
And yet, it turns out that creating
But mir alle tzuzamen, ich bin nisht
an entirely new political paradigm
alayn.
isn’t simple or easy. As Israel explores
its Jewish democracy, we invite our
Mir vel gayn - we will go
American brothers and sisters across
Mir zaynen farputzt - we are made
the ocean to be part of this exciting
beautiful
time. The nation-state law comple-
Azay shayn - so beautiful
ments existing laws that focus on
Mir zitzn un shtayen - we sit and we
the democratic state of the nation
stand
and gives expression to the right of
Zayn a Yid - being a Jew
the Jewish people to national self-
Azay shver - so hard
determination in Israel. The law does
Ich bin mid - I am tired
not affect or detract from the existing
Zayer mid - very tired
rights of individuals and minority
Avu - where
groups, and affirms the commitment
Mir alle tzuzamen - we are all together
to preserving the affinity between
Ich bin nisht alayn - I am not alone.
Israel and the global Jewish people.
By Rachel Kapen
The Jewish history of Zion, of

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