4 | MAY 23 • 2024
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from Federation
Yom HaZikaron: Honoring Bravery, Sacrifice
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eginning on the
evening of May
12, our Detroit
community joined Jews
across the world in
commemorating
Israel’s
memorial
day, Yom
HaZikaron. The
somberness
of this day
was deeply
shadowed by
the events of the last seven
months, as we paid respects
to those who have made the
ultimate sacrifice for Israel
and the Jewish people.
On that solemn day,
we gathered not only to
remember but also to
honor. Over 700 community
members came together
at Temple Israel to pay
tribute to the precious lives
tragically cut short, the sons
and daughters, friends and
spouses, brothers and sisters,
who stood on the front lines
of Israel’s defense.
It was a stark reminder of
the relentless sacrifices made
by countless soldiers who
bravely defend Israel against
an ever-present threat. Their
extraordinary efforts and the
ongoing struggle against an
evil enemy know no bounds.
Our hearts ache for the
Jewish victims of terrorism,
particularly the haunting
atrocities of Oct. 7, painfully
inscribed into our history.
And, of course, we must
remember, too, the many
innocent lives that remain in
Gaza after more than seven
months of captivity. We hold
them in our hearts, and we
share the anguish of their
loved ones. Their pain is our
pain; their hopes, our hopes.
Today and every day, we pray
for the safe return of every
hostage. We will not let the
world forget them.
We all said at our Passover
seders, “In every generation,
they have risen against us
to destroy us.” Implacable
enemies are motivated by an
incomprehensible, corrosive
pathology, pure hatred. It
sustains no logic, coherent
reason nor consistent
motivation. Over the
millennia, they have hated
us because we’re too rich,
too poor, too aggressive, too
passive, too political, too
apolitical.
For over two millennia,
they have tried. But the
German Holocaust came
the closest to complete
success. Not since the
slavery that we suffered in
Egypt had our persecution
been so widespread,
so comprehensive, so
devastating. With their evil
cruelty, which they modeled
for persecutors to come, they
made a gash in the fabric
of our nation whose scars
endure to this day.
Two thousand years
ago, the Roman historian
Josephus estimated that
there were approximately
12 million Jews in the
world. Two thousand years
ago, there were 6 million
Chinese. Today, there are
over 1 billion Chinese, yet
worldwide, we are just a few
million more than we were
then, 15 million. It begs
the question: How has this
tiniest of nations survived
relentless persecution
over the millennia? It can
only be that our devotion,
compassion and commitment
to each other and to the
Almighty have preserved us.
There are times, like in
the Passover story that we
told at the seder about how
our Egyptian taskmasters
were pursuing us and were
swallowed up in the Red Sea,
where our enemies present
such a serious threat that
they must be destroyed.
But for millennia, we have
taught our children to
remove a small amount of
wine from our cups every
time one of the plagues is
mentioned, an experiential
reminder embedded in
our tradition, to stress that
while sometimes we must
be implacable in battling
our enemies, we must never
enjoy it, and we must never
rejoice in it because we
are ever cognizant of the
suffering of others.
Let me share with you
a story about the father of
a close friend, who was in
an advance infantry unit in
World War II. He went in on
D-Day with 2 million other
soldiers, the largest invasion
in world history, all the way
into Germany. I heard him
tell of the day that they came
to a place, a place without
a name, just a barbed wire
enclosure in an isolated area.
We’ve all seen the pictures …
piles and piles of dead Jews.
Almost miraculously,
among those piles of bodies
there were children who were
still alive, literally human
skeletons on the brink of
death, starving children.
The American troops,
shocked and horrified, did
what came to them naturally
— they reached into their
C-rations and K-rations, and
gave those kids Hershey bars
because everybody knows
that a Hershey bar is instant
energy.
And that’s when they
learned about what doctors
call pre-feeding. If you take
a starving child and give
him a Hershey bar, you can
kill him on the spot. It’s
too much of a shock to his
system. So, the medics took
over right away and set up
a soup kitchen where they
made watery soup, and lined
Gary Torgow
PURELY COMMENTARY
continued on page 7