4 | MAY 23 • 2024 
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from Federation
Yom HaZikaron: Honoring Bravery, Sacrifice
B

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

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