09 Apr WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF YOM HA’SHOAH?

As we approach the
month of Nissan, I
have been thinking a
lot about what Yom
HaShoah will look like
this year. The reality is
we, and every community I have spoken to,
have been struggling to get meaningful
attendance at their Yom HaShoah programs
and have not succeeded in a broad “buy in” to
observe Yom HaShoah in any meaningful
way. Do the most recent horrific tragedies
and atrocities of October 7, combined with
the ongoing war that has cost so many lives
since, make it more or less likely people will
show up and care about Yom HaShoah this
year?
Will the unimaginable pogroms, the “never
again” happening again, and the precipitous
spike in antisemitism help people realize the
same evil that led to the Holocaust still
continues and we must gather to commemorate
and address the most horrific end result? Or
will the open wounds of the last few months
overpower and cloud our ability to
meaningfully connect to atrocities and losses
that preceded it by 80 years?
Twice in our history, the 20th of Sivan was

designated as a permanent fast day to
commemorate massacres against our people.
The first time was by Rabbeinu Tam, Rashi’s
grandson, in 1171, after 31 Torah scholars
were executed because of a blood libel in
France. Rabbeinu Tam declared the 20th of
Sivan as a day of fasting “greater than Tzom
Gedalya, like Yom Kippur,” and instituted
special selichos to be recited. Shortly after,
the Crusades expanded and for the next 150
years brought great devastation to Jewish
communities. This overshadowed the
incident of the blood libel and the “permanent
fast” ceased being observed.
Almost 500 years later, from 1648-1649,
Polish Anti-Semite Bohdan Chmielnicki
launched a series of pogroms that led to the
deaths of tens of thousands of Jews and the
loss of hundreds of Jewish communities. The
Shach, Rav Shabbsai HaKohen, instituted the
20th of Sivan as a private fast day for his
family to commemorate their great loss.
Soon after, the Council of the Four Lands, the
rabbinic authority of Eastern Europe, adopted
the fast for all Polish Jewry in commemoration
of the tragedies of what became known as
Tach V’Tat, mourning the loss of a third of
Eastern European Jewry.

Twice the 20th of Sivan was designated as a
day commemorating Jewish tragedies, and
twice the observance faded until it is now
entirely obsolete. Many observant Jews do
not even know it was once a serious day of
mourning. While those calamities remain
very much part not only of our history, but of
our collective conscience, they have been
absorbed into Tisha B’Av, the designated day
to grieve and reflect over all of the tragedies
of our past.
For many years, I have thought about the
fast of the 20th of Sivan and the inevitability
of Yom HaShoah going the same way. But I
always concluded we aren’t there yet for two
reasons. First, in both magnitude and severity,
the Holocaust is categorically different from
every other persecution or genocide in all of
human history. It stands alone and stands
apart and deserves its own day for reflection.
Secondly, as long as we are blessed to have
survivors among us, we owe it to them and to
ourselves to show up, to honor them, to learn
from them, and just to be with them.
The uniqueness and singularity of the
Holocaust will, please G-d, remain true
forever. But other factors are changing. In
the United States today, there are fewer than
50,000 Holocaust survivors. Although
South Florida is home to one of the largest
populations of survivors, we increasingly
struggle to identify any survivor to present
to us on Yom Ha’Shoah. Whereas it was
not that long ago when we had many
survivors come to light candles to start our
annual Yom HaShoah program, more
recently we have been relying on the second
generation to light the six large candles.
While the Holocaust was a defining event
and experience for the last two generations,
evidence shows that young people today
want to move on, put it behind us, and come
out from under its shadow. The younger
generation is rapidly seeing the Holocaust
in the context of the Crusades, the
Inquisition, and the Expulsion from Spain:
events that are part of our past and our
history, rather than as something that
happened to our parents and grandparents, a
very real piece of our personal lives.
Does October 7 make the Holocaust more
or less relevant to the average person? Will
they be more or less likely to want to
commemorate it? And most importantly,
how much does it even matter? Maybe Yom
HaShoah, though lacking the status of a
religious day or having a foundation in
Halacha, is on the Jewish calendar and
should be there permanently, regardless of
participation. On the other hand, that wasn’t
the case for the 20th of Sivan which

ultimately stopped being observed. For some,
Yom HaShoah never should have been
established, and Rav Soloveitchik even tried
to have it cancelled.
In the summer of 1978, newly elected Prime
Minister Menachem Begin paid a visit to the
United States and visited the Rav, Rav Yosef
Dov Soloveitchik. In that conversation, the
Rav proposed to the Prime Minister that Yom
HaShoah be annulled as a separate day of
mourning and be included within the
framework of Tisha B’Av, as we do with
other tragedies of our past, such as the
Crusades. He quoted from one of the Kinos
that we recite for the victims of the Crusades,
Mi Yiten Roshi Mayim, that states: “No other
time of brokenness and burning should be
added, rather, all matters of communal
mourning should be included in a single day
of mourning.”
When Prime Minister Begin returned to
Israel he tried to convince his colleagues to
make the change. Ultimately, he was
unsuccessful as the government was
concerned about the school system having the
opportunity to teach about the Holocaust and
school being on vacation when Tisha B’Av
falls out.
Is it time to absorb Yom HaShoah into Tisha
B’Av? If we dedicate a shiur, lecture,
discussion or program for the Holocaust on
Tisha B’Av, will we do more to commemorate
it than if we leave it as its own day (with the
added benefit of educating more Jews about
Tisha B’Av)? Should we maintain Yom
HaShoah and find a way to dedicate it this
year to the atrocities of October 7?
I don’t have a conclusion about Yom
HaShoah this year, but I think there are
questions we need to ask ourselves and that
are worthy of our careful consideration.
Instead of groveling and begging for people
to attend and being frustrated yet again by a
room with many empty seats, let’s plan
thoughtfully and consider collaboratively
whether we are at a juncture in history where
a change is appropriate, and if so what it
should look like. Whatever we conclude,
may we no longer have tragedies to mourn
and sad days to observe.