Sunday, April 19, Congregation Shaaray Shalom held its Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah, service. The service included speeches by Rabbi Yechiel, guest speaker Rabbi Menachem Creditor, and Mindy Perlmutter, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Long Island. There was also a video which featured an interview with Egon Salmon, a Holocaust survivor who passed away in 2022.
The service featured the lighting of the six memorial candles, each by a family member of a victim or survivor of the Holocaust. A seventh candle was also lit, in memory of the 5 million non-Jews also killed in the Holocaust. An eighth candle was lit to honor the victims of the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel.
Before the service began, Scouts BSA Troop 240 sang the national anthem. “The participation of the scouts is specifically the connection that this program strives to achieve,” Rabbi Yechiel said.
Yechiel also read a message from Father Tony of St. Thomas The Apostle Parish. “May the memories of all those that perished be a blessing for all of us as we pray for lasting peace and an end to antisemitism and all hatred,” Fr. Tony wrote.
Yechiel’s speech focused on the hatred that led to the atrocities committed during the Holocaust, but also paid attention to the role and culpability of the bystander that did not stand up for the victims before it was too late. “We must look, maybe for the first time, at the complicity of the silent bystander, perhaps the most dangerous party,” he said. “Will we remember? Will we seek action to stop the hate and violence? Will we recommit ourselves to speak out? Let’s try to do all three of these things for the hope of a better tomorrow.”
Egon Salman’s testimony detailed his initial failed attempts to escape the Holocaust, his witnessing of Kristallnacht, or The Night of Broken Glass, and his postwar experience.
During his interview, Salman was asked how future generations can prevent an atrocity like the Holocaust from happening again. “Can’t. It depends how people react, how people vote,” he said. “You have to hope it’s a lesson; you have to learn diligently and be a good citizen.”
Mindy Perlmutter gave her thanks to Larry Rosenberg, Program Chair of the Long Island Holocaust Remembrance Group, and elected officials that attended the ceremony, including County Legislator Olena Nicks. Perlmutter then introduced Rabbi Menachem Creditor, the guest speaker for the evening. “[Creditor is] a leader who embodies the values of justice, moral courage and remembrance. He is a bridge builder between communities, faiths and generations,” she said.
Creditor spoke about the necessity of bridging divides between religion and culture to stop hate, stigma and division. He included an anecdote about a Holocaust survivor and friend of his who recently passed, Baruch Benedict Ben Stern. Stern, against the threat of Neo Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois, in 1977, stood up during a synagogue service and yelled, ‘not today, not here,’ in response to the rabbi telling the congregation to ignore the hateful march.
“How dare we not say in our community, ‘not today, not here,’ not for Jews, not for anyone, not for Muslims, not across racial lines, not against immigrants, not against not against LGBTQ people,” Creditor said. “For all of the political complexity of this moment, human dignity should be a given, especially in light of the indignities and dehumanization that led to this and could lead again.”
