Note: Unfortunately the last few minutes of audio were not recorded. We ended by looking at a passage from Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg, who himself had survived the horrors of the Holocaust, defending the establishment of Yom Hashoah. In a preface to one of his responsa, he provides a compelling argument for the observance of […]

We don’t necessarily have to come to terms with and understand everything that occurs; we have to realize that Hashem guides historic events. Rabbi Shalom Hammer’s Sleepless Sermon for Yom HaShoah

“We will never forget you, we will never cease to mourn you, we will not let you down.” At the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph makes one deeply poignant request. Though I die in exile, God will bring you back to the land, and when he does so, vehaalitem et atzmotai mizeh, “Carry […]

My late father (z”l) was a special man – scholarly, pious, wise. A man whose eyes spoke of understandings unfathomable to me when I was young and whose strength and full impressiveness only come into clearest focus as I myself have gotten older. Parents are always something of a mystery to their children. Those parents […]

Every spring, a number of days of commemoration are observed. Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron, established by the government of Israel, are days in which we honor the memory of the fallen – first for the victims of the Holocaust and then for those who gave their lives to create and defend the State of […]

Having lived on three continents and spent over twenty years in school, I have attended many diverse classes and lectures on the Shoah. Yet, every time I was taught about this horrific chapter in history, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing, although for many years I couldn’t put it into words. A […]

At the age of 100, remembering the horrors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp BY IRMA SONNENBERG MENKEL As Printed in July 21, 1997 Edition of Newsweek© Magazine I TURNED 100 YEARS OLD IN APRIL AND HAD A BEAUTIFUL birthday party surrounded by my grandchildren, great grandchildren and other family members. I even danced a little. Willard […]

The Holocaust was radically different than any tragedy before it. Does it warrant its own day of mourning or should it be mourned on Tisha B’Av?

Sefirat HaOmer and the Four Days of Remembrance The period of time beginning the second night of Pesach and climaxing forty-nine full days later with the Festival of Shavuot can be called a time of “Ruin and Renewal” for the Jewish People. The period includes the following six elements, one encompassing the entire forty-nine day […]