Yom HaShoah — יום השואה
Sunset May 2, 2027 to sunset May 3, 2027
Summary
Yom HaShoah is Israel’s national day of remembrance for the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust and for the Jewish communities that were destroyed across Europe. Its full Hebrew name is:
יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה
Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGevurah.
“Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.”
It is normally observed on the 27th day of Nisan, although the date may be adjusted when necessary to avoid conflict with Shabbat.
Yom HaShoah is different from biblical Jewish holidays such as Pesach, Sukkot, or Rosh Hashanah. It is a modern Jewish and Israeli memorial day established after the creation of the State of Israel. There are no Torah commandments specifically connected with Yom HaShoah.
In Israel, the day is observed with memorial ceremonies, Holocaust survivor testimonies, Torah and Tehillim in many religious communities, educational programs, and remembrance of individual victims. A two-minute nationwide siren is sounded in the morning. People stop what they are doing and stand silently in memory of those who were murdered.
The day also remembers Jewish resistance and courage. This includes armed resistance such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but also spiritual resistance, maintaining Jewish identity, secretly studying Torah, observing mitzvot when possible, helping others, caring for children, and refusing to allow Nazi persecution to completely destroy Jewish faith and dignity.
From a traditional Jewish perspective, remembering the Shoah is not only about studying history. It is about remembering actual people, communities, families, rabbis, children, and generations of Jewish life that were destroyed. It also reminds us of our responsibility to protect Jewish memory and help ensure that Jewish life continues.
What Does Yom HaShoah Mean?
The word Shoah, שואה, means catastrophe or destruction.
Yom HaShoah literally means “Day of the Holocaust.”
Its fuller Israeli name includes the word gevurah, גבורה, meaning courage, strength, or heroism.
This is important because the day remembers both destruction and resistance.
It remembers Jews who were murdered, but it also remembers those who fought back, protected others, maintained Jewish traditions, or simply struggled to remain human under conditions designed to take away their dignity.
When Is Yom HaShoah Observed?
Yom HaShoah is associated with the 27th day of Nisan.
As with other Jewish dates, the observance begins the evening before and continues through the following day.
Because Shabbat takes priority in Jewish life, Israel sometimes adjusts the public observance when the date would create a conflict with Shabbat.
The date was chosen partly because it falls near the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising while still remaining between Pesach and Yom HaZikaron.
Why the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Is Important
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943.
Jewish resistance fighters fought German forces who entered the ghetto to carry out further deportations and destruction.
The Jewish fighters had very limited weapons and little realistic possibility of defeating the German military.
Yet they resisted.
Their actions became one of the best-known examples of armed Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.
Yom HaShoah therefore remembers not only those who died but also those who resisted persecution.
Jewish Resistance Took Many Forms
Resistance during the Holocaust was not limited to weapons.
For an Orthodox Jewish understanding of the Shoah, spiritual resistance is also important.
Some Jews secretly studied Torah.
Others tried to observe Shabbat or Jewish holidays.
People shared food even when they themselves were starving.
Parents tried to teach their children.
Rabbis answered halachic questions under unimaginable circumstances.
Some Jews preserved siddurim, Torah writings, or religious objects.
Others risked their lives to help another person.
Remaining Jewish when the Nazis were trying to erase Jewish identity could itself become an act of resistance.
The Six Million
Approximately six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.
They included men, women, children, elderly people, rabbis, teachers, workers, doctors, merchants, and people from nearly every part of Jewish society.
Ashkenazi Jewish communities in Europe suffered especially devastating losses.
Entire towns and communities disappeared.
Families that had lived in the same places for hundreds of years were destroyed.
The Holocaust did not only kill individuals.
It destroyed synagogues, yeshivot, schools, libraries, traditions, languages, neighborhoods, and generations of Jewish culture.
Remembering Individuals, Not Only Numbers
The number six million is so large that it can become difficult to comprehend.
Jewish remembrance therefore often focuses on individual names and stories.
Every victim had a name.
Every person belonged to a family.
Someone had parents.
Someone had children.
Someone had dreams.
Someone had a favorite song or food.
Someone was studying Torah.
Someone was preparing for a wedding.
Remembering individual people helps prevent the Shoah from becoming only a number in a history book.
The Opening Ceremony at Yad Vashem
In Israel, the national observance begins with an evening ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Yad Vashem is Israel’s official Holocaust remembrance center.
During the ceremony, six memorial torches are traditionally lit in memory of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered.
Holocaust survivors and their families often participate.
The ceremony includes survivor stories, memorial prayers, speeches, and music.
The atmosphere is serious and respectful.
The Siren in Israel
One of the most powerful moments of Yom HaShoah occurs the following morning.
A two-minute siren sounds throughout Israel.
People stop what they are doing.
Drivers stop their cars.
People may stand beside their vehicles.
Workers stop.
Students stand silently.
For two minutes, much of the country becomes still.
There is no special blessing associated with the siren.
It is a national act of remembrance.
For many Israelis, the silence is one of the most emotional moments of the day.
Schools and Education
Israeli schools devote significant time to Holocaust education.
Students may participate in memorial ceremonies.
They learn about Jewish communities before the Holocaust as well as the persecution that followed.
Students may hear testimonies from Holocaust survivors or their descendants.
Many schools emphasize that Jews should not be remembered only as victims.
They study Jewish culture, family life, religious communities, resistance, and the lives people lived before Nazi persecution.
This helps students understand what was actually lost.
Television, Radio, and Public Life in Israel
Israeli television and radio programming changes significantly during Yom HaShoah.
Documentaries, survivor testimonies, historical programs, and memorial ceremonies are commonly broadcast.
Entertainment programming is greatly reduced.
Places associated mainly with entertainment may close during the memorial period.
The atmosphere throughout the country is noticeably different from an ordinary day.
Memorial Candles
Many families and communities light memorial candles.
A candle can be lit in memory of a particular relative or Holocaust victim.
Some people light one simply in memory of all those who were murdered.
There is no special Torah commandment requiring a Yom HaShoah candle.
It is a memorial custom.
A person may also use the time to learn about the individual whose name they are remembering.
Tehillim — Psalms
Many religious communities recite Tehillim on Yom HaShoah.
Psalms traditionally provide Jewish language for grief, suffering, faith, and hope.
Different communities may choose different chapters.
There is no universally required Yom HaShoah Tehillim service.
Some Orthodox synagogues organize special learning or memorial programs instead.
Kaddish
Kaddish may be recited in memory of Holocaust victims when a proper minyan is present.
This can be especially meaningful for the millions of victims whose relatives were also murdered and who had nobody left to say Kaddish for them.
Some people specifically remember victims whose names or dates of death are known.
Others participate in communal Kaddish for victims who left no surviving family.
El Malei Rachamim
Many memorial services include El Malei Rachamim, the traditional Jewish memorial prayer.
Special versions have been written for Holocaust victims.
The prayer asks HaShem to grant proper rest to the souls of those who died.
It connects modern Holocaust remembrance with traditional Jewish ways of remembering the dead.
The Shema and Jewish Martyrdom
Stories from the Holocaust describe Jews reciting:
שמע ישראל ה׳ אלהינו ה׳ אחד
Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
“Hear, O Israel: HaShem is our God, HaShem is One.”
For generations, the Shema has been associated with Jewish faith even at the moment of death.
Accounts of Jews reciting Shema during the Shoah remain an especially painful and powerful part of Jewish memory.
Kiddush HaShem — קידוש השם
The idea of Kiddush HaShem means sanctifying the Name of HaShem.
Throughout Jewish history, the term has sometimes been connected with Jews who maintained their faith even under persecution.
The Holocaust created situations that are almost impossible for later generations to fully understand.
We should be careful about judging the decisions people made while facing starvation, terror, imprisonment, or death.
Traditional Jewish thought emphasizes compassion for those who lived through conditions beyond ordinary human experience.
Holocaust Survivors
Yom HaShoah also gives special recognition to survivors.
Survivors carried memories that many people could hardly imagine.
Some lost their parents.
Some lost children.
Others lost nearly everyone they knew.
Many rebuilt their lives after the war.
They married.
They created families.
They built communities.
Many came to Israel.
Others rebuilt Jewish life in the United States, Canada, Australia, South America, and elsewhere.
Their rebuilding of Jewish life can itself be understood as a form of victory over those who tried to destroy the Jewish people.
Children of Survivors and Later Generations
The Shoah continues to affect later generations.
Children and grandchildren of survivors often carry family stories and traditions connected with what happened.
Some know exactly where their families came from.
Others know very little because their relatives found the memories too painful to discuss.
As the number of living Holocaust survivors becomes smaller, responsibility for preserving their stories increasingly moves to later generations.
Yad Vashem — יד ושם
Yad Vashem is located in Jerusalem and serves as Israel’s national Holocaust remembrance authority.
Its name comes from Yeshayahu:
יד ושם
Yad vashem.
“A memorial and a name.”
The name reflects an important goal.
The Nazis attempted to erase Jewish people and their identities.
Yad Vashem works to restore names, stories, photographs, documents, and memories.
Its Pages of Testimony have helped preserve information about millions of individual victims.
The Righteous Among the Nations
Yom HaShoah also provides an opportunity to remember non-Jews who risked their lives to rescue Jews.
Yad Vashem recognizes many of these people as Righteous Among the Nations.
Some hid Jewish families.
Others provided false papers.
Some helped Jews escape.
Many faced imprisonment or death if discovered.
Their actions remind us that even during extraordinary evil, individuals still had the ability to choose what was right.
Antisemitism and Yom HaShoah
Yom HaShoah naturally raises questions about antisemitism.
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers.
It developed through years of propaganda, discrimination, conspiracy theories, laws excluding Jews from society, violence, dehumanization, and increasing persecution.
Remembering that progression is important.
It teaches us to take hatred seriously before it becomes normalized.
It also reminds Jewish communities to support people who feel threatened or isolated because they are Jewish.
Is Yom HaShoah a Religious Holiday?
Yom HaShoah is not a Torah festival.
There is no prohibition against working.
There is no special Kiddush.
There is no Torah requirement to fast.
The day was established in the modern State of Israel as a national Jewish memorial day.
This distinguishes it from traditional fast days such as Tisha B’Av or Asarah B’Tevet.
Orthodox Approaches to Yom HaShoah
Orthodox communities do not all approach Yom HaShoah in exactly the same way.
Many Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist communities observe Yom HaShoah with memorial ceremonies, Torah learning, Tehillim, Kaddish, survivor testimony, and educational programs.
They may participate fully in Israel’s national observance while giving it a distinctly Jewish religious character.
Other Orthodox communities, especially some Haredi groups, do not establish a separate religious observance for Yom HaShoah.
They may prefer to remember Holocaust victims on traditional Jewish mourning days such as Tisha B’Av or Asarah B’Tevet.
This difference does not mean the Shoah is considered unimportant.
The disagreement is generally about how Jewish communal mourning should be placed within the traditional religious calendar.
Asarah B’Tevet and Holocaust Remembrance
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel designated Asarah B’Tevet as Yom HaKaddish HaKlali, the General Kaddish Day.
It is especially used to remember Holocaust victims whose exact dates of death are unknown.
For some Orthodox Jews, this traditional fast day provides the main religious framework for Holocaust remembrance.
Others observe both Asarah B’Tevet and Yom HaShoah, but in different ways.
Tisha B’Av and the Shoah
Tisha B’Av has historically served as a day of mourning for many Jewish tragedies.
Some Orthodox communities include Holocaust-related kinot, lamentations, during Tisha B’Av.
This places the Holocaust within the larger history of Jewish exile and persecution.
Again, different Orthodox communities follow different customs.
There is no single universal Orthodox Yom HaShoah service.
Ashkenazi Jews and Yom HaShoah
The Holocaust devastated Ashkenazi Jewish civilization in Europe.
Jewish communities in Poland, Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Greece, France, and many other places suffered catastrophic losses.
For many Ashkenazi families, Yom HaShoah is also deeply personal family history.
People may remember grandparents or great-grandparents.
They may remember entire branches of a family that disappeared.
Some families know the exact towns from which their relatives were deported.
Others know only fragments of the story.
Sephardic Jews and the Holocaust
The Holocaust also affected Sephardic Jewish communities, something that is sometimes overlooked in popular discussions.
Sephardic Jews in Greece, Yugoslavia, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and parts of North Africa were persecuted.
The Jewish community of Thessaloniki, Greece, was especially devastated.
Before the Holocaust, Thessaloniki had one of the world’s great Sephardic Jewish communities.
Most of its Jewish population was deported and murdered.
Many spoke Ladino and maintained traditions dating back to Jews expelled from Spain.
Their destruction was also a major loss to Sephardic Jewish civilization.
Mizrahi Jews and the Holocaust Era
Mizrahi Jewish communities experienced the Holocaust era differently depending upon location.
Some North African Jewish communities came under Nazi or Axis control and experienced forced labor, persecution, confiscation, and internment.
Jews in Libya suffered especially severe persecution, including imprisonment and deportation.
Jews throughout the Middle East were also affected by wartime antisemitism and political movements influenced by Nazi propaganda.
The Holocaust therefore should not be presented only as an event affecting one type of Jew.
It was an attack on the Jewish people.
Remembering Jewish Communities Before the Shoah
Yom HaShoah should not only show photographs of death camps.
It should also remember what existed before them.
There were synagogues filled with prayer.
There were yeshivot.
There were Jewish schools.
There were bakeries and shops.
There were musicians.
There were families having Shabbat dinner.
There were children learning Hebrew.
There were secular Jews and deeply religious Jews.
There were Zionists and Jews with other political views.
There were Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities.
They were living Jewish lives.
Remembering that life helps us understand the true scale of what was destroyed.
The State of Israel and Yom HaShoah
Yom HaShoah has a particularly strong meaning in Israel.
Only a few years after the Holocaust, the modern State of Israel was established.
Hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors eventually made Israel their home.
For many Israelis, the existence of a Jewish state capable of protecting Jewish life became deeply connected with the lessons of the Shoah.
At the same time, Yom HaShoah is primarily a day of remembrance rather than political celebration.
The focus remains upon those who were murdered and those who survived.
Teaching Children About the Shoah
Children should learn about the Holocaust in ways appropriate to their age.
Young children do not need graphic descriptions of atrocities.
They can begin by learning about Jewish families who lived before the war, the importance of treating people with dignity, and why we remember those who were lost.
As children grow older, they can learn more detailed history.
The goal should be understanding and remembrance rather than frightening children unnecessarily.
Jewish children should know the Shoah happened, but they should also know that Jewish history did not end there.
Jewish Life After the Shoah
Perhaps one of the most important responses to the Holocaust is that Jewish life continued.
Synagogues were rebuilt.
Families were created.
Children were born.
Torah was studied again.
Yeshivot reopened.
Jewish communities developed in Israel and throughout the world.
Hebrew became the everyday language of millions of Jews in Israel.
The Jewish people continued.
Every Jewish child born after the Shoah represents something the Nazis tried to prevent.
What Can We Do on Yom HaShoah?
There is no single required form of observance, but there are many meaningful ways to remember.
Attend a memorial ceremony.
Listen to survivor testimony.
Light a memorial candle.
Read the name and story of one victim.
Say Tehillim.
Study Torah in someone’s memory.
Give tzedakah.
Visit Yad Vashem or another Holocaust museum.
Talk with older relatives about your family’s history.
Teach children about a Jewish community that existed before the Shoah.
The most important thing is to remember people rather than only statistics.
Yom HaShoah for Someone New to Jewish Community
Someone does not need extensive Jewish education to participate in Yom HaShoah.
Come to a memorial program.
Stand with the community.
Listen.
Ask questions.
Learn one person’s name.
Learn about one Jewish town that disappeared.
If you have family connections to the Holocaust, begin recording what your relatives know.
If you do not have family connections, you can still help carry someone else’s memory.
Remembering the Shoah belongs to all of Am Yisrael.
A Tevel Zion Lesson From Yom HaShoah
Yom HaShoah reminds us what can happen when Jewish people are isolated, dehumanized, and treated as though their lives have less value.
Our response cannot only be to remember death.
We must also strengthen Jewish life.
Some Jews today feel alone.
Some hide their Jewish identity because they are afraid.
Others live far from a Jewish community.
Some do not know how to enter a synagogue or believe they will be judged because they are not observant enough.
We should remember that rebuilding Jewish community is also an act of remembrance.
Invite someone.
Teach someone a little Torah.
Help a Jew who is afraid.
Listen to someone’s family story.
Say Kaddish for a person who has nobody left to say it.
Learn the name of one child who was murdered and refuse to let that child become only part of the number six million.
The people murdered in the Shoah came from many backgrounds. Some were Orthodox. Others were secular. Some were Ashkenazi, while others were Sephardic. They disagreed about many things.
But the Nazis saw them all as Jews.
Our response should include remembering that we are also one people.
The Shoah teaches us what hatred can destroy.
Jewish community teaches us what we can rebuild.
When we learn Torah, perform mitzvot, care for one another, preserve Jewish memory, and help another Jew feel that they belong, we are helping Jewish life continue.
That continuation is one of the strongest answers we can give to those who tried to erase us.
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