Frozen in place like Lot’s wife, all of Israel came to a halt for two full minutes on Thursday morning, May 2, 2019. We’re talking cars, buses, taxis, trains and pedestrians- nothing moved. Precisely at 10:00 AM, a siren sounded for two minutes, as all of Israel remembered the friends, family members and strangers who lost their lives during the Holocaust.
I witnessed this amazing phenomenon from my balcony in central Jerusalem. Still a bit on edge from the IDF airshow a couple of days before, the alarm startled me, to the degree that I was sure this was an air raid signal. Frantically, I tried to recall if my friend, from whom I am subletting this flat, had given me any instructions as to where the nearest bomb shelter was located. I am not ignorant to the fact that I am living in a war zone, and that an outbreak of some type of military activity was a real possibility. Perhaps even a probability. Several months ago, my friend Andrea was prompted to leave her house in southeast Jerusalem, and go to a bomb shelter, due to a military aggression of some sort.
With the siren blaring, and all of this playing in my mind, I rushed out to the balcony. Two of my neighbors across the narrow street, the elderly woman with whom I have exchanged greetings in my limited Hebrew, and an older gentleman in the adjacent flat whom I had not seen before, were standing motionless outside their respective front doors. The man looked up at my “mah zeh??” (what is this?). Pointing to the sky, he put a finger to his lips, indicating silence. Feeling exponentially foolish, I immediately recalled that today was Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I was simply hearing the siren calling the two minutes of silence. I motioned to him that I understood, and then my attention was drawn to several more people standing in the street below. One was headed north and one south, but at this moment they were mannequin-like. I was reminded of a game we played as children- it may have been called red light, green light- where you stopped and started on command. I am a bit ashamed to admit my journalistic appetite was whetted, and as unobtrusively as possible, I filmed a short video of what I was witnessing. I sincerely meant no disrespect. Rather, I felt this event was something that my American readers needed to be aware of. Understand, Israel is roughly the same size in land mass and population of New Jersey. Try to get New Jersey to stand still for two minutes… I rest my case, Your Honor.
Notice the two people in the street. They remained motionless for the entire two minutes. When the siren stopped, they carried on walking as if nothing had transpired.
The Holocaust
Approximately six million European Jews were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1945. The genocide accounted for roughly 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe. Although the Holocaust is a vivid and horrific memory, the bloodshed and slaughter did not stop with the Jewish population. Hitler’s Nazi regime considered many other non-Jewish groups to be socio-racial problems, as well. The mentally and physically disabled were sterilized and murdered, homosexuals were stripped of their civil rights and imprisoned, many of them perishing. The Catholic Church itself was a target, and thousands of priests and clergy were imprisoned and murdered. Hundreds of thousands of “gypsies”, a nomadic people called Roma or Sinti were exterminated due to their mixed blood lines. Conservative estimates place the total non-Jew death toll at approximately 350,000.
FL HB 741
The passing of FL HB 741 aligned almost perfectly with Holocaust Remembrance Day this year. Coincidence?
A bill mandating that discrimination against Jewish people be treated the same as acts of racial discrimination in public schools was passed unanimously by the Florida Senate on April 29, 2019. HB 741, prohibiting anti-Semitism in Florida’s public schools and universities, has been sent to Republican Governor Ron DeSantis for signature. Also unanimously adopted on April 11, 2019, by the Florida House, the bill defines anti-Semitism, and includes: the expression of hatred for Jews; calling for killing or harming of a Jewish person; criticizing the collective power of a Jewish community; or accusing Jewish people or Israel of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
Link to history of HB 741 in the House and Senate: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2019/741
And from the newspaper israel today…
The Holocaust as a Reminder of Our Enemy’s Defeat
Thursday, May 02, 2019 | Ryan Jones
As our day-to-day life came to a brief, but total halt this morning during the two-minute siren calling upon us to remember the six million who perished in the Nazi Holocaust, it got me thinking about how that dark chapter was such an utter defeat, not for the Jewish people, but for the enemies of Israel.
Yes, the Jewish people suffered an unfathomable tragedy, and one that would have debilitated most other nations. But, as I sat in the park yesterday evening with my children, surrounded by hundreds of other Israeli families who were also there to participate in a ceremony marking the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day, I realized something.
We are just 75 years after a nearly-successful attempt to wipe out most of the world’s Jewish population. And yet, the nation of Israel has never been stronger, more successful or more influential on the world stage than it is today.
The Nazis (and the bigger Enemy that stood behind them and all those who previously tried to annihilate Israel) succeeded in snuffing out six million individual Jewish lights. In their place arose in the form of the reborn State of Israel a beacon of light visible around the globe. The Enemy lost. Israel and the Jewish people are more at the forefront than ever before.
It sounds unprecedented, unbelievable, absurd even!
The prophet Isaiah thought as much when he first heard about what would happen thousands of years before it occurred:
“Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall a land be born in one day? Shall a nation be brought forth in one moment? For as soon as Zion was in labor she brought forth her children” (Isaiah 66:8).
And yet, here we are.
Thanks for the recap. Spent many years reading Shoah stories…..just could not wrap my head around any of it….