In remembrance of the 6 million Jewish victims who were killed during the Holocaust, Congregation Beth Shalom’s Men’s Club hosted a film screening and memorial lighting ceremony on Sunday morning.
Every year on Yom HaShoah, the congregation’s Men’s Club organizes a community event to memorialize those who were killed and continue telling and teaching their stories.
“Yom HaShoah is the remembrance of the Holocaust. As Jews, it’s important for us to remember those events like the Holocaust that have happened in our history,” said Mark Oknyansky, the congregation’s Men’s Club president. “They obviously have deep impact on our civilization and culture. This is the time of the year that we talk about it, reflect on it and the importance of remembering things like this is to prevent them from happening again.”
Oknyansky said in the past they had opportunities to invite Holocaust survivors to speak to attendees and answer the younger generation’s questions about the events they lived through.
However, with it almost being 100 years since the Holocaust, he said it is getting more difficult to bring them to speak to the younger generation, so this year they chose to show the film “Paper Clips.”
“A group of Holocaust survivors came and talked to the kids and told them their stories. and they raised some great points once those eyewitnesses die out, and unfortunately, we’re a decade short of 100 years from the Holocaust,” said Oknyansky. “At a certain point, it is just going to be textbooks, and they don’t have the same impact as hearing somebody who, as a youth, went through it. So, movies like this where they depict the actual survivor telling their story are really going to be the only way we’re going to be able to teach the youth.”
Oknyansky added that Yom HaShoah is a day that helps them start having the conversation with the younger generation so they understand what the Holocaust was and how it shaped their community and create a space where the kids can ask questions and reflect on the conversations.
After the film, the kids were able to tell Oknyansky and Rabbi Jay Siegel what they took away from the film. Several of the kids made comments that it made the proud to be Jewish and how they were touched that communities take the time to learn or help their community.
Siegel began the memorial lighting ceremony by explaining why they are burning seven candles this year instead of six.
He invited first-generation Holocaust survivors to light the candles and explained that six candles are lit to represent the 6 million Jewish victims, and this year they added a seventh candle to remember the Jewish lives lost in the Israel-Hamas war.
After the ceremony, Siegel said it was their responsibility to continuously teach the next generations what happened to their community and how it shapes them.
“That’s the beauty of the Jewish tradition,” said Seigel. “It finds ways to make relevant something that does seem very far away. And that’s part of what this ceremony is about, is to bring to proximity closer to us the important ideals and memories of what occurred and how we can continue to educate and mourn with and memorialize with our newest members, our youngest generation.”
