Who are you thinking of this Yom HaShoah?
LBC Students, Volunteers, Staff and Faculty share their reflections on who they’ve been thinking of this Yom HaShoah.
“Sometimes I think that when we remember people from the Shoah, we only remember the past. We remember who they were and the lives that they lived, and sometimes we don’t think enough about the lives that they might have lived if they had survived.” – Reflected Rabbi Professor Deborah Kahn-Harris in our video commemorating Yom HaShoah.
In her reflection, Isi Genn-Bash, LBC’s Academic Coordinator, shared who she thought of this Yom HaShoah:
“Anniversaries serve a purpose. We stop and think, we remember. It’s hard to forget but we don’t always have time to remember, to focus, to feel. Remembering helps put life into perspective, whether it’s a person or an event. Or in the case of Yom HaShoah it’s both – the event of the Holocaust and the fact that it took place at all and the life of every single person affected. Things didn’t go our way last week for my family and it might mean an upheaval of our current living situation, at quite a rapid pace, in order to make life better for our 4 year old. It was infuriating, upsetting and felt unjust. “It’s not fair! We did everything right!” I found myself crying and shouting to my husband, my friends, just into the void. I think this needs a little perspective. We are incredibly fortunate and must see how much is at our disposal to make things better. This Yom HaShoah I will be remembering all those children who didn’t get a chance for a better life. Children who didn’t just need their parents to work out which area in a 5 mile radius would be best, and work out where they would thrive and get the best education possible. Those children whose parents just wanted to keep them safe, whose very being was seen as less than. They deserved the opportunity to be disappointed by the mundane frustrations of life. The things that mean we care, the things that make us feel alive, that make us fight, but really, the things that we can briefly set down and pick up again the next day after a decent night’s sleep. Those children deserved the opportunities from which they were robbed. They deserved to live to fight each other in the playground the next day, to forget to do their homework, and drive their parents mad with the word “why”. As adults, as parents, fight for the ones we love, fight for justice, fight for what is right and fair, and this year I will be remembering those who were too young to have to worry about things like that.”
Watch the video in which other LBC Students, Volunteers and Staff share who they though of this Yom HaShoah: