New Jersey Jewish News
Monmouth County Feature

Community Yom HaShoa observance eyes ‘strength in numbers’

by Jill Huber
NJJN Bureau Chief/Monmouth

Members of Monmouth County’s Jewish community will come together as never before to observe Yom HaShoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The community-wide observance will take place Monday, April 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Ruth Hyman Jewish Community Center in Deal.

Although area synagogues and Jewish organizations have long acknowledged Yom HaShoa in individual ways, this year marks the first time many have come together in a group effort to commemorate the event.

“There is strength in numbers,” said Rabbi Gordon Yaffe, religious leader of Temple Beth El in Oakhurst. “Coming together in this way is a very meaningful way for the Jewish community to show and express solidarity on this occasion. The nature of Yom HaShoa lends itself to the notions of sharing and common recognition.”

The event is sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Monmouth County, the Ruth Hyman JCC, the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, and nine county synagogues: Temple Beth El; Congregation B’nai Israel, Rumson; Congregation Kol Am, Freehold; Monmouth Reform Temple, Tinton Falls; Temple Beth Ahm and Temple Shalom, Aberdeen; Temple Beth Miriam, Elberon; Temple Rodeph Torah, Marlboro; and Temple Shaari Emeth, Manalapan.

Last November, Yaffe met with representatives of area synagogues and Jewish groups to propose the idea of a community-wide Holocaust Remembrance Day observance; the idea took hold and was subsequently presented to the federation by Yaffe and Dale Daniels, executive director of the BCC Holocaust center.

“Several years ago, our strategic plan stressed that we should be involved in community-wide events,” said federation executive director Howard Gases. “I endorse this project and am proud to be a part of it.”

Representatives of the participating groups will conduct a memorial service and candle-lighting ceremony in memory of the six million Holocaust victims.

Many in the Monmouth Jewish community feel the joint effort will add an extra dimension to the Yom HaShoa observance.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, members of the participating synagogues will join together to perform a choral rendition of “Ani Ma’amin” (“I Believe”), a song that became central to the lives of concentration camp inmates, Yaffe said.

“So many of them sang that song as they struggled to survive,” he explained. “The song states that even though the Messiah may tarry, he will still come. And they continued to believe this, in spite of everything they had to endure.”

The responsibility to bear witness to their struggle has fallen upon a new generation, said Rabbi Sally Priesand of Monmouth Reform Temple.

“This community Yom HaShoa observance provides the opportunity to hear Holocaust survivors share their experiences in a very personal way,” said Priesand. “Now that the survivors have grown older, it has become our responsibility to record their stories so they will never be forgotten. ‘Remember’ is one of the most oft-mentioned commandments in the Torah.”

Comment | Print | Subscribe