With physical distancing requirements during the current pandemic, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, will be observed virtually this year. A short service created by the Oregon Board of Rabbis began at 7pm, April 20. To view our Yom HaShoah virtual service, visit this link.
Every year on Yom HaShoah, the Day of Remembrance, communities around the world uphold the memory of victims of the Holocaust through Unto Every Person There Is a Name, a public recitation of Holocaust victims’ names, ages and birthplaces. On Tuesday, April 21 the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education will once again sponsor The Reading of the Names – though in recognition of the COVID-19 health crisis, this year the reading will be virtual.
OJMCHE is creating a video for this year’s Reading of the Names, normally held at Pioneer Courthouse Square. View the video here on our Youtube.
The readings are from lists of names provided by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Research Center. Unto Every Person There Is a Name seeks to defy indifference and historical revisionism, which denies that the Holocaust ever happened, by personalizing the individual tragedy of the dead and the survivors,” explains OJMCHE Executive Director Judy Margles. “Furthermore, keeping the memory of the victims alive fulfills one of the vital tenets of our collective experience – zachor – to remember.”