Daftar Hotel - As the Passover holiday draws to an end, the Jewish community will now turn its attention to the next Jewish day of remembrance. Holocaust Remembrance Day falls this year on April 11, the Julian calendar date that corresponds to the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan. This specific date was selected by the Israeli Knesset for an annual, internationally recognized day of remembrance in tribute to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that took place in the spring of 1943.
Hotel di Medan The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on the eve of Passover when the Nazis stormed the Polish ghetto with the intention of liquidating it. The roughly 55,000 Jews still clinging to life inside the ghetto managed to keep the Nazis at bay for more than a month.
Although their uprising ultimately failed, it became a rallying cry of hope, symbolizing a desperate bid for liberation by hundreds of thousands of European Jews trapped behind ghetto brick and death camp wire.
It is more than fitting then that Holocaust Remembrance Day follows so closely on the heels of Passover, the ancient spring festival that also remembers desperate times and celebrates victory over oppression.
Specifically, Passover commemorates the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery and their exodus from Egypt 3,300 years ago. The holiday begins each year with a Seder, a festive meal that incorporates many rituals and many symbolic foods.
These foods include hard boiled eggs representing the circle of life, bitter herbs representing the drudgery of slavery, and green vegetables representing the promise of spring. Matzah, the emblematic food of Passover, represents the unleavened bread that the Hebrew slaves hastily made before fleeing Egypt.
The main purpose of the Seder is to retell the story of the Exodus and to remind those gathered that "slaves we were to Pharaoh in Egypt and God brought us out from there."
This Exodus narrative is explicitly laid out in the Haggadah, the liturgical text derived from rabbinical teachings and Torah and used as a guide to the Seder meal.
"Reading the story anew each year in the Passover Haggadah inevitably calls to mind the whole sweep of Jewish history," writes American historian Jonathan D. Sarna in his book A Time to Every Purpose. "Anyone who has ever moved from being unfree to being free can understand what Passover means."
Since publication of the first Haggadah in Guadalajara, Spain, in 1482, the text has undergone hundreds of revisions and adaptations, most of them reflecting different denominational, historical, philosophical and political perspectives. There are now Haggadot that expand the Exodus narrative to include discussions of the civil rights movement, women's liberation, the genocide in Darfur, gay and lesbian inclusiveness, vegetarianism, the Mideast conflict and the Holocaust, its martyrs and survivors.
One of these survivors, Lithuanian Hebrew teacher Yosef Sheinson, created his own illustrated Haggadah while interned in a displaced persons camp in Munich following the war. A Survivor's Haggadah parallels the story of the Exodus with the story of the Holocaust but does so in a way that emphasizes differences in the experiences rather than any similarities. While the traditional Haggadah praises God for his salvation and compassion, Sheinson's Haggadah censures God for his lack of both.
Juxtapositioning the Exodus with Holocaust events like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has generated intense debate for decades. Whether they are viewed as similar or disparate experiences, or as proof or a lack thereof of God's existence, they are each defining moments in the history of the Jewish people.
Both the Exodus and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Jonathan Sarna writes, "reflect the quest for a better life, a better world, and a better tomorrow."
Both Passover and Holocaust Remembrance Day reflect the universal quest for freedom.
schisvin@hotmail.com
Although their uprising ultimately failed, it became a rallying cry of hope, symbolizing a desperate bid for liberation by hundreds of thousands of European Jews trapped behind ghetto brick and death camp wire.
It is more than fitting then that Holocaust Remembrance Day follows so closely on the heels of Passover, the ancient spring festival that also remembers desperate times and celebrates victory over oppression.
Specifically, Passover commemorates the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery and their exodus from Egypt 3,300 years ago. The holiday begins each year with a Seder, a festive meal that incorporates many rituals and many symbolic foods.
These foods include hard boiled eggs representing the circle of life, bitter herbs representing the drudgery of slavery, and green vegetables representing the promise of spring. Matzah, the emblematic food of Passover, represents the unleavened bread that the Hebrew slaves hastily made before fleeing Egypt.
The main purpose of the Seder is to retell the story of the Exodus and to remind those gathered that "slaves we were to Pharaoh in Egypt and God brought us out from there."
This Exodus narrative is explicitly laid out in the Haggadah, the liturgical text derived from rabbinical teachings and Torah and used as a guide to the Seder meal.
"Reading the story anew each year in the Passover Haggadah inevitably calls to mind the whole sweep of Jewish history," writes American historian Jonathan D. Sarna in his book A Time to Every Purpose. "Anyone who has ever moved from being unfree to being free can understand what Passover means."
Since publication of the first Haggadah in Guadalajara, Spain, in 1482, the text has undergone hundreds of revisions and adaptations, most of them reflecting different denominational, historical, philosophical and political perspectives. There are now Haggadot that expand the Exodus narrative to include discussions of the civil rights movement, women's liberation, the genocide in Darfur, gay and lesbian inclusiveness, vegetarianism, the Mideast conflict and the Holocaust, its martyrs and survivors.
One of these survivors, Lithuanian Hebrew teacher Yosef Sheinson, created his own illustrated Haggadah while interned in a displaced persons camp in Munich following the war. A Survivor's Haggadah parallels the story of the Exodus with the story of the Holocaust but does so in a way that emphasizes differences in the experiences rather than any similarities. While the traditional Haggadah praises God for his salvation and compassion, Sheinson's Haggadah censures God for his lack of both.
Juxtapositioning the Exodus with Holocaust events like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has generated intense debate for decades. Whether they are viewed as similar or disparate experiences, or as proof or a lack thereof of God's existence, they are each defining moments in the history of the Jewish people.
Both the Exodus and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Jonathan Sarna writes, "reflect the quest for a better life, a better world, and a better tomorrow."
Both Passover and Holocaust Remembrance Day reflect the universal quest for freedom.
schisvin@hotmail.com
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