Israel’s Days Of Remembrance From A Biblical Perspective

Introduction

Israel observes two Memorial Days. ‘Yom HaShoah’, which is Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day and is observed exactly one week before ‘Yom Hazikaron’, Israel’s Memorial Day. The latter commemorates our soldiers who fell in defense of Israel along with the victims of terrorism since 1860. Yom HaShoah remembers the six million Jews who perished in Europe during WW II. There is a strong tendency to stop remembering WW II, and especially the horrors endured by the Jewish people. Some people ask the following question: “Why do the Jews want to remember those terrible days of Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Mathausen, and Sobibor?”

Not To Forget

The most important reason to remember, for ourselves and for future generations, is in order not to forget what happened in those camps where Jews were considered less than human beings.

In the song “The Way We Were”, Barbara Streisand sings: 

With these words, Barbara Streisand captures the essence and importance of our memories, while then asking if we’d do it all over again. Could we?

Israel’s Days of Remembrance

Israel has a strong sense of the importance to remember. Both of Israel’s Days of Remembrance feel somewhat sacred, as the radio only plays sentimental Israeli songs, kids wear a white shirt to school ceremonies, and learn about the painful parts of their history in an honorable way. People stop their cars at the sound of the memorial siren, get out, and stand quietly by the side of the road. We want to remember the innocent victims. 

Personal Memories

Memories also play an important role in my personal life. When I was 13 years old, all the boys in my neighborhood were the children of Holocaust survivors. One of the boys found out how to make tattoos with a sewing needle and Indian ink. Almost all of the boys in the neighborhood sat on a cement bench at the entrance to Camp Allenby on Hebron Road, Jerusalem.That day, we made ourselves a tattoo with the Star of David on the middle of our left arm. We did so, because most of our parents had numbers tattooed on their arms due to the Nazi regime. I still have my tattoo on my arm. As kids, we just wanted to identify with our family, never forget where our families came from and the hell they endured before arriving in the land that God gave our forefathers.

Between Bulgaria And Jerusalem

After landing south of Haifa on the ship Pan York in 1947, my father told Teddy Kollek, “Are we in Israel now?” Teddy Kollek answered “Yes, you are in Pardes Hannah”. My father said: “We are not yet in Israel! Jerusalem is Israel.” Jerusalem is the only place my dad considered Israel.

I was raised on these stories and on what the Bulgarian Jews endured during the German occupation of Bulgaria. Yes, the Bulgarian Jews did not go to extermination camps, and they never left the borders of Bulgaria. However, the Bulgarian Jews did go to labor camps. My mother, grandmother, sister, and uncle were all in labor camps in Bulgaria. They never forgot it and always traveled with the yellow Star of David in their bags. They remembered and never wanted to forget. My mother’s handbag also always had the little red book and the yellow Star of David with her.

Biblical Command To Remember

Throughout the Bible, God commands us to not forget certain historical events that could’ve brought the end of the Israelite nation, nor to forget His deliverance from these horrific predicaments. In God’s Word, remembrance is a big topic. God remembers, and we’re commanded to remember, too. I’d like to point out a few passages from God’s Word about remembrance and draw some conclusions in the end.

God Remembered Noah

I consider this verse, which is the first verse in which the word ‘remember’ appears in the Bible, as one of the first demonstrations of God’s grace and concern for the human race! God remembered Noah, the one person that saved eight souls from a sure death during the flood. Now because God remembered Noah, God caused the waters of the flood to subside.

Remembering Egypt

We’re commanded to remember the Exodus from Egypt,

Passover is one holiday that almost all Jews, no matter how secular they might be, still mention and keep. And why so? Because the commandment to pass on this memory has been kept so diligently throughout generations. 

Remembering: Shabbat

The Lord God, Creator of the Universe, commanded man to sanctify the seventh day as an act of creation itself. This command is already in the first verses of the Book of Genesis, and given to all mankind at creation, and can also be found in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah.

Remembering The Covenant

God will remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob:

The purpose of remembering this covenant with our forefathers is to be their God.

Remembering: His Commandments

The following text connects seeing tassels on the corner of one’s clothing to serve as a reminder to keep God’s commandment:

Remembering: Cruel Enemy

Deuteronomy 25:17-19 relates to the importance of remembering, and is perhaps the most relevant to Israel’s Days of Remembrance as Amalek represents the archetype of evil who is out to hurt the weakest of society:

God commands that Israel should never forget what Amalek did during their desert journey. The 40 years in the wilderness were hard enough. Along came the Amalekites, an ancient Biblical nation without a homeland, that wandered through the Middle East with great cruelty, and harassed, killed, pillaged, and raped as a way of life. For this reason, God made this one-of-a-kind command in the entire Bible, to remember the Amalekites and their cruel deeds, along with the command to completely blot them out.

Remembering: God Is Faithfull

especially like this verse in Isaiah,

God wants Israel to remember the promises He made to Jacob and Israel, and to know that Israel won’t be forgotten by Him. Israel answers in a very typical Israeli way, “Of course we are Your people!”

225 Reminders

The word ‘remember’ appears 225 times in the Bible. The few verses mentioned above are enough to show the great importance of remembering, both for people and for God. You might ask yourself, “how can God remember so much for so many years of so many people from so many nations?” The amount of data that He has to remember is so great. We aren’t talking of trillions multiplied by trillions and multiplied again by trillions… Let’s trust that God remembers you and knows all your deeds, and even all the words that you’ve spoken, for good and for bad.

We remember those who killed, burned, mutilated, and tortured in the basements of the Gestapo, in the halls of Catholic churches during the Inquisition in Europe, in the pogroms of Ukraine, and the death camps of Europe. We also remember more than 25,000 Jews who fell  to preserve our God given land to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s seed forever.

Let’s remember that God doesn’t forget the good, the bad, nor the neutral when the books are open and the Son of Man will be seated in judgment of all flesh for all of history.