Shalom chaverim
As we finish the 2 days of Yom Tov for Pesach followed by Shabbat, our attention comes to finalising the arrangements for this year’s next Yomim: Yom HaShoah, Yom HaZikaron, and Yom Ha’atzmaut.
Under normal circumstances, we would be gathering together to commemorate and celebrate these three events, but as we all know, this year is different from all other years! However, we are not letting these three important events in the modern Jewish calendar go by without any acknowledgement and the virtual coming together as a community. In fact, the silver lining in the current situation is that this year we can truly be national and include the Jewish community throughout New Zealand.
In order to do this, we have created three Facebook pages which we will use to commemorate and celebrate these events. These can be found below:
Yom HaShoah (Monday 20 April) – click here.
Yom HaZikaron (Monday 27 April) – click here.
Yom Ha’atzmaut (Tuesday 28 April) click here.
We would like everyone to participate in the above in some simple ways:
Yom HaShoah
If you have a yahrzeit candle or a tea light, or something similar, please can you light one on the evening of Yom HaShoah and dedicate it to the memory of a family member or members who were murdered in the Shoah.
If you are not aware of any family members, we ask you to light a memorial candle in memory of a victim of the Shoah so that their names can be remembered. The link below is to the Yad VaShem list of victims of the Shoah. Please choose an individual or individuals from one of the lists in the link, stating the following when lighting your memorial candle:
- Name of person(s)
- Where they were born
- Where they were murdered
- Their age at their death
The link to the Yad VaShem website is https://www.yadvashem.org/downloads.html#name-reading-ceremonies.
Yom HaZikaron
As with Yom HaShoah, we are asking that you light a memorial candle (eg yahrzeit candle or a tea light) in remembrance of a family member, friend or fellow soldier who may have served in your unit and to upload a photo or video of you lighting the candle to the Yom HaZikaron Facebook page in their honour.
If you do not know anyone, or do not wish to light on behalf of an individual, please feel free to either light a candle in honour of all fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism, or you could perhaps search the internet and find a person(s) who you would like to light a memorial candle for.
We would also ask that if you have a Facebook account that you like the following page Not Just Names – ?? ?? ???? where you can also search for names of people to remember.
Yom Ha’atzmaut
Let’s go wild and celebrate!!!!
Please upload any videos, music or pictures you have celebrating Israel and its achievements. These can be personal videos and photos, or ones you like from online. If you have decorated your home or made some decorations for Yom Ha’atzmaut, it would be great to see those as well.
We would also like to ask that you post a video sending Israel your love on the 72nd anniversary of her re-birth!
For all three Yoms, feel free to post anything else you may come across that is relevant to the particular Yom, for example, prayers, readings, songs etc.
All posts will need to be approved by the moderators to ensure the online Tkasim (services) remain appropriate for the particular event and audience who will be joining us.
Please also feel free to pass on this message or the links to anyone who you think would like to join us, whether they be in New Zealand or elsewhere in the world.
And finally, we wish you all Chug Pesach Sameach.
Stay safe, and we look forward to you joining us for the above three events.
The ZFNZ Executive
