Yom HaShoah: Why Israel remembers the Holocaust on a different day

When does Yom HaShoah occur?

According to the Hebrew calendar, Yom HaShoah begins on the 27th day of the month of Nisan at sunset, and ends on the evening of the following day, in accordance with the Jewish custom of marking a single day. According to the Torah, the first part of the Jewish Bible, Nisan is the first month of the Jewish calendar and coincides with the months of March and April on the Gregorian calendar. In Israel, Yom HaShoah is remembered during a state ceremony conducted at the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, held on the evening of the 27th day of the month of Nisan.

How is the Yom HaShoah remembered?

According to the Yad Vashem, every year the President of the State of Israel, Reuven Rivlin, and the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, both participate in the ceremony, where six torches represent the six million victims of the Holocaust are remembered. The torches are lit by survivors of the Holocaust and related short films are also played on large screens.

This year, however, Yad Vashem stated that due to the outbreak of COVID-19, some changes have been made for public health and safety as required by the country’s health ministry. The ceremony that will be publicly broadcast on television, radio and online, was pre-recorded with messages from the nation’s leaders and includes stories of six survivors of the Holocaust, along with messages from the Chief Rabbis and a cantor.

Liberated children at the concentration camp at Auschwitz, Poland, 1945. (Photo credit: Soviet Army photographer/Yad Vashem archives)

On the following morning, a public siren across the country brings everything to a halt for two minutes, during which all work is paused and a people stand in solemn silence in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. Following the sounding of the siren, cars suddenly come to halt as do people in public places. After the end of the silence, a wreath is laid at Yad Vashem. Flags of the State of Israel on public buildings are also flown at half-mast on this day. This year, however, there will be no public ceremonies due to the coronavirus outbreak.

How did Israel’s founders determine a date to remember Yom HaShoah?

In 1959, the Knesset, Israel’s legislative body, passed a law officially establishing Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Memorial Day in law. It also authorised various official ceremonies throughout the country as well as a nationwide public siren followed by two minutes of silence. A few years prior to this, in 1953, the Knesset had passed a law for the creation of Yad Vashem, that became the country’s official monument in remembrance of the six million victims of the Holocaust, in the outskirts of Jerusalem.

That is not to say that the Holocaust had not been remembered prior to the establishment of the Yad Vashem and the official designated date for the Yom HaShoah. The first Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel occured on December 28, 1949, approximately 18 months after the State of Israel was established on May 14, 1948. The decision to mark the first remembrance day in December 1949 occurred after the Chief Rabbinate of Israel decided to hold the ceremony on the tenth day of Tevet, a day of fasting and mourning in the Hebrew calendar. On that day, the ashes and remains of thousands of Jews who had been massacred in the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp near Munich, were brought to Israel and buried in a cemetery in Jerusalem.

The following year in December, more remains of Holocaust victims and objects like desecrated Torah scrolls were brought from across Europe to Israel and interred in ceremonies organised by the Rabbinate, the Israel Defence Forces and other organisations. The Knesset had a limited role in these ceremonies in 1950.

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In March 1951, the Knesset began discussing proposed dates for an official day of remembrance for the Yom HaShoah, the three of which were 10 Tevet; Passover; and September 1, the date on which the Second World War started. Within weeks, in April, the Knesset finally decided on the 27th day of Nissan, a week after Passover. In many ways, the remembrance of Yom HaShoah is more ceremonial than religious.

Since 1959, when the Knesset officially established the Yom HaShoah in law, entertainment in public places like cinema halls and theaters have been banned on this day. In 1961, laws were amended to include closures of cafes, restaurants and clubs on the 27th day of Nissan.