ARE WORDS ENOUGH

  The world is in turmoil. The evils of the past, never having been destroyed, have returned, resurfaced from their hidey holes.

This week is a special one for Jewry as we commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, those killed in Israel, victims of hate once again, thousands gone, targeted because they are Jews and demand the right to live safely in their own tiny homeland. 

 Finally, we celebrate the founding of the State of Israel, a modern resurrection of the ancient kingdom of Israel. It is a spit in the face to those who demand our death, laud the extermination process of Hitler and his henchmen, and women, Germans and their collaborators in the lands of the Holocaust, including those in European captive nations and those of North Africa captive nations. 

As we mourn, remember, and celebrate, we experience the growing, threatening tide of violent antisemitism, the growth of antisemitic conspiracy theories, vicious social media tropes and memes, and openness and even approval of this malady of humankind. It finds acceptance and espousal by public figures.

There are no words capable to fully explain the depth of the fear, the anguish, the torment. Through the millennia. The memories hurt, deep into our souls, but we must always remember, for in forgetting there is only more pain, blood and death to follow. We have special prayers, we cry and vow to fight, to never again allow this to be replicated.

We mourn the dead of our families and our nation, our people, all victims of the Holocaust, Jews and non Jews alike. We tell family stories that have been passed down, told to the young in the camps and ghettoes, hoping they would survive and tell the world, teach the world, of a world destroyed.

 Yet despite all attempts otherwise - 

WE. ARE. HERE. And Here we remain.

Read the English version of the Hymn of the Partisans, written by a young man in the Vilna Ghetto, who knew he was to die, yet dug deep within to write this song of sadness, of hope, of defiance, of eternity. Its Yiddish original wording is powerful, but for the sake of understanding, here are the words in English. Following that is the short version in English of the Kel Maleh Rachamim, a prayer to the One who is filled with mercy, to keep the victims, the dead, the slaughtered, safe within His embrace.

We are reminded of the words of the Haggadah, the service read at the seders of Passover.

"In every generation there arises an enemy who wishes to destroy us."
 "But the Blessed Holy One always and forever will save us, rescue us from their hands.

"The Jewish Partisan’s Song, Zog Nit Keinmol, is one of the most powerful songs ever written.  

Zog Nit Keinmol is considered one of the main Yiddish anthems of the Holocaust. It was sung in the ghettoes, later by Holocaust survivors and at Holocaust memorials all over the world. The lyrics of the song were written by Hirsch Glick in 1943. He was a young Jew in the Vilna Ghetto. During World War II, the song was sung by Jewish resistance fighters. It was a symbol of resistance for the Jews in their fight against the Nazis

Here is a translation of the song:

Never say this is the end of the road.
Wherever a drop of our blood falls, our courage will grow anew.
Our triumph will come and our resounding footsteps will proclaim: We are here!

From the land of palm trees to the far off land of snow,
we shall be coming with our torment and our woe.
And everywhere our blood has sunk into the earth, our bravery and vigor will blossom forth!

We’ll have the morning sun to set our days aglow.
Our evil yesterdays will vanish with the foe.
But if time is long before the sun appears, let this song go like a signal through the years.

This song was written with our blood and not with lead.
It’s not a song that summer birds sing overhead.
It was a people amidst burning barricades that sang the song of ours with pistols and grenades.

So never say you go on your last way.
Though darkened skies may now conceal the blue of the day.
Because the hour for which we hungered is so near.
Beneath our feet the earth shall thunder: We are here!"

El Maleh Rachamim (G-d full of compassion)

The prayer for the dead of the Holocaust, the Shoah.

O G-d Who art full of compassion, Who dwellest on high, grant perfect rest in Thy Divine Presence to all the souls of our holy and pure brethren whose blood was spilt by the murderers in Auschwitz, Belzec, Bergen Belsen, Dachau, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka and other extermination camps in Europe and North Africa; who were killed, strangled, burned and buried alive for the sanctification of Thy Name. For whose souls we now pray. May their resting place be in the Garden of Eden, may the Master of Mercy shelter them in the shadow of His wings for eternity; and may He bind their souls in the Bind of Life.         

Hashem is their heritage, and may they repose in peace in their resting places.               

Now let us say:  Amen."

HEAL THE WORLD.

HEAL YITZY!

Yitzchak Elimelech ben Chana Sarah

May he be granted refuah shelaymah bimheyrah beyameinu. 

May he be granted a timely and complete healing.

May Hashem hear all our voices raised in prayer. 

Amen. Amen.