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Holocaust Remembered
"We owe it to all those who perished and those who survived to 'gedenk.... remember'," declared Yigal Kornblum, President of Congregation Beth Tikvah at last Wednesday’s Yom Hashoah Holocaust Memorial Service at Young Israel of Canarsie. The annual memorial service for the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust brought not only tears of sadness from the scores of Canarsiens in attendance, but words of caution and of great hope. "Those who fail to remember history suffer to repeat it" noted Assemblyman Frank Seddio in his remarks to fellow Canarsiens. In a quote from the Haggadah, Rabbi Melvin Burg, Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of Flatbush, stated, " In every generation there are those who seek to do us in. We are here as living proof that we (the Jewish people) will persevere." Rabbi Burg, in remembering the young and old alike who were butchered asked that "the martyrs who sanctified the name of God in the camps, gas chambers and ghettos" live on in our memories. "If we could ask the six million for their final request," continued Rabbi Burg, "it would most certainly be the continuation of the Jewish people. The proper way for us to memorialize them would be to fulfill their request. Live, pray and study as Jews, live a Jewish life according to the dictates of the Torah" Following opening remarks by Young Israel of Canarsie’s own Rabbi Boruch Leibowitz, in which he shared a bit of his family’s horrific experience of the Holocaust, the evening’s program featured a presentation by guest speaker Rabbi Burg, solemn readings by students of Yeshiva R’tzahd, a performance by the Children’s Choir of Yeshiva Aterez Yisroel and a candle lighting ceremony to honor the memory of those who perished. Before the Molaih (memorial prayer) was sung by Rabbi Norman Zdanowitz and the mourners Kaddish led by Bela Hevasi, Rabbi Myron Rakowitz of the Sephardic Temple of Canarsie, with the assistance of young Elie Aharon lit and held high a candle to celebrate the anniversary of Israel’s independence and to symbolize that the children are the hope of the survival of the Jewish people... the "light of the future". In reflecting on the horrors faced by the Jewish people in the past and those they face in parts of the world today, Rabbi Rakowitz declared, "Perhaps even more today than when Rabbi Kahane was alive — NEVER AGAIN!
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