Subject
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Proclamation Declaring April 23-24, 2025, as Yom HaShoah in Rockville, Maryland (CM Shaw)
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Department
City Clerk/Director of Council Operations Office
Recommendation
Staff recommends the Mayor and Council read and approve this proclamation, and present it to Josh Bender, Chief Executive Officer, Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington.
Discussion
On Yom HaShoah, we solemnly remember the six million Jews and the millions of others murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
This year, Yom HaShoah is observed from sundown on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, through sundown on Thursday, April 24, 2025.
On this day, we honor the memory of the millions of individuals - the mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, friends, and neighbors - who lost their lives during a time of unparalleled depravity and inhumanity. We reaffirm our ongoing responsibility as citizens and a nation to live out the admonition “Never forget. Never again.” And we commit ourselves to preserving the memories of those who lived the horrors of the Shoah (from the Hebrew word meaning whirlwind) so that their experiences are not forgotten by our generation or by our children or grandchildren. We also honor those who survived the Holocaust, many of them spared from death because of the righteous individuals who risked their lives to save Jews and other victims from Nazi persecution.
Yom HaShoah was established in Israel in 1959. It falls on the 27th day in the Jewish month of Nissan, a date chosen because it is the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Yom HaShoah is officially known as Yom Hazikaron L'shoah U'l'gevurah (Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day). Yom HaShoah ceremonies include the lighting of candles for Holocaust victims and listening to the stories of survivors. Religious ceremonies include prayers such as Kaddish for the dead and the El Moleh Rahamin, a memorial prayer.
In Israel, Yom HaShoah is one of the most solemn days of the year. It begins at sunset on the 27th of Nissan and ends, like all traditional Jewish special days, the following evening. During Yom HaShoah, memorial events are held throughout the country with national ceremonies being held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Yad Vashem is the Jewish people's memorial to those murdered in the Holocaust. Sirens sound across Israel at 10:00 a.m. and a moment of silence is observed. Ceremonies and services are held at schools, military bases, various Holocaust commemorative and educational institutions across Israel, and other public institutions and community organizations.
This year marks the 36th anniversary of the global Shoah memorial initiative “Unto Every Person There Is A Name.” We are liable to lose sight of the fact that each life that was brutally ended belonged to an individual, a human being endowed with feelings, thoughts, ideas, and dreams whose entire world was destroyed, and whose future was erased.
Mayor and Council History
The Mayor and Council have recognized and proclaimed Yom HaShoah annually.