Yizkor

[magid]

Yizkor is a memorial service, said during holiday prayers (same word root, z-ch-r as the word for "remember") just after Torah reading.

There is a fairly wide-spread custom for people who have no (first degree) people to remember (parents, siblings, children) go out; my father specifically requested that I not attend this service until I need to, so I don't. Of course, a lot of people take this opportunity to chat, and usually are still close enough to the main shul that the noise can be heard, which I always feel badly about. A lot of people who don't come to services a lot of the time make a special effort to come for this, and they hear happy people jabbering outside. (Of course, it would make far too much sense for people to go into another room, or something...).

Anyway. Last year, with 9/11 events so recent, and suicide bombings so frequent in Israel, R. Klapper did something different, having the people who left say a prayer for people (there's more in my paper journal; don't feel like digging it up).
This year, he lead people in a prayer for the MIA Israeli soldiers, then in a prayer mourning all the Israelis killed in the last year. He said that he tried to read a list of all those killed by name, but in an hour, he couldn't finish all the names. He mentioned a few, in the minutes we had until yizkor was over in the main shul, and it was so sad to hear. There were people with the same last names - parent and child? spouses? - and one just "unnamed baby" [last name], killed before even getting a name.

Of course, this reflects his politics, and wouldn't be done in the same way in a bunch of places, but I like that he's taken this time that could just be people starting the year's lashon hara ("evil speech;" 'Did you see what she's wearing?' 'Did you hear what he did?' etc etc etc) while interrupting others into a moment with meaning.
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Comments

[cellio]

Until recently, our rabbi always read some names from the Shoah at our Yom Kippur yizkor service. This year he read some of the names of those killed in Israel in the last year. (I think he did that last year too.) A change for this year is that he printed out the full list (names, ages, cities, and sometimes where killed), made copies, and inserted one page into each copy of the memorial book that was handed out. So no one got the whole list (which would have been expensive to copy), but everyone got a subset to contemplate along with their own dead, and in addition to what was read from the bimah.

Yom Ha-Shoah

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think I'm glad our rabbi doesn't include Shoah victims in this (this is outside the main service; I've never stayed for Yizkor, so I don't know what they do in there). There's a day for remembering the Shoah, and there are prayers said remembering the victims on Tisha B'Av (the other major fast day; a day of mourning our losses through the years) (at least in my shul), and I guess I think that it's enough. Some of this feeling is from what seems to becoming a major industry of Shoah museums and memorials. I don't understand why so many places in the U.S. need them, and, frankly, I wish that the limited $ available would be used for something more positive and forward-looking. I mean, we already have a Holocaust Museum in D.C., more monuments than we can shake a stick at, and I'd like there to be something else unaffiliated Jews can relate to.

[Steps back. Oops, this turned into a rant. Not directed at you; a particular peeve of mine...]

Uh, as I was saying. I think I prefer to leave the Shoah out of Yom Kippur in any formal way.

Re: Yom Ha-Shoah

[cellio]

It's your journal; you can rant if you want to. :-)

I get uncomfortable with all the Shoah stuff, too. If half the money used to build museums and memorials were instead put into Israel, for example, we could be making a real impact on current victims of hatred instead of building yet more monuments for past victims. Of course it's important, but it's not as if we've ignored the Shoah.

But sometimes I feel, I don't know, guilty perhaps, that I don't place more importance on the Shoah, and I wonder if I'm being insensitive and self-centered. (I certainly don't mean to be.) "Should" I feel differently? I don't know.

Re: Yom Ha-Shoah

[magid.livejournal.com]

I think there's already too much emphasis placed on the Shoah. Yes, it was recent, enough so that people who survived it are still around and able to tell of the horribleness. However, it seems to have developed into an industry; I'd rather have some positive things to point to as well when discussing Jewish history/life/whatever with someone who doesn't have much knowledge. I don't like how this increases the tendency to think of ourselves as always a victim.

(I see we agree. I just wanted you to know I wasn't ranting at you....)