Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

Israel's observance of Yom Hashoah veHaGevurah (that is, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day) begins this evening, April 23.

Heroism, you ask? Yes, absolutely.

Israel's Knesset chose this date, in the week after the Passover holiday, to commemorate the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. That uprising began on the first night of Passover in 1943, and it is powerfully connected to Passover's freedom. And it was the date when the Nazis began to complete the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto's Jews by sending them to the gas chambers.

Knowing that they could not defeat the German army, the heroic fighters nonetheless chose to go down fighting. And they held off the Nazis for weeks, from April 19 to May 16.

Germany had been one of the most advanced societies in the world before the war: scientifically, in the arts and culture, and more. And then it descended into barbarism.

Resistance to the Nazis took many forms, and this is recognized in Israel's observance, both marking the destruction of Europe's Jews - fully one-third of all Jews on the planet before the war - and the heroism of those who understood deeply what freedom means.

Israel was not created because of the Holocaust. Israel has been the Jewish homeland for thousands of years. Its creation in 1948 was in part a response to the Holocaust: the Jewish people needed their own state where they could defend themselves and thrive.

May the memory of all who were murdered be a blessing. And may we all today remember not only those who were killed, but also how easy it is for society to descend into barbarism if good people do not stand up for the truth.