Yom HaShoah Services at St. James
Radbam March 26th, 2009
The Catholic Northwest Progress had an excellent article about the upcoming Interfaith Holocaust Commemoration being held at St. James Cathedral in Seattle on Thursday, April 16th at 7:00 pm. The Interfaith Yom HaShoah Holocaust remembrance service is an event that I and Temple De Hirsch Sinai have been involved with for many years. It is wonderful partnering with other faith communities in the greater Seattle area, including St. James and the Seattle Archdiocese, Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry, St. Marks Episcopal Cathedral, and The Alfred and Tillie Shemanski Institute for Christian and Jewish Understanding, to remember the victims of the Holocaust. It is always a powerful interfaith event that brings our disparate communities together for a common purpose. Please come if you can.
Here is the article (click here for the link to the article on The Catholic Northwest Progress):
| AROUND THE ARCHDIOCESE | THE CATHOLIC NORTHWEST PROGRESS |
| MARCH 19, 2009 |
Cathedral to host interfaith Holocaust commemoration
Six survivors will take part in ceremony, which will call people of all faiths to vigilance against current genocides
SEATTLE
BY KEVIN BIRNBAUM
|
Rabbi Daniel Weiner (right) of Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle takes part in the 2007 interfaith Holocaust commemoration at St. James Cathedral in Seattle. This year’s event will take place Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m. File Photo: PhotoByMike.com |
On Thursday, April 16, St. James Cathedral will host an interfaith event in remembrance of the Holocaust. The event, called Yom HaShoah, or Remembering the Holocaust, will commemorate the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust and call people
of all faiths to be vigilant in opposing present and future genocides.
The event is sponsored by the Shemanski Foundation, Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry and St. James Cathedral.
It will begin with a reading of Psalm 23 in English and Hebrew and readings of testimonies from Holocaust survivors and liberators. Six Holocaust survivors will light candles representing the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust, while those
gathered pledge, “We will not forget. We will not forget!”
The event was last held at St. James Cathedral in 2007. Last year St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle hosted the event.
“When it’s here at St. James, we have a Christian confession as part of it, based on what (Pope) John Paul II did in 2000, where he just expressed the sorrow of the church for either the inaction or the complicity in various aspects of anti-Semitism
through the years,” said Corinna Laughlin, pastoral associate for liturgy at the cathedral.
Then Rabbi Daniel Weiner of Temple De Hirsch Sinai in Seattle will lead the Mourner’s Kaddish in Hebrew. Youth choirs of both Jews and Catholics will provide music for the event.
‘Not just a Jewish issue’
Observing Yom HaShoah is common in Jewish communities, said Rabbi Weiner, but “having this event in a church, with a focus more on the non-Jewish community as opposed to the Jewish community, I think is a very powerful experience and a very powerful sign that
this is not just a Jewish issue, that this is a human issue.”
The archbishop’s delegate for ecumenism, Sister Joyce Cox of the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, said the event has a dual purpose.
“The commemoration is primarily to keep alive what happened to the Jewish people,” she said, “but it’s also to awaken reverence and respect for human life,” especially in light of recent genocides in Bosnia, Darfur and Rwanda.
“The commemoration is meant to touch the lives of Christians,” she said. “It’s meant to touch us with the reality of what happened, and what shouldn’t happen again.”
Rabbi Weiner said the 2007 event at the cathedral was “pretty incredible,” and that the highlight was to have the six survivors present to light the candles.
“And to have that happen within a symbol of institutional Catholicism, especially in light of some less pleasant parts of our Jewish-Catholic history, I think is just an incredible gesture and incredible sign of the evolution of our world
and of our faith communities and of the relationship between Jews and Catholics,” he said.
It is important for Jews and non-Jews alike to remember the Holocaust, said Rabbi Weiner, and not to forget the lessons it teaches us about ourselves.
“One is just the capacity for human beings to engage in that kind of evil,” he said. “We see that again and again, and we’re seeing that currently in Darfur, among other places.”
We also “need to be vigilant about our potential for apathy,” he said.
| YOM HASHOAH
What: An interfaith event commemorating the Holocaust When: Thursday, April 16 at 7 p.m. Where: St. James Cathedral, 804 Ninth Ave., Seattle |
TOTAL DEATHS FROM NAZI GENOCIDAL POLICIES
(Source: The Holocaust Chronicle; courtesy of Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center, |
