Remembering

Newsletter May 6, 2024 Together, we're #keepingitsacred...

There was a park in my old neighborhood in West Hollywood- a Los Angeles city known for its fabulous queer community and its traditional Russian Jewish immigrant community. It was the perfect place for me to call home. 

In the center of the park, between the personal trainers working out chiseled 20-something’s and the chess games played by exuberant octogenarians, was a modest memorial dedicated to those who perished in the Holocaust. It had a simple onyx stone with the word,“zachor/ remember” engraved in it. An understated piece, with much power and resonance.

Sometimes, the light would reflect off of my face, in just such a way that I would catch my own reflection in the face of that stone. And, I would think of many generations that experienced that kind of mortal fear, that kind of hate, and the exile associated with it.

I would think about my own grandmother, Kit, who escaped the pogroms in her small town in Russia, being hidden in a pillowcase, and smuggled across the Polish border, eventually landing in Canada, and then California. I would think about my step-grandmother who was deported to Auschwitz, forced to make weapons for the Nazis, and eventually was liberated first to Columbia, and then to California. 

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to consider the atrocities of genocide. But this year feels different. This year we are not dressed up in a fancy service lighting six candles or even 11 in community, one candle for each of the millions of people murdered in just a few short years. This year we sit with our own feelings about what it means to bear the weight of this kind of history. What it means to live in constant fear, and what it means to be a survivor.

The most importantly, I consider what kind of responsibility is placed upon my shoulders that this type of genocide never happens again. To ensure people are not hated simply because of who they were born to or where they were born. To the universal truth of love, and the moral obligation to ensure that everyone has what they need so that they have the best chance to fulfill their personal best.

How has Holocaust Remembrance Day changed for you this year? What are you thinking about? And what will you dedicate yourself to in loving memory of the millions who perished and the millions more affected by the disappearance and death of their loved ones?

These are the questions that help us keep it sacred.

Together, we’re #keepingitsacred...

Rabbi Heather Miller

Founder, Keeping It Sacred

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Thanks for your interest, and thanks for #keepingitsacred...