The Jewish Community Council of Victoria will present the Yom Hashoah – Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust observance at the Robert Blackwood Hall, Clayton Campus on the evening of April 20th, 2020.
Yom Hashoah 2020
27th of Nisan, 5780
Begins Monday evening April 20, 2020 – Erev Yom Hashoah – Continues Tuesday April 21, 2020
Yom Hashoah 2020 begins on Monday evening April 20 and continues through Tuesday April 21.
The internationally–recognized date comes from the Hebrew calendar and corresponds to the 27th day of Nisan. That is the date on which Israel commemorates the victims of the Holocaust.
In Hebrew, Holocaust Remembrance Day is called Yom Hashoah.
When the actual date of Yom Hashoah falls on a Friday the state of Israel, following Knesset legislation, observes Yom Hashoah on the preceding Thursday.
Establishment of the Holiday
The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah”— in Hebrew literally translated as the “Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” It is marked on the 27th day in the month of Nisan — a week after the end of the Passover holiday and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers). It marks the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The date was selected in a resolution passed by Israel’s Parliament, the Knesset, on April 12, 1951. Although the date was established by the Israeli government, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide. The day’s official name – Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day – was made formal in a law enacted by the Knesset on August 19, 1953; on March 4, 1959, the Knesset passed another law which determined that tribute to victims of the Holocaust and ghetto uprisings be paid in public observances.
Yom HaShoah in Israel
In the early 1950s, Israeli education about the Holocaust (Hebrew: Ha-Shoah, The Catastrophe) emphasized the suffering inflicted on millions of European Jews by the Nazis. Surveys conducted in the late 1950s indicated that young Israelis did not sympathize with the victims of the Holocaust, since they believed that European Jews were “led like sheep for slaughter.” The Israeli educational curriculum began to shift the emphasis to documenting how Jews resisted their Nazi tormentors through “passive resistance” — retaining their human dignity in the most unbearable conditions — and by “active resistance,” fighting the Nazis in the ghettos and joining underground partisans who fought the Third Reich in its occupied countries.
Since the early 1960’s, the sound of a siren on Yom Hashoah stops traffic and pedestrians throughout the State of Israel for two minutes of silent devotion. The siren blows at sundown and once again at 11:00 A.M. on this date. All radio and television programs during this day are connected in one way or another with the Jewish destiny in World War II, including personal interviews with survivors. Even the musical programs are adapted to the atmosphere of Yom HaShoah. There is no public entertainment on Yom HaShoah, as theaters, cinemas, pubs, and other public venues are closed throughout Israel.
Many ultra-Orthodox rabbis do not endorse this memorial day, though most of them have not formally rejected it either. There is no change in the daily religious services in some Orthodox synagogues on Yom HaShoah though the Orthodox Rabbinate of Israel attempted to promote the Tenth of Tevet — a traditional fast day commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem in ancient times — as the “General Kaddish Day” in which Jews should recite the memorial prayer and light candles in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust. Several ultra-Orthodox rabbis have recommended adding piyyutim (religious poems) that were written by contemporary rabbis to the liturgy of the Ninth of Av, and many communities follow this custom. Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor of the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, has also suggested moving Holocaust commemorations to Tisha b’Av, because that is the day in which Judaism ritualizes its most horrible destructions.
Yom Hashoah Commemoration
Presented by: Jewish Community Council of Victoria
Robert Blackwood Hall 49 Scenic Boulevard, Monash Uni, Clayton
Jewish Day of Remembrance – 2020 Yom Hashoah Commemoration
Time: 7:30pm Sharp
Ticket Prices
Standard: $20.00
Concession*: $12.00
Youth Movement: $5.00
*Students, Seniors and Pensioners are eligible for Concession.
No Exchanges/ No Refunds
For WHEELCHAIR/ACCESSIBILITY seating, please contact the MAPA Box Office on 9905 1111.
Children
Children aged two years and under are complimentary and do not require a ticket when NOT occupying a seat
Running Time
Approximately one hour and thirty minutes
Bookings: Online at Monash University
