Yom Hashoah Sunday 4/11 is Holocaust Remembrance Day

It is worth remembering that “Holocaust” is not a historical term, nor a synonym for genocide.

     ¹ And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. ² And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. Gen 22:1 paraphrase 

A holocaust is a religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire. The word derives from the Ancient Greek holocaustos (ὁλόκαυστος = ὁλον [wholly] + καυστος burnt), which is used solely for one of the major forms of sacrifice. When the Tanakh was translated into Greek, the translators used the term for a similar ritual among the Jews.

This Sunday remember the 6 million Jews.

This Sunday remember the 5 million Christians.

This Sunday remember the tens of millions more striped of family.

This Sunday remember the perpetrators.

• The clerks and soldiers,
• The knowing and the willfully un-knowing, and
• Remember to own the role of the clergy and the church who had preached Pogrom in Eastern Europe for a thousand years before Hitler was born.

Remember that this was not the act of demons or aliens, but men and women, each one, each day making a moral choice to participate.

Remember that it didn’t end in 1945. It continues to this day.

Remember.

Because as soon as we forget, we will be reminded.