Queens Jewish Center marked the solemnness of Israel’s Memorial Day with tempered joy for Israel’s Independence Day, hosting about 70 people on April 30.
Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, Professor of Jewish History and Jewish Thought at Yeshiva University, served as the keynote speaker. His father, Rabbi Hershel Schacter, was the first Jewish chaplain to enter a liberated concentration camp.
On April 11, 1945, Rabbi Hershel Schacter asked a 17-year-old survivor of Buchenwald what he needed. The boy answered: Tefillin. Not food, not clothing—Tefillin. Just a month earlier, the Nazis had found and confiscated his Tefillin, with severe consequences. Rabbi Schacter gave the young man his own.
This story, said Rabbi JJ Schacter, reflects three types of Holocaust survivors and their relationships to Judaism. Without judgment, he explained: the first group chose to disconnect. “After what they went through, they decided they were no longer going to be connected—not with G-d, not with Torah, not with the Jewish people. They were done.”
The second group were the 150,000 survivors who were among the 600,000 Jews living in Israel when independence was declared. “They decided they were going to go to Israel. They were going to create families, get married, have children, and build the State. The State stands on the effort of so many survivors who saw a future and said, ‘I’m not done.’” They saw the eternity of the Jewish people not in the diaspora, but in Israel. “Such faith, such strength, such power,” said Rabbi Schacter.
The third group is represented by the boy who asked for Tefillin. “It’s not enough to just go and be a Zionist—though that is amazing,” Rabbi Schacter said. “It has to be predicated on the Tefillin, on Bubbe’s Shabbos candles, on Zeide’s Tefillin. This is the kind of Israel we want.”
Rabbi Schacter spoke about the vision of dry bones in the Book of Yechezkel, which is read at the end of Pesach. The bones come together—first sinews, then veins, arteries, and flesh. “It is symbolic, a representative model of the coming to life of the destroyed Jewish people. The Gemara wants to know the next step.”
Comparing this to Holocaust survivors, he continued: “The first group said they were done. ‘I’m out of here.’ The second group got married and had children in Israel. Amazing. But the blessing of the State of Israel is not just a state—I don’t mean to minimize it for a second—but a State of Israel based on traditional values that are so critically essential.”
Rabbi Schacter posed a central question: How do we go from Yom HaShoah one week, to Yom HaZikaron, and then to the celebration of Yom HaAtzmaut? How do we hold both truths at once? “By knowing we are on the road—appreciating what we have, but also continuing on the road toward complete redemption.”
Rabbi Judah Kerbel of Queens Jewish Center led the evening program. “Nearly 1,200 people were savagely murdered by Hamas terrorists; 800 of them civilians. Since October 7, about 850 soldiers have died defending Eretz HaKodesh. Israel has not seen casualties like this since the Yom Kippur War, about 50½ years ago. There have been 79 terror victims in the past year.”
Why do we observe Israel’s Memorial Day right before the joy of Independence Day? Why does the Pesach Seder begin with a retelling of suffering before celebrating freedom? “Our gratitude and appreciation is much stronger when we understand what once was and how far we’ve come,” said Rabbi Kerbel.
“Everything we have comes on the backs of the Chayalim who gave their lives to create a better and stronger Jewish future.”
Rabbi Kerbel quoted Midrash Tehillim: “So the L-rd said to Israel: If you see that troubles are covering you at that time, you will be redeemed. As it is said, ‘The L-rd will answer you on a day of trouble; He will shelter you with the shelter of Jacob.’”
Two poems were read: “It’s Only by Chance,” for the hostages, and “A Silver Platter” by Natan Alterman—a 1947 poem about how Jews would not receive a state on a silver platter.
A video of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s Yom HaAtzmaut message was shown: “We’ve seen in this difficult time how much we in Israel and the global Jewish communities draw from one another. How deep and unshakable our bonds are against any wave of hatred and evil.”
Two Mi Shebeirach prayers—one for the Israeli army and one for the hostages—were led by Rabbi Elisha Friedman of the Young Israel of Forest Hills.
Two Kel Maleh Rachamim prayers were recited by Rabbi Yossi Mendelson of Congregation Machane Chodosh: one for all who fell in battle “to rebuild our homeland,” and the second—written by IDF Chief Cantor Shai Abramson—in memory of those murdered on October 7, 2023.
Tehillim 121 and 142 were recited by Rabbi David Algaze of Congregation Havurat Yisrael.
A full musical Hallel, without a brachah, was led by Queens Jewish Center’s Senior Gabbai, Herbert Schonhaut. The evening concluded with the singing of “Ani Maamin,” led by Rabbi Kerbel.
By David Schneier
