Yom HaShoah 2023 – April 17 at 7:00 pm
MLRT will be joined by members of the Kehillah of Lower Merion for our annual communal observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Our commemoration will feature the lighting of the six-branched candelabrum by Holocaust survivors and the family members of survivors, in memory of the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. The service will include liturgy and music led by the clergy from MLRT and Kehillah of Lower Merion, musical performances by the combined choirs, and a thoughtful and moving presentation by author Isabel Vincent.
Join us in person at MLRT or online via mlrt.org/livestream
Isabel Vincent is an investigative reporter who has broken stories on Chinese police operations in New York City and Black Lives Matter’s financial dealings. A graduate of the University of Toronto, she is also the author of seven non-fiction books and began her career at Canada’s Globe and Mail. Among her first assignments was covering the last days of drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in Medellin when she was Latin America Bureau Chief. Serving as a foreign correspondent, she covered conflicts in Kosovo for the Globe and Mail, and the war in Angola for the Nationa Post and the Globe and Mail. Since 2008 she has been an investigative reporter for New York Post, covering New York City and corruption.
In 2021, Vincent published Two Against Hitler: The True Story of Two Courageous Sisters, a Rescue Mission in the Third Reich, and Opera, about the Cook sisters, Ida and Louise, the latter better known as romance writer Mary Burchell, who helped Jews escape Nazi-era Germany, with the possible covert assistance of the British government.
Yom HaShoah, also known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, occurs on the 27th of the Hebrew month of Nisan. Shoah, which means “catastrophe” or “utter destruction” in Hebrew, refers to the atrocities that were committed against the Jewish people during World War II. In addition to the six million Jews who died – two-thirds of the European Jewish population – the Nazis also killed millions of others, including Roma and Slavs, political and religious dissidents, the disabled, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Today, many commemorate Yom HaShoah by lighting yellow candles to keep memories of the victims alive. (The Men of Reform Judaism co-sponsors a yellow candle program). To schedule a time to pick up a yellow candle to light at home, please email Laurie Silverman at lsilverman@mlrt.org or call the office at 610-649-7800.
