The Shoah is the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, and the full name of Yom Hashoah VeHagevurah literally means the “day of remembrance of the Catastrophe and the Heroism.”
How much do you know about Yom HaShoah, and what happens on this day? What’s the difference between Yom HaShaoah and the United Nations’ International Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Alice Henry draws on her family’s experience of the Holocaust, and her own experience as an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, to share about Yom HaShoah, historic and current antisemitism, Jewish holidays, and much more in this episode of Changing Lenses.
Bonus: stay with us to the end for a special Yom HaShoah memorial service.
Link to episode transcript here.
As a racialized, recovering recruiter, I'm here to help! Click the link to learn more: 👉🏻"Support for JEDI Visionaries"👈🏻
Find more support and resources, and contact me directly at: https://www.changinglenses.ca/
About Alice Henry:
Alice is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman whose grandfather escaped from Nazi Germany and eventually immigrated to the U.S. She’s personally experienced antisemitism throughout her life, and felt compelled to share her story and speak out about Yom HoShoah and Jewish inclusion more publicly.
In her day job, Alice is a researcher, facilitator, and program coordinator with expertise in zero waste and the circular economy, as well as collaborative decision-making. She is excited to support innovators, public institutions, and our communities as we rethink how our systems can work and how our economies can better support all peoples and our planet.
Find Alice on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-henry-43206012b/
Yom HaShoah in Israel – everything stops including highway traffic: https://youtu.be/4uK5uz7d-Oo
Info about Yom HaShoah:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day/
https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/commemorate/jewish-holidays/yom-hashoah/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yom-ha-shoah-holocaust-memorial-day
The Mourner’s Kaddish: https://sharonmemorial.com/customs-and-traditions/the-mourners-kaddish/
Info about the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day: https://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance
👉🏼 Buy me a Bubble Tea! 🧉
The Shoah is the Hebrew term for the Holocaust, and the full name of Yom Hashoah VeHagevurah literally means the “day of remembrance of the Catastrophe and the Heroism.”
How much do you know about Yom HaShoah, and what happens on this day? What’s the difference between Yom HaShaoah and the United Nations’ International Holocaust Remembrance Day?
Alice Henry draws on her family’s experience of the Holocaust, and her own experience as an Ashkenazi Jewish woman, to share about Yom HaShoah, historic and current antisemitism, Jewish holidays, and much more in this episode of Changing Lenses.
Bonus: stay with us to the end for a special Yom HaShoah memorial service.
Link to episode transcript here.
As a racialized, recovering recruiter, I'm here to help! Click the link to learn more: 👉🏻"Support for JEDI Visionaries"👈🏻
Find more support and resources, and contact me directly at: https://www.changinglenses.ca/
About Alice Henry:
Alice is an Ashkenazi Jewish woman whose grandfather escaped from Nazi Germany and eventually immigrated to the U.S. She’s personally experienced antisemitism throughout her life, and felt compelled to share her story and speak out about Yom HoShoah and Jewish inclusion more publicly.
In her day job, Alice is a researcher, facilitator, and program coordinator with expertise in zero waste and the circular economy, as well as collaborative decision-making. She is excited to support innovators, public institutions, and our communities as we rethink how our systems can work and how our economies can better support all peoples and our planet.
Find Alice on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-henry-43206012b/
Yom HaShoah in Israel – everything stops including highway traffic: https://youtu.be/4uK5uz7d-Oo
Info about Yom HaShoah:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/yom-hashoah-holocaust-memorial-day/
https://www.shiva.com/learning-center/commemorate/jewish-holidays/yom-hashoah/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yom-ha-shoah-holocaust-memorial-day
The Mourner’s Kaddish: https://sharonmemorial.com/customs-and-traditions/the-mourners-kaddish/
Info about the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day: https://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance
👉🏼 Buy me a Bubble Tea! 🧉
[intro music begins]
Rosie: Welcome JEDI friend. In today's episode, we honor the beauty and meaning of Judaism by learning some of its traditions, beliefs, and values. This episode will be both celebratory and solemn as the history and faith of Jewish people can't be shared without also remembering the persecution they've endured from thousands of years ago up until today. So friend, please be aware that we will be discussing topics that may be triggering or traumatic for you like the Holocaust. And do you take care of yourself, stop listening at any time if you feel the need. Or make sure that you have supportive people with you as you listen. And it is fitting that this episode is being released on Yom HaShoah, which translates in the full name as The Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and the Heroism. If you're not Jewish, did you know about Yom HaShoah? I'm not Jewish and I had never heard of it before. And yet I live in a country where every November 11th on our Remembrance Day, we take time to remember soldiers who died, fighting a war where over 6 million Jews were killed.
So if we want to change our community to be more just, equitable, decolonized and inclusive JEDI, for short, it's important that we learn about events and milestones that are important to the people of various faiths, cultures and ethnicities in our community. Now I've shared in previous podcast episodes and in my newsletter about why companies should give paid time off on top of Christian and other statutory holidays to be inclusive of people who have additional days that they want to honor.
It is also important to face the uncomfortable, but true reality that antisemitism didn't end in 1945 with World War II. There have been plenty of recent examples to showcase that as we're going to learn today, in today's episode. And like other forms of racism, unless you've educated yourself on this, you probably don't realize how antisemitism shows up in our society today. Whoopi Goldberg's comments on The View a few months ago is a prominent example of misguided understanding.
I hope that by learning from people like Alice Henry, our special guest today, we will begin to recognize the truth of the North American Jewish experience through the perspective of a Jewish woman.
Yes, that includes racism. And it's also about appreciating the wonder and power behind Jewish holidays and events and giving Jewish people the time and space they want to truly celebrate them. My name is Rosie Yeung, and I welcome you as the host of Changing Lenses. I'm recording this on the traditional territory of many nations, Indigenous to Turtle Island, including the initial the heroine when dot the Confederacy and the Mississaugas of the Credit. My mission is to help people with privilege dismantle systemic inequity while helping people without privilege survive it. Among the many identities I hold. I'm a Christian. And today I am learning alongside you as Alice shares her experience as an Ashkenazi Jewish woman living in the US and Canada. I met Alice through our shared passion for social justice and the circular economy. She's the program manager at Share Reuse Repair Initiative, which takes action for climate change by focusing on reducing overall supplies and goods. But today, our whole focus is on the Jewish faith and people and seeing through the eyes of Alice as an Ashkenazi Jewish woman.
So, Alice, I welcome and honor you for joining us today and knowing the painful topics we're going to discuss. I am holding the space for you with love and respect. And committing to you to be fully present, listening with an open heart. Alice, thank you for being here.
[intro music ends]
Alice: Thank you for having me to talk about this topic and something I did want to bring up before we get into all of this is that debate is a Jewish value. It's a very inherent part of Jewish culture. And so I'm definitely speaking from a lot from my personal sort of views and where I stand on these issues now, it's not where I've always stood. Jewish people are not a monolith. On top of that, I'm an Ashkenazi Jew, which while we're very much represented within sort of North American culture, there are also Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews. So Ashkenazi Jews in many cases would pass for white whereas Mizrahi Jews are really from the SWANA. Region. So Southwest Asian, North Africa region, and would not necessarily show up in the world as white. I think it's important to state that I also pass through the world not just as a Jewish woman, but an Ashkenazi Jewish woman and as such have different traditions than some other Jews. And don't necessarily face all the same circumstances.
Rosie: So many questions can come from that. And I think what you said actually is a really great. Not just a great start, but also a good reminder that first of all, I'm certainly here learning and I hope anyone listening is learning, but this isn't to replace anybody's work. That part of the work of equity and inclusion is to do your own learning, to understand and to grow in awareness. So this is not, you know, the encyclopedia of oh, after you listened to 40 minutes of this, you'll know all about it. So thank you for setting that stage. And just a reminder of, in any group, there is diversity and that you're here representing your views and a perspective that many of us don't share, but you don't speak for all Jewish people.
And I'm sure not all Ashkenazi Jewish people. So even using that as a starting point, I never thought about what the different groups of Jewish people are. There's certain movies that I think I know that the term Hasidic Jew only from movies. I don't really know what that means. So what is, um, I guess the, what is the Ashkenazi Jewish group and what are the different groups you've mentioned?
Alice: Yeah. So where I might start with is what unites all Jews and the way that I've come to understand it is the Jewish people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the region now known as Israel, Palestine, but essentially Indigenous peoples that originated in the kingdoms of Israel and Judea historically, um, we were not the only indigenous people in that region. We were one of the Indigenous peoples in that region, similar to in the lands that we're both joining from today in what people currently call Canada. I would not refer to all Indigenous people here as Inuit. The Inuit are one Indigenous people of Canada. And similarly I wouldn't call all First Nations the you know, Squamish nation.
These are all different nations and similarly Jews were one Indigenous people. But through thousands of years of persecution, exile and diaspora, we've ended up in a lot of different places. And so Ashkenazi Jews are primarily those Jews that ended up in Europe. Sephardic Jews were those that ended up in the Iberian peninsula. So that area of Spain, Portugal, more sort of Mediterranean region. Greece as well. And then Mizrahi Jews are those that are, as I said before, were largely in the SWANA region, so Southwest Asia, North Africa. And so those are the three main groups. There are also many others there's Beta Israel, which are Ethiopian Jews. There are the Cochin Jews in India, Kaifeng Jews in China. Thousands of years of history and lots of different points of exile in that history. We end up in a lot of places.
Rosie: I had no idea. I really had no idea.
Alice: And a lot of people often now think of Judaism as being a religion because in the late 1700's in France, there is this time sort of known as Jewish emancipation. So for Ashkenazi Jews in Europe, for over 2000 years, we were forced to live in our own communities, we were restricted to certain types of work, et cetera. Had to wear certain types of clothing to identify ourselves as Jews. During the Jewish emancipation that also coincides with something called the Haskalah or Jewish enlightenment. It was this time where a lot of European countries essentially evaluated whether Jews could assimilate into the larger culture and part of that piece was some Jewish leaders really coming out and saying like, oh, this is just a religious identity. This isn't like a cultural identity. And really trying to piece that out as sort of a separate religious piece. However, I think you can speak with a lot of different Jewish people that have a variety of religious observances, a whole lot of different views on God and what their belief with God has to do, but they would still identify as Jewish because there is a lot of cultural ties, a lot of traditions that we still uphold that might be religious in some of like the words or prayers that we say, but we uphold it more due to the tradition and not necessarily the belief in God. There are lots of people that uphold those traditions because of both the cultural and the religious pieces. So all this to say is it's a complicated identity. Usually the simplest ways to say it's an ethnicity for me, but yeah, it's complicated.
Rosie: The complication, I think is, it exists anytime we are trying to give space to real identity. Like it should be complicated because people are complicated. And how do you put a culture, a ethnicity, a nation into a box. And actually what you're really highlighting for me and hopefully for you who's listening is how especially in North America. And I would say in Western Europe, white Eurocentric is that the view of race is a colonized and a white supremacist culture view. And our view of religion, especially if we're Christian, many white Europeans or white North Americans would be, is also a colonized religion. And so I did really think about Judaism or Jewish people as people following a religion, not necessarily as a nation or people Indigenous to an area. I think that is a really, really important point to ponder on and remember. Especially when we start thinking about racism, antisemitism, and maybe there is a societal confusion because there's the specific term antisemitism, which almost separates it from racism. Not saying that as an excuse, but I think that is how it's been constructed whether it should be, or shouldn't be.
When it comes to, and I'm thinking specifically about what Whoopi Goldberg said recently, which she's been scapegoated, but I think she really said what a lot of people are thinking or misunderstanding. If anyone, if you're listening, you're not sure what I'm referring to you can Google it. But basically on her show, The View which she does with other women, she said that essentially antisemitism isn't racism. Said a whole bunch of stuff but she basically said it isn't racism because she was tying racism with Black and White and people of color and whatnot. And she saw Judaism as religion, not race. From your experience and your perspective and what you've seen, Alice. I mean, first of all, antisemitism, how does it present today that maybe people don't even realize that's antisemitism.
Alice: Yeah. Oh man. Lots to unpack here. So I think first, to the comments that Whoopi Goldberg said, she said something around the lines of the Holocaust was about white people killing other white people. And so it doesn't have much to do with me.
I racially, I do identify as white. That's how I present in the world. For Jewish people, whiteness is slightly different than it is for other people because being white for me, it's more conditional whiteness. I can pass through the world and people will view me as white. A white supremacist would not. And so the idea of for instance, eugenics came about as a study to prove that Jews were an inferior race to the Arian people, um, even the word antisemitism was constructed as a word of trying to, sort of separate Jews out as their own separate race.
And according to the Nuremberg laws during the Holocaust in particular, the Jews were considered a racial group. As I said before, if I were filling out a form, I wouldn't say that my race is Jewish. My race is white. Just as for someone who is Mizrahi Jewish, they would likely check off that their race is more Middle Eastern. That doesn't mean that Judaism wasn't seen as a race though in the past. For how antisemitism shows up today. Antisemitism is a really difficult thing for I think a lot of people to identify because jews are seen as both inferior and superior, which is a weird line. Jews can be seen as being inferior, depicted as vermin. On the other side, we're also often seen as controlling things, having massive amounts of power and wealth. Now In the midst of a pandemic there have been flyers distributed in a number of cities, blaming COVID on Jewish people. A US representative, Marjorie Taylor Green has talked about Jews having space lasers. You know, like a lot of Jewish people just have to laugh at, but it realistic. Like this is someone that in the US government really believes,
Rosie: I'm picturing Dr. Evil and the like, oh, your lasers. Yeah. It's ridiculous. But people believe her,
Alice: Yeah. They, they really believe it. So I would say that those are some of the ways that antisemitism shows up. I brought up how it's brought up in a number of conservative spaces. I also really think it's important to bring up that antisemitism also very much exists in progressive spaces as well. And so I think an example would be something like what would be Goldberg said of not really understanding how antisemitism fits within this fight against white supremacy. There's a lot of Jewish coding of characters in popular media portrayals, where a lot of characters aren't explicitly stated as being Jewish, but they have a lot of the negative characteristics associated with being Jewish.
So an example, many people would maybe know is Rachel Green from Friends, is never explicitly stated as being Jewish, the way that Monica and Ross are on the show, but she is shown to have a large nose that she eventually has surgery to, to change. She's shown as sort of being the spoiled princess type, which there's the stereotype of the Jewish American princess. She was shown as being engaged to another Jewish coded character of a wealthy dentist or orthodontist, whatever. Much less favorable Jewish coding would be the goblins in Harry Potter. Which, you know, they are the people that work at the bank. They have very large hooked noses and some of that is sort of saying like, oh, that's based off caricatures of goblins from European folklore. Those caricatures of goblins in European folklore were coded as Jewish, like lots of European folklore has sort of anti-Semitic coding in it
Rosie: Would you consider, and this kind of goes to what we sort of started talking about the beginning around, what does antisemitism, what does racism against Jews look like? And I don't really want to use the term microaggression. But I will simply, because that seems to be more commonly understood now where it's not as obvious as genocide but it is still a form of yeah, the typecasting and, and I would say racist, it's discrimination, it's perpetuating stereotypes and things against a broad group of people that isn't true. And I'm wondering how, have you personally experienced, or has your family experienced something where once people found out you were Jewish, things were different.
Alice: I think it's, I think maybe more of the microaggressions weren't, ugh. Once people have found out I'm Jewish if there are aggressions, I would say they are too overt to be micro. And I say that, like I remember in middle school guys thought it was funny to call my name and then do Heil Hitler.
Um, that was very overt aggression. It was particularly hard because my grandfather, I mean, he's passed now, but was still very alive at the time, but he's a Holocaust survivor. And so that really was painful.
On the topic of microaggressions, I think, it does show up differently for a lot of other folks. But it is, I would say around like, the observance of being able to follow Jewish observance. Like it's hard to approach places that you work or where you're studying. And sometimes being like, no, I can't be there that day. That is a day of Jewish observance. And there've been multiple times where I've seen like these big conferences being held on very important Jewish days. And now I've gotten to the point where I'm comfortable emailing folks, like I don't know that you're aware of this. This is X day of observance for Jewish people. And by holding it on this day it means that you're essentially saying like, it's okay. That you're not there.
Rosie: I can see how painful and emotional is for you to remember and talk about your grandfather and also what you've experienced. So I'm just really honoring, respecting you for so courageously coming and sharing something that's so painful because you don't want other people to go through this and you want people to learn.
I also want to acknowledge something you said and highlight, particularly for employers. I don't know if this is a microaggression exactly. But is another way that, Jewish people are discriminated against because of what you said around, the Jewish holidays and events and milestones where what you said really hit me. If you schedule something, a conference or meeting on a day where you are not going to be there because you have something really important to commemorate, then the company is saying to you, well, it's not important for you to be there. But the view from employers, and I know, cause I've been on that employment side is like, if we gave everybody all the, like there's so many Jewish holidays and if we gave them all off and how's the work going to get done and it's, I think it goes back to it also that trope of Jewish people are so entitled, right. Oh, they already get all the Christian holidays and they want this too. And you want more and it's free and you get paid for it. Like must be nice. Must be nice. And that is something we have to stop thinking.
Alice: Yeah, and I often, pretty much comes up every year where like I sort of say it jokingly, but not really, that like I will probably be working on Christmas or like, I mean, not as much anymore because my partner is not Jewish and his family does celebrate Christmas.
So now I often will be with his family for that. But I don't celebrate Christmas. I don't care whether I have it off or not. What my family does is we eat food often from a restaurant of some other culture that also doesn't primarily celebrate Christmas because those are the restaurants that are open and we watch movies. Like we, it's sort of like the stereotype of a Jewish Christmas at this point. And similarly, like Good Friday. It is a day off too. Like I often forgot about it. And partially because it is around the same time as Pesach or Passover.
Like I'm so focused on that, that it doesn't even sort of like, oh right, Good Friday. That's a thing. I'm usually not doing anything on Good Friday, so I'd be happy to work those days. It just doesn't work for a lot of folks though either
Rosie: And I want people to really understand how meaningful and how important these quote, unquote holidays. I say that in quotes because people think holidays and they think beach vacations or partying and stuff like that. But this goes far beyond that. Just like Christmas, for people who are religious and celebrate Christmas religiously, it is also very deeply meaningful from a spiritual perspective. But even for people who are not religious about Christmas, there's a lot of meaning and significance behind it. And there are many important festivals and milestones and events in Jewish culture and religion. Again, we're not going to be able to talk about it all. But maybe we, I kind of want to demystify if there's something to de-mystify about Hanukkah and also ask you what is important cause my opinion.
I don't know if this is true. I grew up thinking Hanukkah is just Jewish Christmas, because it always was lumped together right, with Christmas. never really knew what it was. And now my understanding is that Hanukkah is not, first of all, it's not Jewish Christmas, cause those two things, that's a paradox. And secondly, it is actually not as important as certain other, like the high holy days of Judaism, but because it happens to fall sort of around Christmas and not even that, it just gets lumped together. So people think Hanukkah is super important, but there's other holidays that are even more important. So over to you, Alice, like what's actually important to you.
Alice: Yeah. I did a whole educational post on Hanukkah one time. Cause it is, I would say actually the majority of my microaggressions that I face are probably around Christmas time because everyone just says Merry Christmas to you. Like if you're shopping at a grocery store and like after you've finished checking out. Oh, Merry Christmas. And I'm always like, means nothing. Means nothing to me. So what I said in that post, as you sort of brought up, Hanukkah's not Jewish. It's evolved in a lot of ways to have similarities because of Jews trying to assimilate with the dominant culture. And so gift-giving, it now is a practice associated with Hanukkah. It is not a traditional practice to observe Hanukkah. Hanukkah is not a major Jewish holiday by any means. It is the celebration of a successful Jewish revolt against the empire. So, Hasmonean empire was part of the Greek sort of time. And the Maccabean revolt against that. There's also this idea that Hanukkah falls around the same time as Christmas. And it does, but it also sometimes falls at the end of November around the same time as Thanksgiving. So, I'm all for celebrating, you know, times of Jewish strength and uprising, but it should be said that, and this has been discussed a lot among Jewish scholars, but really Shabbat is considered the holiest day. And that is a weekly observance for Jewish people which begins Friday night and ends Saturday night. And there are so many beautiful traditions in that observance. And then similarly, there's a ton of holidays around the agricultural and environmental calendar of the region known as Israel, Palestine now. And so for instance, the holiday of Sukkot, Pesach, Shavuot, they're festivals. They are times of the year that harvest and sacrifices would be brought to the temple. And so they very much coordinate with agricultural calendars. There are fun holidays that definitely don't require days off. Like recently it was Tu BiShvat, which is considered the birthday of the trees. And it is the time that in the Israel Palestine region, the almond trees start to flower. And so here it doesn't, you're sort of like birthday of the trees, they're all sleeping. Like they're all dormant, but over there it makes sense.
Rosie: Those are so beautiful and I actually appreciate you that you're tying it to agricultural seasons because I think certainly a Western society like geographically and from the industrial revolution, the focus now is so much on,
like mechanical or manufacturing and production. And I continue to rail against principles of capitalism, not specifically against making money, but more how productivity and profit is so elevated that, uh, the mindset of well, we can't give any more days. Like why would you take days off for that? How are we going to produce more? How are we going to meet our targets, et cetera, et cetera. We're missing again, at our very, very roots. What you're painting a picture of for me is going back to our ancestors and appreciating that the earth is the source of life. And many of these festivals, I think that you're describing is honoring where life and food and, you know, spirit comes from.
Alice: Yeah. And building on that. So in the Jewish calendar right now, the Jewish calendar year is 5782, actually. And this year, it is actually what is called a shmita year. It's a sabbatical year for the land. So similar to the practice of Shabbat, where every, you know, on the seventh day we rest, similarly a shmita year, every seven years, you're supposed to let the land rest as well.
I don't know how, folks practice it these days, because of course ya, it could be very hard to make a livelihood if that's how you're trying to, to go about your farming in the modern day capitalist system. But that is the traditional practice for Jewish farming and agriculture.
Rosie: Yes. And I mean, we don't have time to get into it here, but there's a whole like as a, I am wearing a Christian lens as I say this. But my understanding is that is not only a command essentially from God, but that is very, very practical and helpful for the land. And that is a better way of production than just constant use.
Alice: Yeah. And there's so many interesting things about the land. Like you're not supposed to harvest the corners of your field. Those are supposed to be left for those that can't meet their needs for food. Similarly, when Jews did go to war, you were not supposed to cut down fruit bearing trees, like you weren't supposed to attack those sort of life preserving aspects of the environment even in enemy territories.
Rosie: And what a contrast that is to, again, the Western and colonial portrayal of the greedy Jewish person who won't hand out anything and is just hoarding wealth, right? Like generosity and tithing and giving and preserving is built into core Jewish values and beliefs. At least that's what I'm taking in, what your
Alice: Yeah. And the word that is often used, similarly to charity within Judaism, which is Tzedakah. All Jewish words have a three-letter root and the Tzedakah, it comes from the root Sedeq, which means justice. And so charity is not about, yeah, like getting on the good side with God. Like while we believe in an after life, somewhat. It's not so much like a heaven. We're not trying to get into any good place. We don't believe in hell. So it's not like we're trying to avoid getting into a bad place. The act of charity is really, a very important pillar within Jewish culture. And it's about essentially, seeing to it that justice is being practiced. And I think a lot of times we think about justice as being dealt out, but I think it's really something that we all have to practice every day.
Rosie: What a wonderful call to action and changing our heart set about how we think about life. Like it sounds like a way of living that we would all benefit from, if we could do more of that. I want to wrap up with honoring, honoring you as like, again, you just being here and being willing to give so much of yourself and share. But also because today is Yom HaShoah. To end in a way to commemorate and honor that day, that is meaningful to you. So maybe you could explain to us because you shared that you've actually been in Israel during Yom HaShoah. What happens on Yom HaShoah?
Alice: Yeah. So I might pull back a little bit first to say there's Yom HaShoah, which is celebrated in the Gregorian calendar, it's around the end of April and it's purposely scheduled to avoid Pesach. But there is also the international day of Holocaust remembrance which is in January. That was a UN established day and it marks the liberation of Auschwitz. A big thing to know is that while of course the Jewish people were a primary group that was targeted during the Holocaust. We were not the only group. And so for myself, that day of remembrance in January is really a time to grieve with some of those other communities, like the Romani people that were targeted. Yom HaShoah though is really the thought put into it was a time to commemorate, particularly the Jewish loss during the Holocaust, but also to recognize that when Israel began, there's actually a lot of internal conflict because a lot of people saw those that died in the Holocaust as sort of pigs going to the slaughter. Like that they didn't put up a fight and it wasn't until the Nuremberg trials that people fully understood all the things that Jews went through during that time. And so Yom HaShoah, it's not just a time of grieving, but it's a time of remembering, the Jewish resistance that was also put up during that time.
And what I would bring up for instance, in your introduction, saying that 6 million Jews were killed in the war. We weren't killed in the war. World war II actually had very little to do with stopping the Holocaust. And for example, when the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, they didn't know what was happening there. They didn't go to Auschwitz thinking Jews are being gassed in these chambers. Jews are being starved and worked and having to do all these things. We need to go there and free the camp. That was just part of them moving their army and liberating different territories from Nazi rule. And they had no idea what was happening there until they got there. And I do just want to add one last thing around this to sort of put the Holocaust into some perspective. There were over 15 million Jews before the Holocaust. Jews today still don't equal 15 million. That was a third of Jews in the world that were murdered systematically. If that hadn't happened today, there would be over 60 million Jews. If you know, we grew at a similar rate as similar populations. So not only have we not caught up to pre-holocaust numbers. We're like a quarter of the way to where we might have been population-wise. And so I just really appreciate being able to come here and share all of this because Jews today are 0.2% of the global population. So, it's hard sometimes to get Jewish narratives and perspectives out. And so I think Yom HaShoah is an important time for that because it is really the Jewish day of Holocaust Memorial.
Rosie: Yes. And I think part of equity and decolonization is the redistribution of power back to a day that is centered around Jewish people and was set by Jewish people. I didn't know the origin of why that day for the UN International Day of remembering the Holocaust. So yes, having you tell us the context behind that day versus what the day the Jewish people have picked for themselves is really important.
Alice: Yeah. And building on that, the way Yom HaShoah is observed in Israel, for instance. It's during the day. There is a time that a siren starts to go off and everything. And I mean, literally everything comes to a stop and everyone takes that time to grieve. And so let's say you're driving down a highway in Israel. When the siren starts. People pull over and get out of their cars and stand up. And it's a Jewish tradition, similarly for the Mourner's Kaddish you stand, if you are one of those mourners, and there are people today that, will always stand for the Mourner's Kaddish because they want to make sure Kaddish is being said for all of those that were lost in the Holocaust that don't have family members, to stand for Kaddish for them as well.
Rosie: Listener where we're going to end today a little bit differently because we are going to commemorate and honor all of those who didn't survive and all those who survived, but went through a terrible, terrible time during the Shoah and honoring Alice's family and ancestors who not only managed to survive from genocide and persecution, but many ancestors before who were also persecuted in many, many ways, and this is going on today, even what Alice herself has experienced in antisemitism and racism. So on this sombre day of remembrance, I'm so grateful to be here with Alice to remember that we'll be ending with a siren. Not the actual siren, but a sound very similar to what the siren would be like in Israel. And I will have on my website links to many of the resources that Alice has mentioned because we won't be coming back to discuss after the siren. The siren will be the end of today's episode. So if you have been moved by this, if you know other people, and I'm pretty sure you do because I do as well who need to hear Alice's story and need to hear and uplift the amazing things that Jewish people have done. They are more than just tragedy obviously. And we need to celebrate that and glorify that as well. And give them the days to remember and honor, and spiritually enjoy their most precious times together as family, as spiritual followers, as everything. So let's make sure that we do that. That is one action at a minimum I think that we could take. So please share this episode with anybody that you think could also use this. And as we listen to the siren and honor the memories of those who survived and didn't survive the Shoah. Please do whatever you feel you want to do to mark this. You can stand, you can just be silent and sit there quietly. Yeah, we'll leave it at that. Thank you, Alice for coming. And um, let's spend this time together in commemoration.
[siren begins]
[siren ends]