A couple of hundred people gathered at the legislature yesterday to celebrate Yom Hashoah, or the Holocaust Remembrance Day.
MLAs and city councillors, including Mayor Stephen Mandel, assembled on the legislature grounds with Holocaust survivors and others hoping to remember the events of the Second World War.
The remembrance included Abraham Goldberg performing traditional Kaddish — a Jewish prayer — and the lighting of candles in memory.
Mayor Mandel used the day of remembrance not only to reflect on the Holocaust itself, but on other genocides around the world.
“We always have to remember these kind of events not just because of what happened to the Jews and because it was horrific but it has happened to so many people so many times around the world,” said Mandel.
“We keep getting together and saying ‘My God, how can this happen,’ but it continues to happen.”
He then continued to challenge the listeners to never sit back idle and let something like that happen again.
The day of Yom Hashoah has been recognized in the legislature since November 2000, when the Holocaust Memorial Day and Genocide Remembrance Act was unanimously passed.
