5 Towns set to mark 3 days

The Five Towns joins klal Yisroel in marking three important days over the next two weeks, with community-wide events scheduled on two Wednesday evenings, May 4 and 11.

The days, which mark points of sorrow and joy for the Jewish people, are: 

•Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) on 27 Nisan (Wednesday night and Thursday, May 4 and 5).

•Yom Hazikaron (Israel Memorial Day) on 3 Iyar (Tuesday night and Wednesday, May 10–11).

•Yom Ha’Atzmaut (Israel Independence Day) on 4 Iyar (Wednesday night and Thursday, May 11–12).

A Shoah memorial service at 7:30 pm on May 4 is expected to draw several hundred people, from 24 area synagogues, to Congregation Beth Sholom at 390 Broadway in Lawrence.

The Young Israel of Woodmere, 859 Peninsula Blvd., will host two programs on Wednesday, May 11, that will bridge the mourning of Yom Hazikaron and the joy of Yom Ha’Atzmaut. The event begins with Mincha at 7:15 pm (duringYom Hazikaron on the Jewish calendar) and concludes after dark during Yom Ha’Atzmaut.

“The message of Jewish hope and survival is something that has to be passed down from generation to generation,” said Dana Frenkel of Woodmere, co-organizer with Nathaniel Rogoff, also of Woodmere, of the Beth Sholom event.

“Younger generations, who may not be as closely connected to the events of the Shoah” should “never forget the atrocities that were committed in the Holocaust,” Frenkel said.

Rogoff added, “It is imperative for the community to join together to remember the holy souls who perished in the Shoah, as well as honor the survivors.”

Rachel “Chelly” Slagter, a Holocaust survivor who is a lecturer and docent at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, will be the keynote speaker. She is the mother of longtime Woodmere resident Reuben Levine, 

HAFTR seventh-grader Jordana Mastour will present fourth-generation reflections, and HALB’s fifth-grade choir will perform.

The program will also include video testimony from a Holocaust survivor who recounts the story of Le Chambon, a French town populated by Protestants that organized to shelter more than 5,000 Jews.

The date of Yom Hashoah is that of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943.

Other events are scheduled throughout Long Island to mark the three days. See next week’s Jewish Star for coverage.