Despite torrential rain, hundreds of New Yorkers turned out for a Yom Hashoah vigil at the Iranian UN Mission, on Sunday April 22, to express their concerns over Iran’s nuclear weapons program and its sponsorship of global terror. Three members of the U.S. House of Representatives, three members of the New York State Assembly and some local community leaders attended as well.

The event was sponsored by the Yom Hashoah Mobilization Committee, an umbrella for a conglomerate of organizations, led by Lynne and Nissim Tamam and assisted by Dr. Paul Brody and Jeff Wiesenfeld. Some of those organizations include the National Council of Young Israel, the Zionist Organization of America, (ZOA), New York Association of Holocaust Survivors, Friends of Ateret Cohanim/Jerusalem Chai, and Americans for a Safe Israel (AFSI).

Some New York Association Holocaust Survivors members wore yellow stars of David to commemorate the stars they were forced to wear under Nazi occupation. Association leader Fira Stuckelman recalled the horrors that occurred during the Nazi Holocaust. She stated that she is one of the few survivors from a large family and declared that “we must not remain silent, never again.”

According to Pastor James David Manning of the ATLAH World Missionary Church in Harlem there is a growing anti-Semitism not just from Iran, but among peoples of all colors and races and that must be met with a response. Manning warned that, “Nations and peoples are turning their backs on you.” He then pledged, “I will lift up my voice.”

“Seventy years ago, when Hitler said he would wipe the Jews off the face of the earth, the threat was tragically dismissed as empty rhetoric,” Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) said. “Today, when we hear Ahmedinejad echoing Hitler’s call for the destruction of Jews, we know that the threat is real, and we must be prepared to use our military power to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capability and fulfilling their malicious and malevolent dream of a world that is Judenfrei.”