Yom HaZikaron & Yom HaAtzmaut - Israeli Memorial Day & Independence Day

In 2014, these holidays are celebrated on May 4th and May 5th

From ReformJudaism.org

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, four new holidays have been added to the Jewish calendar - Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), Yom HaAatzmaut (Independence Day), and Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day). In Israel, these holidays are observed as national holidays.

The Israeli Knesset established the day before Yom HaAtzmaut as Yom HaZikaron, a Memorial Day for soldiers who lost their lives fighting in the War of Independence and in other subsequent battles.

Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, marks the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948. It is observed on or near the 5th of Iyar in the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls in April.

For more information, check out Jvillage Network's Holiday Spotlight Kits.  You'll find ways to celebrate, commemorate, videos and the history of all the holidays.

Also: Check out Jvillage’s Modern Jewish Holiday page    page.

Allies Open Trial Of 20 Top Germans For Crimes Of War

With Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day being commemorated on April 27th, we take a look back at the headlines from November 1941 of the Nuremburg Trials

History-Making Case Begins In Nuremberg With Reading of Long Indictment

GOERING FIRST DEFENDANT

Presentation of Evidence Due to Start Today--Hess in Court Pending Ruling

Allied Open Trial of 20 Top Germans
By KATHLEEN MCLAUGHLIN

Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES

Nuremberg, Germany, Nov. 20--Four of the world's great powers sit in judgment today on twenty top Germans whom the democratic nations charge with major responsibility for plunging the world into World War II. The twenty-first defendant, tacitly although not specifically named in the indictment, is the German nation that raised them to power and gloried in their might.

Subdued and tractable, awaiting their hour for what justification they can show, the accused filed by threes into the court room in the Palace of Justice here thirty minutes before the convocation of the International Military Tribunal created to weigh the evidence. They spent five and one-quarter hours listening more or less intently to the preliminary formalities in which the groundwork of the prosecution was laid.

3 Chief Prosecutors Absent
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Great Questions to bring up at your seder

Things to Talk About

(Somewhere in your Seder ask one of these questions and see how people react. If you don’t want to rely on someone’s actually responding, type the following questions on small pieces of paper. Fold them up, pass them around your table, have people read aloud the question they’ve got, and ask them to respond. Obviously, the responses can be serious or playful. It depends on your audience. Either way you can’t lose.)


One - What if "Bitter Herb" is your brother-in-law? How should he be treated at the seder?

Two - What do Passover and Easter have in common? Spring festivals? Eggs? Redemption? How do they differ?

Three - Will your great-grandchildren be sitting at a Passover Seder?

Four - Roasted egg, maror, pesach (shankbone), karpas, charoset…Which symbol on the Seder plate do you think is the most important?

Five - It is traditional for the youngest person at a Seder to ask the Four Questions. If you were to create a new “tradition” for the asking of the Four Questions, who would you choose to ask the questions and why?

Six - Tradition says that Elijah the Prophet is supposed to announce the coming of the Messiah. If you could send Eliyahu Ha-Navee to any spot on the globe to make the announcement of the Messiah, where would you send him?

Seven - If Barak Obama or Daisuke Matsuzaka or Jon Stewart of The Daily Show (or anyone else you want to name) came to the Seder, which Seder symbol or ritual would you want to show them first?

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For other great Pesach ideas, visit Jvillage's Passover Spotlight Kit

Jewish Glossary for Passover

From MyJewishLearning.com

How many can you identify?

Pesach—literally, “pass over.” Cooked meat that, according to the bible, was eaten by the Israelites just before they left Egypt.

Chag Ha Aviv—literally, “The Spring Holiday.” One of the alternate names for Passover.

Matzah—unleavened bread. According to the bible the Israelites ate matzah right before they left Egypt. Today matzah is eaten during Pesach to commemorate the exodus.

Hametz—bread or anything that has been leavened or contains a leavening agent,, hametz is prohibited on Passover


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For more Jewish Passover news, check out our    page.