In Memory

Yad Vashem was our first stop yesterday June 10th and it is one that I will remember for the rest of my life. Yad Vashem is the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem and it was an experience that truly changed my life. I have never felt more connected to my Jewish heritage than while walking through Yad Vashem and reading the propoganda portraying Jews to be devils, witnessing the pictures of holocaust survivors, watching videos of executions, and seeing burnt Torahs touched me and in those few hours touring the museum I truly realized what it meant to be Jewish. My grandfather spends many of our family holidays talking about Judaism and the history of our people and now I realize how important that is. At the end of the tour you open tall glass doors and the triangular shaped structure begins to open up and you can walk out and witness the most magnificent view of Jerusalem. For me exiting the museum where I had just witnessed the remaining documentations of the extermination of 6 million Jews and seeing Jerusalem and realizing that I was in Israel. A place that the Jewish people can call home, a place that we received in order to rebuild and start new. It was at this moment that I put my arm around my new friends Eitan and Eyal, two soldiers in the Israeli army and I thanked them. I thanked them because at that moment I decided that although Israel is in a war with Palestine they are fighting for something much greater, they are fighting for our home, a place in which the families of those who had their lives taken in the Holocaust can pass along the memories and ideals of our people. Then I decided that I would take it upon myself to do all that I could to keep the shared memory of our heritage and history alive. I am a Jew and very proud to be able to be connected with so many brave and courageous individuals who fought for their lives in the Holocaust and fight to defend the lives of the Jewish people here in Israel.


Brandon Weiner '11
University of Delaware