The Israeli Knesset’s recent passage of its heinous “Death Penalty for Terrorists” law on March 30 has effectively defiled this year’s observance of Yom HaShoah, the consummate Holocaust commemoration for Israel and Jews worldwide that begins the night of April 13. Anyone who questions the veracity of this statement should remember the warnings of passionate death penalty abolitionist Elie Wiesel (1928-2016). Wiesel, the acclaimed author of the 1956 Holocaust memoir Night and multiple other volumes, became arguably one of the most recognizable and renowned Holocaust survivors for Jews and non-Jews across the world. Yom HaShoah is a time when millions of Jewish hearts and minds reflect on Wiesel’s writings, with some even enshrining their reading as a new form of ritual observance on that day.

As the thousands of members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty across Israel and the world are keenly aware, Wiesel drew directly upon his Holocaust experience to become an ardent death penalty abolitionist. Near the end of his life, Wiesel famously said of capital punishment that “Death should never be the answer in a civilized society.” Wiesel’s firm stance on this human rights violation serves as an anthem for L’chaim. I am a co-founder of that group, as well as a Jewish prison chaplain who has communicated with several dozen Jews and non-Jews condemned to death. Like many L’chaim members, I am also a direct descendant of Holocaust survivors. We, together with all L’chaim members, firmly maintain that Wiesel, who poignantly referred to the death penalty as a manmade Angel of Death, would join us now in condemning this disastrous law. Its passage in the Knesset is nothing short of an abject defilement of Wiesel’s legacy, and of the inherent message of Yom HaShoah that the world never forget what happens when any state violates that most basic human right of life itself.

The Yom HaShoah Siren and the Clarion Call for Human Rights

The full name of the day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust is “Yom HaShoah Ve-Hagevurah” — literally the “Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism.” Established this day on April 12, 1951, it is a day that is marked on the 27th day in the Hebrew month of Nisan — a week after the seventh day of Passover, and a week before Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers). Although the Israeli government established the date, it has become a day commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide.

Since the early 1960s, the sounding of a siren on Yom HaShoah stops traffic and pedestrians throughout the State of Israel for two minutes of silent devotion. The siren will blow again this year at sundown as the holiday begins on Monday night, April 13, and once again at 11 a.m. the following morning. It is a sound that reminds all who hear it to remember our six million Jewish ancestors and millions more who were victims of state-sponsored killing. Its call serves as a warning of what can happen when a society tethers itself to any proverbial “Angel of Death.” As in previous years, radio and television programs during this day will be connected in one way or another with the Jewish destiny in World War II, including personal interviews with survivors. Even the musical programs will be adapted to the somber atmosphere of the day. There will be no public entertainment on Yom HaShoah, as theaters, cinemas, pubs, and other public venues are closed throughout Israel. It is a time to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. And yet, in Israel this year, it is also a day that will come on the heels of a sadistic, champagne-infused celebration by death penalty proponents after they successfully passed their law through the Knesset. Just as their danse macabre desecrated Passover two days later, so too does its echo now defile Yom HaShoah.

L’chaim members are accustomed to the United States defaming Holocaust memorial days. In the past five years alone, states have marked either Yom HaShoah or International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th by torturously gassing a human being to death in Alabama, scheduling the killing of innocent men and women in Texas, signing a bill to expand the death penalty to non-lethal........

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