The Knesset on Thursday will hold the traditional “Unto Every Person There is a Name" ceremony marking Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day.
The theme of this year's Holocaust Remembrance Day is “The War Within the War: the Struggle of the Jews to Survive During the Holocaust."
During the official state ceremony, which will be held for the 30th consecutive year, names of Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust will be read aloud by the Speaker of the Knesset Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, President of the State Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev, ministers and members of Knesset.
The following individuals will light six candles in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust:
- MK Benny Gantz, second-generation Holocaust survivor.
- MK Bezalel Smotrich and his father, Rabbi Chaim Smotrich, a second-generation Holocaust survivor.
- MK Keren Barak and her mother Tzipora Barak, a second-generation Holocaust survivor.
- MK Evgeny Sova, third-generation Holocaust survivor.
- Rabbi Haim Drukman, a Holocaust survivor from Kuty in Poland (today in Ukraine), and Esther Levy, a Holocaust survivor from Benghazi, Libya.
Also during the ceremony, which will be held in Chagall Hall, Israel's chief rabbis will read from the Book of Psalms and recite Kaddish, while the IDF'S chief cantor will recite the El Maleh Rahamim prayer. In addition, videos depicting the stories of Holocaust survivors participating in the ceremony will be screened, and the moving testimony of Holocaust survivor Yehudith Ashriel will be read to the audience by actress Nelly Tagar.
The event will also feature performances by the IDF Education Corps Band and singers Lee Biran and David D'Or.
Before the ceremony, guests will be invited to light hundreds of memorial candles with the names of Holocaust victims printed on them, and Speaker Edelstein will visit the “Building a Memory" exhibit, which features works by artists Baruch Wind and Sara Meltzer, both Holocaust survivors. The exhibit will be on display in Chagall Hall.
