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Frightening and awesome Holocaust Museum in Israel. Would highly recommend to every Jew to visit in order that they appreciate what that terrible Nation did to our brethren in Europe…
Yes, it is excellent. We can never forget what happened. I wonder how it compares with the holocaust museum in washington.
I have been to both- yad vashem and the holocaust museum in d.c they both are done very well, but theres something about yad vasehm that just leaves more of an affect on you.
teenager, I agree. Although, to be fair, I havent been to the holocaust museum in Washington in ten years or more.
I was at the opening of the new Yad Vashem building and it was very meaningful. My great uncle died and donated quite a bit of money there so his family was invited to attend. They had great speakers, and we combined it with a trip to Germany to see my grandparents home towns to get a real picture of where they came from. It was a sad, moving trip.rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
noitallmr – to “appreciate”? I think you mean to be aware of would be a more proper term here….
I’ve been to Yad Vashem a few times over the years. The most meaningful time was a tour with Rabbi Asher Wade. He prefaced the tour with a clear hashkafa about the whole museum and what to expect and our approach to it. (At its mainly Zionistic core, it purposely leaves out references to G-d and Torah and things too overtly jewish). For example, when you first walk in, there is a quote on the wall from Anne Frank. They put a “…” in the quote right where she speak about Hashem and His ways. He imbues the whole thing with a strong sense of Am Yisrael, of respect and dignity for our grandparents and the kedoshim by deliberately NOT looking at the horrific often untznius pictures taken by the Nazis Y”SH. He impresses on the group about imagining the pictures in color and goes through some excersizes to help identify with it better. They most unbeleivable thing is when he tells over his own story in a quiet garden area in the middle of the tour. He is a ger tzeddek, having been a pastor in Germany, when he discovered his town’s roots involved in perpetrations against Jews and his many questions about his religion kept re-surfacing until he found jewish texts and their inherent wisdom and felt drawn toward emes. He now lives in Bnai Brak and teaches in schools and yeshivas.
He mentioned to us that the museum establishment disliked him coming and doing his quiet tour because it espoused what was really going on there, he said they would probably not allow him to continue for much longer.
I hear that he is not allowed to run his tours anymore, and that Rabbi Hanoch Teller does it now. I strongly reccomend going on a tour with someone like R’ Teller. I think her does them for a private groups too.
May our endeavor to remember the memory of these kedoshim help us strenghten our Avodas Hashem and our achdus and help bring Moshiach closer…. B’mhera Biyameinu!
i must agree. i live in brooklyn (as you can all see) and i’ve been to the one here a number of times. there’s nothing like yad vashem, though. i actually just visited yad vashem in israel for the firt time, a year ago.
maybe one of you know: i once heard that you’re not supposed to go to them often. i may not recall properly but i think i heard that the ones in israel or DC shouldn’t be visited more than once. has anyone ever heard something similar?
the one in washington d.c. is an eye opening experience!!! we went on a school trip!!
Ashreinu, it is true what you are saying about yad v’shem, although I refrained from writing anything and did not want to offend (who knows who is reading these words). Still, the people who worked on yad v’ shem did do something to help us always remember our dear ones who were lost. Maybe next time I go I’ll go with Rabbi Teller. I also heard there is the diaspora museum in Tel Aviv and you can look up lost relatives, never went there.
I read all the books written by frum survivors to have more of a feel of what they went through, all from a Torah perspective.
i’ve been to the diaspora museum. it’s very secular.
ive read countless books on the Holocaust, and have always felt emotional about it, but when i was in Washington last year and visited the Holocaust Museum…it was beyond emotion. many people there were crying.
ive never been to Yad Vashem, i wish.
if anyone plans on going, and R’ Teller is speaking, I highly recommend you go with him. He’s spoken at my school a few times…hes great.
I think there are more productive things to do with once time. Have you ever seen any Gadolim (Like Rav Shach) visit or recommend going?
There is something that you should know about the Yad Vashem Museum thatis not so complimentary. Yad Vashem will tell tou that they have collected over 3 million names of those who died in the Holocaust. Many of those names are taken from lists of names of people deported or of those in concentration camps. Not all of these people actually were killed. In fact, several members of my family – who actually survived – are on Yad Vashem’s list. So, a word of caution: If when researching on yad Vashem’s website or at the museum, don’t believe everything that they tell you.
I visited yad vashem in israel this summer and never cried so much in my life. The childrens room is awesome and frightening. Hashem Yikom damam
Heshy –
“I think there are more productive things to do with once time. Have you ever seen any Gadolim (Like Rav Shach) visit or recommend going? “
this post is actually quite laughable! While your point is a very true and noble one, do you see gedolim utilizing their time with hours on YWN, or internet bichlal for that matter, or reading newspapers, books, etc (we won’t even mention the “M” word, that some pple c”v still watch, “at least on airplanes”, or vid games, etc that eat up our time) – would gedolim spend time doing any of the above when they could be spending the short time we have in this world either learning torah or being oseik in mitzvos of some sort??
Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t criticize, as any stride in the right direction is a step closer to Hashem & his ratzon….so for now, saying goodbye to the CR, to try to utilize my time for avodas Hashem…
I have hakoras hatov to you, Heshy, for the wake up call…
I’ve been to Yad Vashem twice. It is a very emotional experience. I’ve never been to the one in DC, but I have many friends who have been to both and say that the DC one is much more well done (can I really say “better” with regard to such a subject??).
I haven’t been to Y”vSH in over thirty seven years, but from my recollection it was a very different type of experience than going to the one in Washington, D.C. D.C. is, to my recollection, an unbelievably REAL experience, with the videos, the “house” experience, the constant visuals. When you see a pile of shoes yea high, and realize that they were actually worn by people who were systematically murdered en masse, it connects you in a way that pictures and plaques do not. As I said, I have not been there (or to E”Y) in a few decades, but this is my recollection from that time. Both experiences are horrific, and we are merely VISITORS. People actually lived and died through that horror, and that is what I can never wrap my mind around.
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