On this page, you will find samples and materials you can use for your organization’s Yellow Candle™ remembrance program. Be creative, and adapt them to fit your congregation and organization’s needs.
A copy of the current year’s meditation that you can print out and include with each Shoah Yellow CandleTM that you distribute may be found at this link.
Shalom Chaverim,
The Jewish people are committed to memory. Our entire historical consciousness is based on the memory of our people’s activities throughout history. In our generation, it is our task to remember the Shoah, the horrible destruction of our people during World War II. What was destroyed were human lives and human potential, not merely Jewish culture but new possibilities for Jewish creativity, not simply six million Jews but the generations that might have come from them. Thus, it is incumbent upon us to remember what we lost.
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) is often commemorated in communities and synagogues with large mass gatherings, often attended by those most directly impacted by the horrors that occurred in Europe. While these gatherings are important, the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs understood that Holocaust Remembrance also needs to occur in the home. Lighting a candle allows families to reflect on the horrors of the Holocaust and how they affected the entire Jewish people, even generations later. Lighting a candle also provides families with the mechanism to gather for a moment to teach and explain to the next generation the impact and the survival of that horrific moment in Jewish history.
WHY THE YELLOW CANDLE™? For over 40 years, families have come together to light the Shoah Yellow Candle, to remember, teach, and not forget. The yellow candle wax reminds us of the Yellow Star that Jews were forced to wear to identify them as Jews and open them to ridicule and persecution.
SHARE THE LIGHT FOR REMEMBRANCE. We encourage you to light the candle and place it by your window in the same way that you place the Hanukkah candles for all to see. We also encourage you to share the candle with your friends and contribute to the program to ensure that we may be able to continue it in the years to come. Give your contributions in memory of those who perished and to honor the generations of their families that were never born.
*Portions borrowed from Rabbi Vernon Kurtz, Beth El, Highland Park, IL
This pdf (Adobe Acrobat format file) has a space for the club to enter text, to be used either as an insert with the candle which is delivered, or a a flyer to promote the program. (Click on the flyer image to download).
The Shavuot request letter is sent to everyone in your congregation / group that received a candle from your club, that did not donate.
“Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, will be observed this year on 28 Nisan, ____, corresponding to __ (insert secular date here)___.
Our group will provide congregants with materials for personal observance on Yom HaShoah. This year, a special Yellow Candle™ made in Israel will again be delivered to homes in our community. This is the ____st year that our synagogue has participated in the FJMC Yellow Candle™ program.
Please join with members of Jewish communities all over America. On ___ (day of the week that holiday begins)___ night ___(date)__, light a Shoah Yellow Candle™ in memory of a victim of the Holocaust.
Light the candle to honor those in America’s armed forces and the IDF who safeguard our liberties. Light the candle in memory of all victims of terrorism. Start an important conversation about evil. Then share the light in your window as a “symbol” of remembrance. As a bookend in days that follow, perform a mitzvah. You know the drill. Get together. Help make the community a better place.”
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