Communication Ideas, Meditations With Samples (Page 1 of 2)

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 and its own personality.

 

Rabbi's Letters

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

D'var Torah on the Shoah

Yellow Candle Flyer 

  • 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).

 

Shavuot Letter

The Shavuot request letter is sent to everyone in your congregation / group that received a candle from your club, that did not donate.

  • Why?  Shavuot is another holiday when it is customary to make donations.
  • This request letter should go out under the name or names of the Yellow Candle chairman.

Thanksgiving D'var Torah

Sample Fund Raising Letter

Sample Bimah Announcement

"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."

Lighting Poem

  • An officer's child created this poem to bring the Yellow Candle and Holocaust Remembrance message to a younger generation.  It would make a suitable enclosure to include with each of the candles your club distributes.  To download, click here.

Candle Lighting Meditation

A copy of the current year meditation that you can print out and include with each Shoah Yellow CandleTM that you distribute may befound at fjmc.org/meditation.
 
Place the Shoah Yellow CandleTM in the window on the evening (erev) of the holiday date, and recite the following as it is lit.
 

Share Light for Remembrance

at home the evening of Monday April 17, 2023,

and recite the following meditation as you light the Yellow Candle:

 

As I provide for someone to light a Yellow Candle™, I vow never to forget the lives of the Jewish men, women, and children who were martyred and are symbolized by this flame. They were tortured and brutalized by human beings who acted like beasts. Their innocent lives were taken in cruelty.

May we be inspired to learn more about our six million brothers and sisters as individuals and as communities, to recall their memory throughout the year so that they will not suffer a double death. May we remember not only the terror of their deaths but also the splendor of their lives. May the memory of their lives inspire us to hallow our own lives and live meaningful Jewish lives so that we may help ensure that part of who they were shall always endure.

And in special memory of the child victims, I mention the name of _____________  ...

May their memory be a blessing for us all.

 

Nizkor – Let Us Remember |  Abba Kovner

Let us remember our brothers and our sisters
The homes in the cities and houses in the villages
The streets of the town that bustled like rivers
And the inn standing solitary on the way.

The old man with his etched-out features
The mother in her shawl
The girl with her braids
The children.
The thousands of Jewish communities
Peopled with their families
The entire congregation of Jews
That was brought to the slaughter upon the soil of Europe
By the German executioner.

The man who screamed out suddenly
And died screaming.
The woman who clutched a baby to her breast
Arms tumbling down.
The baby whose fingers groped for her mother's nipple
That was blue and cold.
The legs, the legs that sought refuge
And there was no escape.

And they who clenched their hands into fists
The fists that gripped iron
The iron that was the weapon of the vision, the despair and the revolt.
And those with staunch hearts
And those with open eyes
And those who cast away their souls
Without being able to offer salvation.

We shall remember the day
The day in its noon
The sun that rose over the stake of blood
The skies that stood high and silent.
We shall remember the mounds of ash
Beneath flowering gardens.
The living shall remember their dead
For behold they are here before us.
Behold as their eyes stare around and about,
So let us not be silent
Until our lives are worthy of their memory.

Rabbi Jules Harlow writes an additional Shoah Yellow Candle Lighting Meditation.  It, or a personalized meditation written by your organization, may be used as well.  To download Rabbi Harlow's Meditation in a Word Doc, with graphics, which can be customized by your club,  click here.

For more sample letters and forms, click here

Children's Names with Instructions - Click here