The 10th Tevet is a Day of National Mourning for Holocaust Victims whose Actual Day of Death is Unknown. Why was the 10th Tevet chosen as a Day of Mourning?

Click to Enlarge Where are they buried?

The Background

So massive was the scale of the Holocaust killing that for most of the dead that there was no firm knowledge of the Yahrzeit, the actual day of death. And for many, there were no living survivors to say the memorial prayer, Kaddish. So how were these victims to be remembered?

In 1948, the newly appointed Israeli rabbinate proposed a General Day of Kaddish to be said for all those who fell into the above two categories. They chose the 10th Tevet which traditionally marks the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem which led to the destruction of the Temple.

The Choice of the Day

The selection of the day clearly reflects the incorporation of a contemporary tragedy into the chain of tradition. One of the issues was, of course, the danger of “trampling” on Halachah, i.e., of introducing new forms of ritual into the Jewish traditional forms of commemoration.

The Western Wall

By choosing this day, the rabbis were clearly making a statement: the tragedy of the Holocaust must be seen within the context of those catastrophes associated with the destruction of the Temple and Jewish independence. But why, it could be asked, was 9th Av not chosen? This 24-hour fast day is by far the strongest in its representation of these notions. In contrast, the 10th Tevet is by far the least significant insofar as the calendar date was far removed from the precipitous events that led to the final climax of Jerusalem’s destruction.

A Response

Indeed, the actual national day of remembrance for all the victims of the Holocaust - Yom Hashoa Vehagvurah - was designated as 27th Nissan, after the happy days of Pesach and close to Israel’s Independence Day, denoting clearly that the momentous and indefinable Holocaust clearly needed its own commemoration day.

Click to Enlarge The Holocaust did not just "happen"

The choice of the 10th Tevet as the memorial day for those whose yahrzeit is unknown is more than just a concession to the rabbis: The fast of the 10th Tevet is significant because it represents the seeds of Destruction. The Holocaust, like the destruction of the Jewish Temples of old, did not just happen. Both events were planned systematically. Both incorporated an element of siege on the Jewish psyche, on the Jewish covenant and on the Jewish body politic.

The 10th of Tevet

It has also been suggested that the approximation of the this fast day to the happy events of Chanukah, in which the Temple service was restored after the oppressive measures of the Greek tyrants, and in which Jewish independence was renewed, also serves to teach an important lesson: In practice, the gains of the Hasmoneans were relatively short-lived. Within a hundred years of Judah’s military and spiritual success, Jew was to be pitted against Jew, and foreign influences were once again to impinge on Jewish tradition.

The fast of the 10th of Tevet thus surely begs every Jew to consider not only events as they were but also the antecedents that preceded them and the consequences that followed. There is surely much food for thought, in our days, in the juxtaposition of this fast and the not-so-insignificant recall of the Holocaust victims.