R 257 |
2019 -- S 0852 Enacted 05/02/2019 |
S E N A T E R E S O L U T I O N |
COMMEMORATING "HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY" ON MAY 2, 2019, AND RECOGNIZING THE 71ST ANNIVERSARY OF ISRAEL'S ESTABLISHMENT |
Introduced By: Senators Miller, Goldin, Raptakis, Ruggerio, and Lombardi |
Date Introduced: May 02, 2019 |
WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), is a solemn day of |
remembrance honoring the victims of the Holocaust and those who showed resistance and |
amazing heroism during this horrendous period in our world history. Seventy-four years ago, |
Soviet forces and shortly thereafter, other Allied forces, liberated Auschwitz and other |
concentration camps, liberating thousands of suffering and starving prisoners; and |
WHEREAS, Holocaust is the term used to refer to the period in world history from 1933 |
to 1945, before and during World War II, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazis systematically and |
barbarically persecuted and murdered nearly six million Jews and another five million non-Jews |
throughout Europe because they were perceived to be "racially inferior" and "life unworthy of |
life"; and |
WHEREAS, This year marks the 76th Anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |
and 56th Anniversary of the dedication of the Memorial to the Six Million. The citizens of Rhode |
Island, having our own rich heritage of resistance and intolerance for those who would trample |
individual liberty and dignity, applaud the courageous efforts of the ghetto residents for whom |
day to day survival was a relentless struggle. Their brave actions in April and May of 1943 stand |
as testimony to a rare and indomitable human spirit and extraordinary courage exhibited in the |
darkest hours of man's inhumanity; and |
WHEREAS, Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day to make a special effort to remember. |
It is a time to applaud all those who endured and who bravely rebuilt lives that had been so |
cruelly shattered. It is also a time to acknowledge, with admiration, those heroes who risked and |
often lost their own lives in order to save others; and |
WHEREAS, May 9, 2019, the 5th of Iyyar, 5779, of the Hebrew calendar, marks the 71st |
Anniversary of the founding of the modern State of Israel; and |
WHEREAS, The desire of the Jewish people to establish an independent modern State of |
Israel is the outgrowth of the existence of the historic Kingdom of Israel established three |
thousand years ago in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Israel; and |
WHEREAS, On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to |
partition the British Mandate of Palestine and, through that vote, to create the State of Israel; and |
WHEREAS, Three years after the end of World War II and the death of six million Jews |
in the Holocaust, David Ben Gurion's Declaration of Independence for Israel, made on May 14, |
1948, fulfilled a spiritual yearning that had remained unrealized for over two millennia; and |
WHEREAS, On the day that the British formally ended its Mandate over Palestine, the |
Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel was signed by members of the National |
Council gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum and went into effect at midnight. Thus, the State of |
Israel was proclaimed and the United States recognized and established full diplomatic relations |
with Israel that same day; and |
WHEREAS, In May of 1948, Israel had a tiny population of some 650,000 Jews. Today, |
with a population more than twelve times larger, the State of Israel has a stronger economy and |
military than its founders ever envisioned. It has built a thriving economy larger than the |
economies of all its immediate neighbors combined and it excels in science, technology, and |
culture; and |
WHEREAS, Rhode Islanders have shared an affinity with the people of Israel and our |
partnership is steadfast. The bonds of friendship and cooperation which have existed between |
Israel and Rhode Island for the past seventy-one years have enriched the cultural diversity of our |
state's tapestry and they are eternal; now, therefore be it |
RESOLVED, That this Senate of the State of Rhode Island Providence Plantations |
hereby commemorates "Holocaust Remembrance Day" on May 2, 2019. We call upon our fellow |
citizens to join us in remembering and honoring the amazing courage and the enormous sacrifices |
of all those killed during the Holocaust, and we reaffirm our pledge to work to eradicate bigotry, |
prejudice, brutality and injustice through education and vigilance; and be it further |
RESOLVED, That this Senate hereby recognizes the historic significance of the 71st |
Anniversary of the reestablishment of the sovereign and independent State of Israel as a |
homeland for the Jewish people; and be it further |
RESOLVED, That the Secretary of State be and hereby is authorized and directed to |
transmit duly certified copies of this resolution to the United States Holocaust Museum, the |
Rhode Island Holocaust Museum, Board of Rabbis of Greater Rhode Island, Mr. Adam |
Greenman, President and CEO of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and Avi Nevel, |
Director, President and CEO of the Rhode Island Israel Collaborative. |
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LC002377 |
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