Sara Ramirez Instagram – Repost from @jewishvoiceforpeace • Yom HaShoah, Holocaust remembrance Day, marks the Holocaust and honors the 17 million people murdered during Nazi Germany’s genocide, including 6 million Jews. This year, this day of remembrance falls on the day the Israeli military ordered the over 100,000 Palestinians sheltering in east Rafah to flee, but with nowhere to go. The decision to assault Rafah on this day is grotesque. The parallels between the dehumanization and persecution of Jews during the Holocaust, and the ongoing US-backed cataclysm in Gaza, where Palestinians are enduring the Israeli government’s genocide, are too stark to be denied. We know our remembrance is hollow if we cannot apply the lessons of our past to the present day. The experiences of our ancestors’ persecution and mass death under fascism now serve as the foundation for how we define modern genocides. As Jews, we recognize the Israeli government’s tactics of dehumanization, intentional starvation and mass slaughter of Palestinians from the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust, all too often against our own ancestors. Many of us grew up on the images of emaciated people, starved in ghettos and concentration camps. Today’s images from Gaza are a rattling echo. We remain steadfast in our commitment to resisting oppression and advocating for justice in Palestine. Never again means never again for anyone. As Jews, as we continue to witness and struggle against the Israeli government’s oppression of Palestinians, we also recognize exactly where these ongoing atrocities will lead, and we do everything we can to stop that outcome. Our beliefs, our history and our duty demand we stand up to stop the Israeli military’s genocide of Palestinians before it escalates even further. We invoke our ancestors as we affirm our commitment to ensuring that their values of solidarity, collective liberation, and anti-imperialism are carried on into the future as we fight for justice in Palestine.