In addition to serving as IHRA Chair this year, I have had the honor since 2021 to serve as Chairman of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. In just a few weeks, I will have the pleasure of welcoming many of you to this uniquely meaningful place, Yad Vashem on the Mount of Remembrance, as Israel hosts the first IHRA plenary of our Presidency. I take this opportunity to share with you a brief glimpse of what Yad Vashem was and what it has become.
The idea of establishing an institution to commemorate the victims of the Shoah was first raised in 1942, in midst of the still ongoing horrors of Shoah. At that time neither the duration nor the scale of the annihilation was yet fully understood. Mordechai Shenhavi, a Polish-born Zionist pioneer in the Land of Israel, was the first to express the need to memorialize the destruction that had befallen the Jewish people. Shenhavi outlined the earliest vision of what would later become Yad Vashem. In the years that followed, he labored to transform his vision into reality, and by 1946, his initiative had already begun collecting documents and survivor testimonies.
Shenhavi drew the name Yad Vashem from the Biblical prophet Isaiah (56:5): “And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) … that shall not be cut off".
For me, the term Yad denotes remembrance for the collective. Whereas Shem (name) relates to the individual as well. Thus, honoring both the magnitude of the collective loss and also the dignity of each individual life, lies at the very essence of Yad Vashem, and of Holocaust remembrance in general. It guides and motivates us to remember not only the Shoah’s victims and survivors collectively, but each person individually, each name, each face, each life story.
Our ongoing efforts are carried forward by Yad Vashem’s dedicated researchers, educators, and archivists, each committed to expanding knowledge, fostering understanding, and safeguarding historical truth.
Daily, our archivists receive and record new testimonies and artifacts, contributing to the world’s most comprehensive collections related to the Shoah. Our researchers continue to reveal new insights, deepening our understanding of the victims and survivors, of the Righteous Among the Nations, and – very differently - of the perpetrators as well. Meanwhile, our educators work to disseminate the lessons of the Holocaust worldwide through diverse programs, lectures, and educational resources. Together, we pursue every possible avenue to document and nurture the memory of the Shoah.
Yad Vashem's unwavering commitment to Holocaust remembrance is also manifest in our genuine and enduring partnerships, among them, of course with IHRA. The deep bond between Yad Vashem and IHRA is rooted in the key role that such Yad Vashem luminaries as the late Professor Yehuda Bauer have taken in founding IHRA and shaping it over the years. This bond is more than historical or personal. Yad Vashem and IHRA are - and I hope will always be - strategic partners, who share profound values and crucial resources.
I encourage the participants at IHRA's Jerusalem Plenary, to explore our Mount of Remembrance campus, its museums, research and education centers, monuments, and memorials. I trust that during your visit, you will sense firsthand the profound meaning embedded in Yad Vashem's name and essence, and identify with how they continue to inspire everything we do.