I am reasonably sure that we are all familiar with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center — museum, archive, institute for research and education — in Jerusalem. The phrase “yad vashem” is found in a verse of the prophet Isaiah (56:5):

כִּי־כֹה אָמַר יְיָ לַסָּרִיסִים אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁמְרוּ אֶת־שַׁבְּתוֹתַי וּבָחֲרוּ בַּאֲשֶׁר חָפָצְתִּי וּמַחֲזִיקִים בִּבְרִיתִי׃
וְנָתַתִּי לָהֶם בְּבֵיתִי וּבְחוֹמֹתַי יָד וָשֵׁם טוֹב מִבָּנִים וּמִבָּנוֹת שֵׁם עוֹלָם אֶתֶּן־לוֹ אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִכָּרֵת׃

For thus said the LORD: “As for the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, who have chosen what I desire and hold fast to My covenant — I will give them, in My House and within My walls, a monument and a name better than sons or daughters. I will give them an everlasting name which shall not perish.”

The prophet declares that Adonai is addressing even those who will have no genetic legacy, no descendants to be named after them, yet who nonetheless “hold fast” to the covenantal relationship of Israel and Adonai. They, says Adonai, will have “a monument and a name,” yad vashem, as an eternal memorial.

Names are important to us and they have been so since earliest biblical time: Adonai changed the patriarch Avram’s name to Avraham, promising to “make your name great.” Yaakov was given a new name, Yisrael / Israel, after a divine encounter. Genealogies abound in Torah.

Often, we create a living yad vashem when we name our children after deceased relatives.

Some of our people are forever nameless. A relatively recent book review in The New York Times discussed The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed, by Wendy Lower. The review opened with a description of the image at the top of the page: an example of “atrocity selfies,” photographs taken by the murderers of Jews as the Jews were being killed.

This particular photo “shows several men — Ukrainians and Germans — shooting a woman who, bent over, holds the hand of a small, barefoot boy just before they tumble into a death pit.” The woman was also trying to shelter another boy, smaller.

The names of the photographer and the killers became known; not so the names of the Jewish woman and children.

As the sun sets on this Yom Hashoah the yahrzeit candle on our kitchen counter flickers down. We must remember names. We must remember nameless souls. We must remember that innumerable names were not bestowed upon new generations because they were lost in the obscuring, suffocating smoke of hate and history. We must be their monument.

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Click here to read the review.