Every year at Yom Hashoa we have a short ceremony at work. Everyone comes to the center of the office. Someone turns on the radio right before 10:00 AM and puts it on the speaker system (we cannot hear the external siren where we are). All of the sudden the siren sounds and everyone (120 or so people) go silent for 2 minutes, each person thinking his own thoughts about the holocaust. After the siren completes, someone leads a ceremony with 2 chapters of Tehillim, a mishna, kaddish, the Kel Maleh tefilla remembering the dead, and then everyone together sings the famous rendition of Ani Maamin.

My office is comprised of a large variety of people. The mix includes pretty much the gamut of Jewish/Israeli society. We have old and young and middle age. We have religious and not religious. We have ashkenaz and sefard and hassidic(and if you want to break it down even more, every type of ashkenaz to every type of sefard to various hassidic sects). We have reps from a lot of different countries. We all stand there in silence and in thought during the 2 minute siren.

This is the kibbutz galuyot of Israel today (or as we used to call it in America, the Melting Pot). People from different backgrounds and cultures can stand together and think about a collective memory. Was the Ethiopian woman thinking about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (the day is called Yom L'Zikharon Hashoah V'Hagevurah), the death marches or the strife her family suffered in Ethiopia? Was the Iranian guy next to me thinking about Babi Yar or the forced conscription of young Iranian Jews to be used to clear minefields in the prolonged Iran-Iraq war? Was the Russian lady thinking about the destruction of the ghettos of Poland or of her families persecution in Russia for being Jewish? Was the American guy thinking about how the worst he ever suffered was the shegetz screaming out "Kikes" as he ran by the yeshiva basketball courts or was he thinking about his grandparents who escaped from Aushwitz?

Does it matter? As Jews we have suffered through persecution and torture throughout history. We can think about recent history or we can think about ancient history. We do not lack events in our history, no matter what country or background you hail from. We think about our past to consider the suffering and exiles. Take this day and think about our collective pain. Normally, in the hustle and bustle of daily life, we do not have time to think about these things. We are too busy earning a living, raising our children or doing whatever, to be bothered. "Leave me alone about what happened 50 years ago, I don't have time for it." One day a year, even if it is just for the two minutes of the siren blaring, take the time and think about what it means to be a Jew, which we were never allowed to forget when the goyim came to murder us.