Holocaust Rememberance Day and... MTV

Passover has, well, passed over (as of this posting here in Israel - all you Yids out there - give it another 24 hours. You're not supposed to be reading this now anyway...) and Israelis are turning their collective face to Holocaust Rememberance Day, on Wednesday, May 4th.

Ever see an entire country stop dead in its tracks for two minutes? And I mean four-lane highways and major city intersections with cars and busses pulling over, with people getting out and standing at stock silent attention? Airports and bus stations, business meetings and military maneuvers, tv and radio stations, school playgrounds and college campuses, supermarkets and malls, factories and farmers, religious and secular alike, old and young, Jews and Arab citizens all stop what they're doing when public sirens sound all over the country at 11:00 AM and take a moment to reflect on the, well, inconceiveable. And then, as the sirens die down, echoing across the Land and into the heart, move on.

Yad Vashem, the shattering Jerualem Holocaust Memorial, museum, research center and archive recently dedicated their newly-renovated museum, and it is a website worth clicking over to for background, news and events and the worlds largest database for Holocaust information.

I will have articles, photos, audio and other reports about all this as the week progresses, so check back.

Jewlicious has a surprising (putting it mildly) posting about - wait for it - MTV's Holocaust Day coverage... no kidding:

"I’m Still Here, Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust, presents the diaries of young people who experienced first-hand the terror of daily life during the Holocaust. Through an emotional montage of archival footage, personal photos, and text from the diaries themselves, the film tells the story of a group of young writers who refused to quietly disappear.Academy Award nominated director Lauren Lazin has directed the hour-long documentary. The film is scored by Moby and the diaries are read by some of today’s most talented young actors including Elijah Wood, Ryan Gosling, Kate Hudson, Brittany Murphy and Joaquin Phoenix, among others. Original footage was shot in Vilnius, Lithuania in the remnants of the old Jewish ghetto. Actor, director, and writer Zach Braff will host the program when it airs on MTV."

MTV and death camps. Who knew? This is, frankly, too weird for parody.