resolution

Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom HaShoah)

2016 Book of Resolutions, #3125

In recent years, Jewish communities have honored the custom of remembering the Holocaust (Shoah) on 27 Nisan of the Jewish calendar. This observance has become a powerful means of educating people about this heinous crime against humanity and sensitizing them to present and potential violence rooted in racial hatred.

Whereas, “In the twentieth century there is particular shame in the failure of most of the church to challenge the policies of governments that were responsible for the unspeakable atrocities of the Holocaust” (“Building New Bridges in Hope,” Book of Resolutions 2008); and

Whereas, the same document observes, “[t]he Christian Church has a profound obligation to correct historical and theological teachings that have led to false and pejorative perceptions of Judaism and contributed to persecution and hatred of Jews”;

Therefore, be it resolved, that the General Conference calls The United Methodist Church to contrition and repentance of its complicity in “the long history of persecution of the Jewish people” and asks the Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships to give special programmatic emphasis to Holocaust awareness and to prepare resources for use in local churches, annual conferences, and their Conference Commissions on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns or equivalent structures to enable them to become more aware of the Holocaust and its impact, and

Be it further resolved, as a sign of our contrition and our solidarity with the Jewish community, the General Conference urges the observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day each spring (The date of Yom HaShoah may be calculated for each year by using a Hebrew date converter.) in United Methodist local churches and urges the Office of Christian Unity and Interreligious Relationships, in cooperation with other agencies of The United Methodist Church, in a time of increasing anti-Semitism, to work within the structure of our own Church to find ways to support the work against anti-Semitism in the world today and to prepare resources for local churches to use in observing Yom HaShoah.

We continue to pray for God’s grace to speak in Jesus’ name against bigotry, hatred, genocide, or other crimes against human- ity whenever and wherever they are perpetrated.

ADOPTED 2000
REVISED AND READOPTED 2008, 2012
RESOLUTION #3125, 2012 BOOK OF RESOLUTIONS
RESOLUTION #3127. 2008 BOOK OF RESOLUTIONS
RESOLUTION #75, 2004 BOOK OF RESOLUTIONS
RESOLUTION #66, 2000 BOOK OF RESOLUTIONS

See Social Principles, ¶ 162.

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