Orly Noy: “Why I will not stand for Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day siren”

By Orly Noy | First published in +972, April 13, 12026

Tomorrow [April 14], for the first time since I immigrated to Israel at the age of nine, I will not stand for the siren on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Across the country, a two-minute siren rings out on that day every year, bringing traffic to a halt and people into silent attention. Out of reverence for the victims of the most terrible tragedy in Jewish history, I can no longer take part in these state rituals. I refuse to join ceremonies conducted by a state that has become a kingdom of death — one whose entire essence desecrates the memory of the victims it claims to honor. 

For years, I haven’t stood for the similar siren on Israel’s Memorial Day, which is held the week after Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor fallen soldiers. This is not an act of protest, at least not outwardly — I simply make sure not to be in public when it sounds, so I do not have to participate in one of the endless manifestations of Israel’s militaristic cult of death and bereavement. The songs of Memorial Day evoke in me only deep anxiety and estrangement. The worship of death, and especially of the dead in uniform, unsettles me deeply. 

But Holocaust Remembrance Day always felt different. On that day, it seemed to me, humanity itself bowed its head in shame of an almost unbearable responsibility, the siren the sound of its cry. 

It has long been clear to me that the memory of the Holocaust, as far as Israel is concerned, is no more than a manipulative tool that allows it to demand unlimited impunity. I have watched Israel host antisemites and war criminals at Yad Vashem, the state’s Holocaust museum, only to close lucrative arms deals with them soon after. In the same breath, it invokes the Holocaust to brutally silence any criticism of its crimes.

And yet despite this, I managed to keep Holocaust Remembrance Day detached in my mind from these manipulations. Perhaps because it answered an emotional, human need to share in collective grief, if only for one day each year. Perhaps because the scale of the horror is too vast to confront alone, and we reach for rituals that enable us to do so.

But after more than two and a half years of genocide in Gaza, of the systematic and calculated extermination of tens of thousands of people, and the conscious starvation of babies to death — carried out brazenly, with unconcealed joy, even pride — I can no longer convince myself of that separation. A state that commits genocide cannot meaningfully commemorate the Holocaust. Each ceremony it holds in its name defiles the memory of the victims. 

In a country that has made ethnic supremacy official policy, such a siren no longer signifies mourning. In a country devoid of shame and ethics — where Avraham Zarviv, a rabbi and bulldozer operator whose fame came from the unimaginable destruction he inflicted in Gaza, will light a torch at Israel’s official Independence Day ceremony — the siren is a sound devoid of content, a mere ritual. Or worse: It is part of a well-oiled machine that turned the Holocaust into a propaganda tool designed to justify the most despicable of crimes. It is, in fact, nothing more than a battle cry.

The essence of antisemitic ideology is the belief that Jews stand outside the bounds of humanity, that universal moral laws do not apply to them. But is the State of Israel not, in effect, demanding from the world such an exemption from human norms in the name of the Jewish collective? And if so, can it be entrusted with the memory of the Holocaust, or conduct ceremonies that are not compromised with the stain of Jewish supremacy and xenophobia? I believe it cannot.

This year, more than ever, we must insist on what the Israeli Holocaust industry is trying to erase from our consciousness: the universal lesson of the Holocaust, the only lesson worthy of taking from the tragedy of our people.

“Never again” is not, and cannot be, a unique imperative to Jews. It must be a warning against all forms of supremacy and racism, malignant diseases that, if left unchecked, will take root in our hearts. To honor the memory of the Holocaust is to resolutely oppose any expression of those forces wherever they appear. 

This year, I will not stand for the siren. But I will remain bound to the commandment its memory placed on me: never to forget what human hatred, superiority, indifference, and ignorance can produce, and never stop fighting them. 

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