The Christian Jewish Dialogue of Montreal will hold its 38th annual Christian Commemoration of the Shoah on Sunday, April 30, 2017, at 10:30 a.m. at Holy Family Parish.

This event brings together Jews and Christians, on Holocaust Remembrance Day (known as Yom Hashoah in Hebrew), to commemorate the approximately six million Jews and one million others who died in the Holocaust during World War II. 

The commemoration will be part of the regular Sunday Eucharist and will include music and prayers, testimony from Holocaust survivor Eva Kuper, as well as teachings and a candle lighting ceremony led by Fr. John Baxter and Rabbi Sherril Gilbert, assisted by Cantor Heather Batchelor and the Choir of the Centre étudiant Benoît-Lacroix. Light kosher refreshments will be served following the commemoration.

The Christian Jewish Dialogue of Montreal (CJDM) is a monthly gathering of clergy and lay leaders dedicated to strengthening relations between Christians and Jews in Montreal.  The CJDM was established in 1971 by a group of Christians and Jews who saw a need for dialogue between their communities. The group organized its first Christian commemoration of the Shoah in 1980 with a goal to build bridges between Jews and Christians and to foster a deeper understanding of the Holocaust among Montreal's Christian communities.

Since 1980, the Christian Jewish Dialogue of Montreal has made a commitment to invite a different Christian church each year to engage with members of Montreal's Jewish communities in a shared act of remembrance on the Sunday closest to Yom Hashoah (Day of the Shoah) known in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day. Shoah means "devastating storm" in Hebrew, the word Jews use to describe the Holocaust. On December 15, 1999, the National Assembly passed a law instituting "Holocaust-Yom Hashoah Day" in Quebec, to be observed each year according to the Jewish lunar calendar.

In the past 37 years, participants in the Christian Commemoration of the Shoah have included numerous French and English-speaking churches, including Roman Catholic, United Church, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Ukrainian Catholic, Anglican, Unitarian churches, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among many others. 

All are welcome!