My Remembrance of Yom Kippur as a Child

I grew up in Union City, New Jersey, just a short bus ride from midtown Manhattan, but in many ways my childhood felt worlds apart from the glitter and noise of the city. My parents were Holocaust survivors, and in our home being Jewish was not simply a religion; it was identity, memory, and survival itself.

I attended a local yeshiva and spent every Shabbat morning at the junior congregation of our small shul, Temple Israel Emanuel. For a young boy, the highlight was often simple: the Hershey’s chocolate bar handed out at the end of services. Even now, I can still picture the crinkling wrapper and feel the joy of that small reward.

Yet my strongest High Holiday memory is not of Rosh Hashanah, but Yom Kippur.

Every year, as the congregation prepared for Yizkor, all the children were asked to leave the sanctuary. The adults became unusually serious. Parents who moments earlier smiled and chatted now quietly motioned us toward the doors. No explanations. No discussion. Just an understanding that we did not belong inside for what came next.

As a child, it felt mysterious and unsettling, almost frightening. I remember standing outside the sanctuary doors wondering what grief was powerful enough to separate children from their parents, even briefly.

Only later did I understand.

Many in that sanctuary carried losses too immense for words. Parents, siblings, entire families erased in the Holocaust. Yizkor was not abstract remembrance for them. It was personal mourning wrapped inside sacred ritual.

Today, when my own children leave before Yizkor, I still feel that same ache in my chest. But I also understand something else: memory binds generations together. The whispered prayers, the tears, and even the act of protecting children from unbearable sorrow were all expressions of love.

In a world still struggling with hatred, division, and exclusion, perhaps that is what our High Holidays continue to teach us most — every soul carries a story, and every story deserves remembrance, dignity, and a place within the sanctuary.