While I sat in Baltimore Hebrew Congregation’s Dalsheimer Auditorium last night, trying to figure out how to adequately capture in written word the always touching annual community-wide Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemoration, I had no idea that only 50 miles away, President Obama was trying to figure out how to let the world know that Osama bin Laden was dead.

Finally.

As we all sat there last night at BHC, recalling the darkest chapter of human existence – and watching as Holocaust survivors went up to the stage to light a candle of remembrance with their grandchildren – we had no idea that, once again, we would be served a reminder that in the long run, evil never wins. Sooner or later, justice is served and good triumphs over evil, even if it comes at incredibly great expense.

As I listened to the President’s televised announcement late last night—telling the world something I never really believed I would hear, that the mastermind of 9/11 was killed by U.S. forces—I thought of a scene from the film “Dead Man Walking.” It’s that scene when Sean Penn’s character, a murderer, is executed by the state, and in the viewing room window’s reflection are the images of his victims, watching somberly as justice is served. In my mind’s eye, I imagined the thousands of victims of 9/11, listening intently to President Obama announce that bin Laden had been killed.

Yom HaShoah is a sad, solemn day, but it is also a declaration of triumph over the forces of evil. It is only apropos and natural that the death of bin Laden – the ruthless murderer of so many Americans and the hater of Israel and world Jewry – was killed on the day when we remember not only those who perished in the Holocaust but the fact that we’re still here, to carry on long after Nazism was defeated.

wonderful uplifting post. That while standing on the BHC stage with my parents..President Obama..who lives down the road from me..had such an important statement to make. You expressed that sentiment profoundly. Thank you