"Where Do You Do Holocaust Remembrance Day?" The "Memory in the Living Room" Project at the Southern Periphery of Israel

Abstract

"Memory in the Living Room" (MIL) is a social enterprise that offers Israelis a new way to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. It calls for informal community gatherings in the living rooms of private homes. These meetings encourage participants' involvement and make the commemoration more meaningful and relevant. The special format offered by MIL has, in one decade, attracted about a million participants who choose this way to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day every year and regard MIL as a new Israeli tradition. Thanks to its unique style and rapid growth rate, it seems that the project is a major Israeli commemorative phenomenon that will have a long-term impact on the culture of memory. Nevertheless, an examination of the manifestations of the venture in the southern periphery of Israel presents a completely different picture. This study claims that the further one moves from the center to the southern periphery of Israel, the more the perception of MIL differs from that among the mainstream of society. The overall characteristics of MIL, which distinguish it from other commemorations, have failed to penetrate the borders of the periphery.