PM Modi visits Yad Vashem memorial in Israel

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem and paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust.

• He was accompanied by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

• PM Modi participated in a solemn ceremony at the Hall of Remembrance.

• The ceremony was marked by the poignant recital of the ‘El Maleh Rahamim’ by the Cantor.

• PM Modi laid a wreath and placed a stone to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust.

• Modi said he also visited the ‘Hall of Names’, a solemn space that preserves the memory of those who suffered and perished during the Holocaust. 

• This was the second visit of PM Modi to Yad Vashem.

• Established in 1953 by an act of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), Yad Vashem is entrusted with Holocaust commemoration, documentation, research and education.

• The memorial seeks to preserve the memory and names of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. 

• “Yad Vashem” is a Hebrew phrase that means “a memorial and a name”.