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Stop comparing the Holocaust to other events in history, Israeli leader Naftali Bennett urges

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his wife (left) stand together with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife during a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day

The Israeli leader has called on the world to stop comparing the Holocaust to other events in history.

Naftali Bennett, the prime minister, ushered in Holocaust memorial day in Jerusalem at Yad Vashem, the official memorial to victims, as his country came to a standstill in an annual ritual commemorating the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis.

Mr Bennett said: “As the years go by, there is more and more discourse in the world that compares other difficult events to the Holocaust, but no.

“No event in history, cruel as it may have been, is comparable to the extermination of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.”

Both Ukraine and Russia have compared their ongoing war to the genocide committed during the Second World War.

As sirens marking the beginning of a two-minute silence rang out across Israel, drivers got out of their cars and pedestrians halted in their tracks as they bowed their heads in respect.

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his wife (left) stand together with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife during a ceremony marking Holocaust Remembrance Day
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Naftali Bennett and his wife (left) at the ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem

Israel is home to around 165,000 Holocaust survivors.

Mr Bennett also warned Israelis against allowing their deep differences to tear the country apart.

“My brothers and sisters, we cannot – we simply cannot – allow the same dangerous gene of factionalism [to] dismantle Israel from within,” Mr Bennett said.

Mr Bennett’s comments came after his family received a letter with a live bullet and a death threat on Tuesday.

Israelis stand next to their cars as a two-minute siren sounds in memory of victims of the Holocaust in Tel Aviv. Pic: AP
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Roads came to a standstill in Tel Aviv. Pic: AP
People stand still in Jerusalem as a two-minute siren sounds
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The siren rang while one man was crossing the road

Israeli authorities have tightened security around the premier and his family and are investigating.

Restaurants and entertainment venues across the country shut for Holocaust memorial day, while radios played sombre music and TV stations showed Holocaust documentaries.

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Alabama marking Holocaust remembrance with events

Alabama marking Holocaust remembrance with events

Alabama will remember the Holocaust, the systematic slaughter of Jews and other people by Nazis, with events planned for this week in Montgomery and Birmingham.

The Alabama Holocaust Commission is sponsoring an annual gathering of remembrance on Tuesday at the Alabama Department of Archives and History in the capital. A child survivor of the Holocaust, Inge Auerbacher, is scheduled to speak, and a state proclamation will be presented.

A commemoration will also be held on Thursday at Temple Beth-El in Birmingham. The program will feature George Nathan, the son of Alabama Holocaust survivors Henry and Sophie Nathan. The family lived in both Anniston and Birmingham after arriving in the United States.

About 6 million people were killed by the Nazis in the early 1940s during World War II. The state Holocaust commission holds events each year to remember the victims.