how to say “continuity” in Hebrew

In honor of יוֹם הַשּׁוֹאָה (yohm hah-shoh-AH) – Holocaust Memorial Day… in reverence of the six million.

My grandfather was one of many youth leaders in Budapest in 1948 who operated underground in a tireless effort to rescue Jews of Hungary from the grips of the Nazi expulsion and extermination. His parents were murdered in the camps. He and my great uncle Itzhak survived.


Meanwhile, in another part of Hungary, my grandmother was deported from her home town Seilush with her family to Auschwitz. Her parents and four of her siblings were murdered. She and my great uncle Avigdor, who passed his Bar Mitzvah in the camp, survived.


The two arrived in then Palestine (the Latin, not Arabic, name for the Land of Israel) after a very long journey, where they met, fell in love, and married within a week of the declaration of the State of Israel.

Among their many other acts of heroism, my grandparents – along with so many other Jews – enabled continuity of the Jewish people through their marriage. The Hebrew word for continuity is הֶמְשֵׁכִיּוּת (hem-sheh-khee-YOOT). It derives from הֶמְשֵׁך (hem-SHEKH) – continuation, as well as לְהַמְשִׁיך (leh-hahm-SHEEKH) – to continue doing something.


Another usage of המשך is in the Hebrew equivalent of the phrase, Have a good rest-of-the-day – הֶמְשֵׁך יוֹם טוֹב (hem-SHEKH yohm tohv).


May it be one.