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Temple Shalom is inviting the community to a Holocaust memorial service at 7 p.m. today at the temple on Bethany Pike in Wheeling. (File Photo)

A Holocaust memorial service is slated for 7 p.m. today at Temple Shalom, 23 Bethany Pike, Wheeling.

Rabbi Joshua Lief said all are invited from the wider community to attend the service that remembers those who died, survived and fought back during the Holocaust.

“It’s a day for remembering not just those who died, but remembering that Judaism endures in the present day,” he said.

Lief said this year’s service will be even more important because of the rise in hatred of Jews in the United States and around the world. He noted recent protests on college campuses have included anti-Jewish sentiments, “calling for the death of Jews and saying they are happy about Hamas still holding hostages six months after their brutal massacre” in Israel.

The service will include some readings of psalms, lighting of candles and remembering those who died and the survivors’ descendants. There will be prayers of hope that there will never be such hatred in the world again, Lief said.

“It’s very scary to hear mainstream chants of death to Jews,” he added.

“Here in Wheeling, our congregation has been here for 175 years, and we feel grateful to have a community around us of non-Jews who stand with us,” he said, adding it would be “very meaningful” to see the community attend the service and support the temple.

During World War II, 1941-45, the Nazi German Army and other countries in the Axis powers killed about 6 million Jews in concentration camps, labor camps, mass shootings and death marches in Europe. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, outside of the 6 million Jews, the Nazis also targeted and killed millions of other groups of people including political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexual men, Blacks, habitual criminals, people called “asocials such as people identified as vagabonds, beggars, prostitutes, pimps, and alcoholics,” disabled people, Romani people, Polish people, Soviet prisoners of war and Soviet officers.