First observed in 1999, the first Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was observed to honor the victims of transphobic violence. Chanelle Pickett, a Black trans woman, was murdered on November 20, 1995, marking rising violence against LGBTQ+ people in the Boston community. A vigil for Rita Hester, a 34-year-old Black trans woman who was murdered in Boston three years after Pickett, was the beginning point for this annual tradition. Originally organized by activist Gwendolyn Ann Smith after she was struck that her friends no longer remembered Pickett’s murder only three years later, TDOR sets a somber tone that invites a communal call for societal reckoning.

As Jews, we are familiar with the concept of remembering those who have passed on. Every year, I set out a candle and say Kaddish for my bubbe of blessed memory. Every year on Yom HaShoah, I remember the millions murdered during the Holocaust. And every year, I remember those who do not have anyone to remember them, because they too deserve remembrance.

November 20, 2026 is a Friday this year, which presents a unique challenge for Jews observing TDOR. Jewish law suspends public mourning on Shabbat (Moed Katan 23b-24a), as it is said the sanctity and joy of the Sabbath override personal grief and public mourning rituals. While there is the option of observing TDOR before lighting candles, many find memorials at night to hold significance for a plethora of reasons. I want to invite the Jewish community this year to find new ways to bring trans remembrance into the space of Shabbat, as opposed to holding it at the margins.

I propose a reframing of sorts: viewing zikaron (remembrance) as honoring lives, and not just reciting deaths. Shabbat is a vision of the world as it should be—peaceful, righteous, just. A world where these lives were not cut short.

We can look for wisdom in the parsha for this week, Vayetzei. Jacob, not yet known as Israel, is wandering and sleeps on stones in an unnamed place. The text reads וַיִּפְגַּ֨ע בַּמָּק֜וֹם (vayifga bamakom), meaning Jacob “came upon the place” and had stopped for the night because the sun had set. The Talmud (Berakhot 26b) reads vayifga as prayer and credits Jacob with having founded the ma’ariv evening service with this. When he wakes, he asserts “Surely G-d is in this place, and I did not know it,” (Gen 28:16) after dreaming of angels ascending and descending a ladder. He then sets up a stone pillar to mark where something holy had happened—the matzevah. He renames the place Beth-El, not remembering its previous name of Luz, and pours oil on it, sanctifying it as holy.

This part of the parsha provides a number of teachings. First, it reminds us that remembrance is an act of building. Death as an act of violence cannot stop us from taking part in the act of creation through memorialization. On TDOR, we bring new light to the stories of the individuals we honor—we uplift them and say a holy life was here. 

Second, the renaming of Luz to Beth-El is a quiet moment where a new name doesn’t erase the old story, but instead marks what the place truly became. This echoes the process we as trans folk go through: we can carry our histories with us, and hold on to the memories that shaped us and carry them forward into our true selves.

Pivoting to another story in our tradition that talks about memorialization, Isaiah 56:3-5, provides further insight. While Jacob marks a place, Isaiah describes G-d marking people. A simple summary tells us that two people are told not to despair: the foreigner who has joined Israel, who fears being separated from the community, and the eunuch, who says “I am a dry tree” (etz yavesh). G-d speaks to the eunuchs (sarisim) and says if they keep the Shabbatot and “hold fast” to G-d’s covenant, G-d will give them a monument and a name (yad vashem) “better than sons and daughters” that “shall not perish” (lo yikaret).

The sarisim in this passage are implied to not be able to have biological children, further cementing their status as outside the gender binary (the rabbis would later treat saris as a gender category, alongside the tumtum, androginos, and aylonit). The saris’ fear isn’t about not having children as much as it is about the fear of being forgotten. G-d says that their memory “shall not perish,”  lo yikaret—the antithesis of being cut short. This promise is contingent on the fact that they keep Shabbat every week. We, as gender-diverse people, are not only allowed to keep the Sabbath in the way of our ancestors, but are invited and commanded to. 

Part of this promise G-d makes to the sarisim is yad vashem: a monument and a name, better than sons and daughters. Israel’s Holocaust memorial takes its name from this verse, because so many of the millions murdered had no one left to remember them. Through this, we see remembrance taking on several roles: communal duty, a way to refuse erasure, and belonging. In Isaiah, G-d steps in where family cannot; with Yad Vashem, our am (community of people) step in. 

In the context of TDOR, many trans people are deadnamed and/or misgendered by their own families after death. When the family is unable to fulfill the obligation of dignity in death, we as the community must step in and remember individuals the way they deserve to be remembered—by their true selves. Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh, all of Israel is responsible for one another, is one of our inclusivity values here at Keshet, and it applies here. We must refuse erasure. We remember those whose lives were cut short, and we refuse to let it be the end. Memory is how we refuse. To remember as an act of refusal, as an act of honoring, and as an act of love is the greatest mitzvah we can do on TDOR. We must remember those for not just their names, but what made them, them. 

This also brings the obligation back to the living. Remembrance that doesn’t change how we treat living trans folks is incomplete. Non-trans folks need to lead the charge by advocating for policies that explicitly protects trans folks’ access to health care, legal services, and public accommodations. We must focus on the trans folks of color, specifically trans women of color, who face more than half the violence perpetrated against the trans community. And we need to ensure that this change is sustainable, shifting our culture to prevent violence against trans folks.

So what do we do on erev Shabbat this year? Set a kavanah, a ritualistic intention, for candle-lighting. An intention to honor those who are no longer with us and to fight with everything for those who are. An intention to remember them authentically, for who they were, and their potential. An intention to carry throughout the year, not just this Shabbat.

For more information on how to support trans folks and their community, please visit Keshet’s resource library.

So long as they live, we, too, shall live, for they are now a part of us, as we remember them.

—Sylvan Kamens and Rabbi Jack Riemer, “We Remember Them”

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