Righteous among the Nations (Hebrew: חסידי אומות העולם, khassidey umot ha-olam "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
The term originates with the concept of "righteous gentiles," a term used in rabbinical Judaism to refer to non-Jews, as ger toshav and ger zedek, who abide by the Seven Laws of Noah.
Read more about Righteous Among The Nations: Bestowing, Righteous Among The Nations By Country and Ethnic Origin As of January 1, 2012, Veneration, In Israel
Famous quotes containing the words righteous and/or nations:
“All anger feels like righteous anger; sorrow does not care whether it is righteous or not.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“If nations always moved from one set of furnished rooms to another—and always into a better set—things might be easier, but the trouble is that there is no one to prepare the new rooms. The future is worse than the ocean—there is nothing there. It will be what men and circumstances make it.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)