Unveiling on Yom Kippur!?

http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/790
For Jewish Values Online, I was asked the following question:
My uncle's family is holding a 1-year memorial and stone unveiling honoring my uncle... on Yom Kippur! I was not close to my uncle but my mother was, and she is urging me to go to this event. I am thinking I should be at services, including Yizkor to honor my father, whom I was extremely close with. They are even planning to make it into a celebration of my uncle's life and have food afterwards. My uncle was Jewish and my mom is, but these family members arranging the event are not. What are the principles I should consider and is there a clear imperative in what I should do? What would Jewish law and thought tell me is the way to proceed?

I wrote:
Before beginning, have you asked them if they could move the memorial one day earlier or later?  Is your uncle buried in a Jewish cemetery?  If so, they may find the gates locked on Yom Kippur, as no one will be working to unlock them.

If I were in your shoes, I cannot imagine going to an unveiling and meal on Yom Kippur.  The proper memorial for your uncle would be to say Yizkor for him, as well as your father, in synagogue on Yom Kippur.  Fasting and prayer go together.  If you are with non-Jewish relatives who will not be fasting, it will make your fast far more difficult, as well as take you away from the spirit of the day.

Yom Kippur is clearly an important and holy day which includes aspects of repentance, prayer, fasting, and also great joy.  It is not appropriate to be in a cemetery on such a day, much less have an unveiling on that date.

As a side note, if you offer to host the meal after the unveiling, they might be more receptive to change.  I would hope that once they understand that it is not appropriate to have an unveiling on Yom Kippur for a Jewish man, they would move the ceremony.

In short,
Step 1: Ask them to move it.  If they say yes, great!
Step 2: If they are committed to that date, apologize that you will be unable to join them and go to synagogue instead.  There you can offer Yizkor prayers for your uncle, as well as your father.
p.s.  Doesn’t your mother want you in shul saying Yizkor for her late husband??



I thought:
Isn't Yom Kippur on most secular calendars? Why would anyone schedule a memorial for a Jewish person on Yom Kippur???