This week, Israel will be commemorating not only the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust but also recall the untold stories of the many acts of Jewish resistance that occurred during this period throughout Europe; the Holocaust being the darkest period of Jewish history.
Yet in recent months, as the Holocaust has been cynically used as a backdrop for Jewish liberals in America to attack President Trump, it’s not surprising that in response to this partisan use of the Holocaust, more and more voices can be heard stating that it’s time for Jews to get over the Holocaust and suggest that now is the time for Jews to move on and stop making the Holocaust the most pivotal event in Jewish history.
With mass killings going on in recent years during Obama’s watch, many of his Democratic and liberal supporters have been suggesting that the Holocaust is unnecessarily singled out as if it’s more special than other historical events. They claim that although the Holocaust was on a much greater scale and horrifically well-organized, it was far from the first incident of a dominant power killing those deemed “inferior” on trumped up charges, and essentially not that different from what’s going on in the Middle East over the past 5 years, while the Obama admiration did nothing to stop the killing.
For many of these liberal “Tikkun Olam” Democrats, mankind has been perpetrating horrible atrocities on other human beings for centuries. They seem genuinely puzzled as to why Holocaust denial is even considered a crime in over a dozen countries. Surely, as far as they are concerned, this is an overreaction. Do we arrest those that believe and express the opinion that the world is flat? Why should denial of a historical event even be considered a crime, something detrimental to society?
Historical events, as earth-shattering and history-ending as they seem at the time, eventually fade from the forefront of public consciousness and become memory. When Holocaust survivors will no longer be around, and when there is no more opportunity to let children and educators hear firsthand testimony of the Holocaust, will the Holocaust be just another event studied in world history classes? With all of the effort that has gone into recording testimonies of the Holocaust be enough to preserve historical memory in terms of the magnitude and uniqueness of the Holocaust?
There are few historical events that have undergone greater scrutiny and preservation. Perhaps we can even acknowledge that we’ve done enough to ensure that the Holocaust can never be forgotten. In a moral world, in a world that differentiates between good and evil, right and wrong, this kind of preservation of historical memory would probably suffice. However, today in the age of globalization in which everything is viewed through the prism of cultural relativism, facts and evidence are not enough, the enemies of the Jews and of Israel not only claim that the Jews exaggerate and that the Holocaust was made up so as to justify the establishment of the State of Israel, but they take this one step further and falsely claim that Israel itself is implementing a Holocaust on the Arabs living within Judea and Samaria.
Sadly yet not surprising, many Jews are not immune from the politically correct trivialization of the Holocaust and acceptance of universalism as the intellectual context of interpreting world events. Yet, Jewish identity that ignores or belittles or “moves beyond” the systematic attempt to exterminate the Jewish race seventy-five years ago cannot possibly fathom the significance and importance of the establishment of the State of Israel. The Jewish people made a conscience effort to rebuild out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Those that regard the Holocaust as just another unfortunate event cannot be depended on to understand that for modern Israel, in order to deal with existential threats, Israel must do whatever is necessary so that “never again” will not remain an empty slogan.
Those that depict the Holocaust as just another historical event should be reminded of what the Holocaust was all about. In Daniel Mendelsohn’s recent The Lost, A Search for Six of Six Million, he describes in detail the core horror of Nazi action in collaboration with locals in Bolechow, Poland, September 1942:
In every generation, the Jewish nation has had to deal with the threat of annihilation. In ancient Egypt, it seemed that the Jews would be gone. In ancient Persia, it looked like Haman would have his way and annihilate the Jewish nation. All of these so-called great empires have disappeared and against all odds, we, the Jewish nation are still around. Not just surviving, but thriving.
The enormity of the Holocaust, however, with the majority of European Jewry being systematically murdered, is a singular event that defies comparison in the last millennium. In retrospect, the Holocaust compels Jews to confront their own Jewishness. After such unspeakable events such as the one described above, every Jew must look inside themselves and consider: Hitler tried to exterminate my people and the world stood by in silence. Will I, through apathy and indifference, become a partner to Hitler? Or will my life convey a testimony to the glory of the Jewish people and its resurrection from the ashes? That is the real reason that it’s not the time for Jews to “get over and move beyond” the Holocaust nor agree to rebrand the Holocaust as just another sad episode in world history.
The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health officer and Commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGO’s implementing Psycho trauma and Psychoeducation programs to communities in the North and South of Israel. Today, Ron is a strategic advisor at the Office of the Chief Foreign Envoy of Judea and Samaria.
Important article.But I must once again urge: Where Are the Jewish Writers and Historians to Expose the Culpability of the Palestinian Leadership in the Holocaust? Yes its important to remember and educate on the Holocaust of WW II. But the spawn of the Nazi-ideology of vicious, violent hate against the Jews continues to spew its poison every today, under the protection of Israel itself, in the form of HAMAS in Gaza, and Abass and his FATAH/PLO/PA in the West Bank.The story of the Holocaust exists in Europe, but it is alive and well in Eretz Israel itself, perpetrated every day by the Islamo-Nazis whose revered leadership include Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, of the infamous Al-Husseini family of Jerusalem, who collaborated with Hitler and Eichmann and implored them to kill the Jews in Europe so they would not go to [British Mandate] Palestine; who helped organize and recruit a muslim SS Division from among the muslims of the Balkans (e.g. Bosnia) which became an SS Einstatzgruppen (Special Task Force) #4, which perpetrated numerous atrocities against thousands of unarmed Jewish men, women and children.The Palestinian Arab leadership has never been held to account. The Allies did hold the Germans to account and imposed an occupation and de-Nazification program at the end of WW II, including the trial and execution of leading Nazis, until German society was reformed.
Israel is under a moral obligation to do the same with Palestinian society–it must impose a de-Islamo-Nazification program and compel the reformation of Palestinian society. In addition, just as Germany, post-WW II, acknowledged its Nazi past and paid reparations to the Jews for the loss of life, the horror of internment and the theft of property, Israel must demand reparations from Palestinian society, for its role in the Holocaust. Such financial reparations must include the forfeiture of any Palestinian Arab claim to sovereignty in any part of the land of Israel.
This link between the PA of today and the Nazis of WW II, is very direct. Haj Amin Al-Husseini, was given asylum by the Nazis in Berlin during WW II where he perpetrated his Holocaust collaboration. He was the uncle/cousin of Arafat and helped arch-terrorist Arafat establish the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, when the so-called West Bank was in the hands of Jordan. The target then of the PLO upon its creation was not the West Bank, but Tel Aviv, etc., as it is today.Apart from the havens many Nazis found in South America after WW II, many vicious Nazi perpetrators found sanctuary and continued their work of hate against Jews in certain Arab countries including Egypt and Syria.It is incumbent upon Jewish leaders to publicize the details of this history, to urge historians to further research this part of the Holocaust story and the links to present day Palestinian society, and to urge the government of Israel to hold Palestinian leadership and society to account in the same way the Allies did with Germany post-WWII; for the idea among the Palestinians for a Jewish Holocausthas never stopped.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The reference to the cloths in tge film somehow reminded me of the delightful story of how when Rambam or was it Rashi presented his table of rules, the Askkenazim, at that time, the less numerous and less educated poorer cousins, added an addendum, and called it “the tablecloth.” Let me know if Iam getting things mixed up, From memory and I come from a secular jewish family, or secular and Jubu.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/esthers-tomb/
@ Sebastien Zorn:
So weird. Iranian govt. upgrading or downgrading Jewish historical site like Chinese Communists appointing Panchen Lama and insisting on the right to pick Dalai Lama’s reincarnation for successor. Dalai Lama has announced there will be none to thwart them. They are doing to the Tibetans what the Muslims did to us and others throughout the Middle East.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
sorry. filmmaker not Jewish. http://www.farsigallery.com/farsi-gallery/kambiz-tazarv.html
There is a competing tradition that says she is buried israel.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/130362
Only Honeybee would know.
@ honeybee:
@ Edgar G.:
No independent confirmation of story but they may have been confirmed individuals Amnestris and Marduk. Many details of royal court accurate but unknown to outsiders until recent excavations. Some details do not match up. Thought by some to have been a novel. The Iranian Jews believe in them. There is a real tomb. If it is not that of Esther and Mordechai from 2500 years ago then it has to be that of an undisputed Iranian Jewish Queen from 1800 years ago though one source said it was destroyed by the Mongols? and rebuilt in the 16th Century. Here is a short Iranian Jewish film about it.
https://youtu.be/h9oMFn0arYQ
Edgar G. Said:
I was there and it happened exactly as described.
Don’r is spelled don’t. etc should have a period etc..
I hope I am not being picky.
Ted Belman Said:
Does that mean I will notified of follow-up comments? How can I properly contend with Zorn and Edgar G. if I am unaware of their supercilious responses.
“Beinart’s Desecration of Trump’s Holocaust Speech”
https://unitedwithisrael.org/beinarts-desecration-of-trumps-holocaust-speech/?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Netanyahu%27s+%27Shock+Video%27+to+Influence+Trump-Abbas+Meeting%3B+What+All+100+Senators+Just+Agreed+About+Israel&utm_campaign=20170428_m138947504_Netanyahu%27s+%27Shock+Video%27+to+Influence+Trump-Abbas+Meeting%3B+What+All+100+Senators+Agree+About+Israel&utm_term=more_btn_dark_jpg
This reminded me of what Mel Brooks as the “2,000 year old man” being interviewed by “journalist”, Carl Reiner, had to say about Winston Churchill. Another case of life imitating art, unconsciously, I would presume.
https://youtu.be/AX0FQkeTs4Q
Excellent article about the misuse of the Shoah to demonize Gurka
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/231133/gorka-forward-vitezi-rend-trump?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=295f15046a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_26&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-295f15046a-207291269
Sebastien Zorn Said:
I wasn’t sure what had made me think of Wurms so I googled it after the fact just now.
— Wurms Jews — I guess now I know though I don’t remember knowing this. Funny spelling. Worms? Apparently that’s how they spell it now. Oh, well, time to fish or cut bait. I guess.
@ Philippe:
Antisemitic French Comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala To Release Iran-Produced Film, ‘The Anti-Semite’
https://www.memri.org/reports/antisemitic-french-comedian-dieudonn%C3%A9-mbala-mbala-release-iran-produced-film-anti-semite
“Dieudonne en Iran “le vrai””
https://youtu.be/TPzgWB46iek
English subtitles would be welcome.
I googled Iran and dieudonne on MEMRI:
https://www.memri.org/search-results?country_id_report%5B0%5D=0&country_id_clip%5B0%5D=0&country_id_jttm%5B0%5D=0&tv_station_id%5B0%5D=0&subject_id%5B0%5D=0&jttm_subject_id%5B0%5D=0&category_id%5B0%5D=0&cdate=0&custom_data_range_start=04/25/2017&custom_data_range_end=04/25/2017&order_type=0&order_style=0&keywords=dieudonne%20iran&type=0&ia_number=&sd_number=&sa_number=&content_number=&author_id&content_type%5Barticle%5D=article¤t_site=
Dieudonné is a payed agent provocateur of IRAN . Everyone knows from where his money comes from . Despite having been condemned to many fines for incitation to antisemitism he was never condemned to jail one single day ; Otherwise France now has 12 ( twelve ! ) million muslims in his population . The algerian embassy in France acknowledged 8 ( eight ) million dual citizens in France , both holding algerian and french citizenship . Add two million moroccans, one million tunisians and hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, Egyptians , Koweitis, etc…actually we ( the jews ) would very much like the idea of importing a few millions palestinians in France .They will feel at home , every sixth frenchman speaks arabic , and it will be a big relief for Israel . But strangely , France who is so overtly generous with its openess to arabic-muslims invaders , is totally deaf to the plight of the palestinians and refuse to welcome them in order to turn into more militancy against Israel .
Sebastien Zorn Said:
So, at the end o’ the day, it turns out to be All the fault ‘o the damn Irish, once again, Edgar G . See the can ‘o wurms ye’ve opened?
@ Edgar G.:
@ Sebastien Zorn:
My apologies. I spoke too hastily: There’s a period after “racisme.” Mea Culpa.
Though, since we’re on the subject of Christianity now, isnt’ it interesting that while, on the one hand, Lithuanian gentiles murdered their long-time Jewish neighbors (only like 8 hundred years or something) in the name of their Christianity — as anti-semites did throughout Europe — Chiune Sugihara, known as the “Japanese Schindler,” who was responsible for saving most of the fraction of Lithuanian Jews who survived — I believe there were 120,000 Jews in Lithuania before the Shoah, of whom 95 percent were murdered, Jewish Partisan groups like the Bielsky Brigades and Abba Kovner’s outfit saved maybe 1,500 but Sugihara saved about 10,000 people — also did it in the name of his Christianity. He was that rare bird, especially at that time, a devout Orthodox (Russia, Greece) Christian. He later married a Russian Orthodox Christian.
Most profound statements about religion ever made, in my opinion, and that of my late father, by a now mostly forgotten (over here) Chinese-American Philosopher – he introduced Chinese Classical literature to the West and Western Humor to China. Lin Yutang. 1895-1976.
“Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself.”
—
“I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.”
—
“It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_Yutang
@ Philippe:
Though, to be fair, today the mobs are pretty much all Black and Arab N. African Muslim invaders. Such ridiculous political correctness to describe them as French, the way the MSM does, when they have never assimilated at all. They compose hostile, violent foreign Muslim enclaves. Invaders. Who will take up the mantle of Charles Martel? I’m leery of Martine Le Pen. But, there really is no other game in town. Except making aliyah, as so many already have, and no doubt will. These Jew hating b*sterds have to go. Pardon my French.
I mean c’mon. By what stretch of the imagination is this schmuck French?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11387219/Who-is-Dieudonne-the-French-comedian-on-trial-for-condoning-the-Charlie-Hebdo-attacks.html
If calling a Nazi a Nazi makes me a “raciste’ then vive le “racisme”
Video: “President Trump: “Never Again.” Says Holocaust darkest chapter in Human History. America will stand with Israel and fight antisemitism everywhere.
@ Philippe:
And let us not forget that it was the sight of anti-semitic mobs rioting and burning Dreyfuss in effigy in the home of “Liberté, égalité, fraternité” that made a Zionist of Tivadar Herzl.
Thank you for this perceptive analysis.
It is quite astonishing to observe the gap in opinion among jews on both sides of the atlantic. Here in France, jews are mostly right-wing , they have no illusions about their niighbouring crowds , the know their history , they know how the glorious democracies of europe crumbled in three weeks to the german conquest and then folded obligingly to serve the satanist-criminal thirst of the germans . Each european nation had a different path in that matter , Poland was a nightmare except for a few thousands poles who hide their fellow jews. Yugoslavia was a singular case , a nation of 23 millions deeply deeply divided in catholics croatian ( pro-nazis in some part ) and an orthodox serbian majority , created two armies of 400,000 fighters each ( Mihaijlovic and Tito ) and liberated their country by themselves without allied presence .Opposite to this indomitable spirit , France parliament deputies voted 480 vs 80 , their trust and full powers in Marshall Petain in june 40. In October 40 , Petain excluded the jews from all their positions and belongings then branded them with a yellow star as fair game for the french police . It is the french Parisian police which arrested 16,000 jews on july 14th 1942 and put them on trains to the death camps .In November 42 , the germans invaded the so-called ” zone libre ” ( southern half of France ) and then began the total collaboration of Pétain with the nazis . Jews were hunted like animals all over , the Petain government morphed into a puppet of the nazis . French police and militant fascists ( La Milice ) killed jews at will and at whim . All together 80,000 jews were deported and killed out of 270,000 jews , most of them arrested and consigned to the nazis by french police . French resistance under de Gaulle , was very weak and divided , no more than 40,000 resistance fighters joined the ranks until 1942 when the german invaded the zone libre and chased young men for work in german factories ( STO service du travail obligatoire ) . This is the true reason why suddenly 100,000 more frenchman joined the maquis.
In the countryside . Suddenly in June 44 , with the allied forces landing in Normandy, the resistance swelled to 400,000 fighters but they were not trained at all , and created little problems to the germans . France minority of resistants ( less than half a million out of 40 millions ) behaved with courage and pride , but the huge majority just waited the end and accepted the killing of the jews as a marginal problem , created by the jews themselves .They justified and accepted the nazi doctrine that the jewish victims were actually responsible for their fate . By accepting the nazi tale, they exonerated themselves of any responsibility .
This history , we have very present in our knowledge of french society and we teach it to our children. Therefore the liberal american jews complex of tikkun olam is not at all our motto. We know we have to fight for ourselves and we do not wait fro the tikkun olam . Actually we see the liberal jews smear campaign against Israel as a form of willing collaboration with the new jews-haters BDS – etc…Very annoying phenomena which shows the american liberal are lost souls.
@ Edgar G.:
Be patient. The redesigned site should be ready with in two weeks and I hope the problem will end.
You may have contributed to having yourself branded a spammer by typing in “xxx” which may be held up as porn. Once branded it takes a while to unbrand you.
xx
Why is my post above still awaiting “moderation” since this morning. Can’t the damned machine see that it’s moderation is obvious. In fact this whole moderation crap should be scrapped; with no pun intended. here has been another post printed after it, with NO MODERATION, so why is mine still marked.
Correction, it seems that whilst I was writing this post, the “moderation” scrammed.
On another point I should have menioned above. The Holocust is more horrific because it occurred the most recently and was caused by the most-supposedly- advanced and educated country in the world.
The site is still marked as “Not Secure” but other than taking up to 20-30 secs wait for the site to appear, there seems to be no ill effects.
As for the 6 pivotal events, I think that only the Syrian Greek regime made a deliberate effort to wipe out the Jewish people and religion as an entity….until Nazi Germany came along. The other events I mention, allowed choices, and in the case of Babylon this matter didn’t arise; assimilation seemed to be their attitude.
Israel, and Jews in general, should stop enabling Palestinian pity-wanting. They’ve made an industry of grievance and, relying on latent anti-Semitism, have convinced the world, and many self-flagellating Jews, that they have a “cause.” There is no such entity as a Palestinian ethnicity to persecute. And there is not, and never has been, a state called Palestine that is being occupied. Equating the Nakba with the Holocaust is a travesty of monumental proportions. This is not to say that there is no Palestinian identity as long as you consider that an identity can be concocted of bigotry, belligerence, and the ability to convince yourself that your monstrous lies are the truth.
Fantastic article.a must read for anyone concerned about our precious home land!!
xx
I see at least 6 pivotal events in Jewish History. In no particular order, they are The Victory of the Chashmonayim, The Holocaust, The fall of Jerusalem (/w destruction of the Temple), The Expulsion from Spain, The Rise and Fall of Bar Cochba, The Exile to, and Return from Babylon.
I do not include the Story of Esther and etc, because I don’r believe that it actually happened, at least not as described.
One of the President’s greatest strengths is that he learns from mistakes. Quickly.
http://www.jta.org/2017/04/23/top-headlines/trump-mourns-jewish-holocaust-victims-vows-to-fight-anti-semitism-in-speech-to-jewish-group
Good article. Also, This article says it all:
http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-one-lesson-of-holocaust.html