THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

discussion about garbage technology was cut short when a small girl’s head peepedout like a turtle from the container. She looked scared and poor, probably a girl fromthe new immigrants’ transition camps. We knew nothing of hunger and could notimagine anyone looking for food in the trash. We thought that a kid in a garbagecontainer was funny, an opportunity for a prank. We surrounded the container,laughing and teasing, being as nasty as only young boys can. She was terrified, like awild animal in mortal danger. Suddenly she disappeared into the container andreappeared with a bottle in her hand. She threw it forcefully at the wall beside me,breaking it into pieces and splashing me with its contents: vinegar. Sour vinegar forsour play. Since then, all cruelty tastes like vinegar in my mouth. This includes the evilEichmann, the reason the container had appeared, and the evil prank that we played.Disparity, boorishness, poverty, and insensitivity—all taste like vinegar, like Eichmann.The ban on vinegar is my first vow. I have never broken it.We all grew up and went our separate ways. The transition camps weredismantled; childhood bands disbanded. The “good” kids went to yeshivas and eliteinstitutions; the “other” kids to professional schools or to work, helping their families.Once in a while we said hello in the street. Jerusalem was small then and its residentswere few. Later, we would hear faint echoes about some childhood friends. Avramjoined the Chief Rabbinate and became active with Chabad’s mitzvah tank. Yaakovbecame city and country champion in all types of athletic specialties and had agirlfriend before any of us. He married the daughter of a conservative rabbi andbecame head of transportation to Uman, Ukraine, for the Breslav Hasidic movement.Rafi Refaeli grew a long beard and became a Kabbalist like his father. AvrahamBetish served many years in the IDF. Gershon, who drew airplanes in art classes,became a senior army officer. Yigal Amadi, a leader in the Kurdish community ofJerusalem, almost became mayor. I went on to become a paratrooper, and for thefirst time in my life, I had the opportunity to be myself, so I ran as fast as I could. Noone could have said that I was the fastest runner in class or in the platoon because myfather was a minister; or that I was a good marksman because of my dad; or that Ihad a red beret because my father had an important yarmulke. I tried to be the bestfor me.Then I crossed paths with Eichmann again in the parachuting course, the ultimatetest of fearlessness. The red beret was a legend since the British Mandate. HannahCzenes and the other World War II paratroopers, the heroes who liberated Jerusalem