THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

Eichmann harmony at the right pitch. The forces of Jewishness and Israelinesswanted to feel the state power that they now enjoyed; they did not wish to discussabstract philosophy or ethical questions that Arendt and others raised. We struggledwith her criticism, and therefore her best-selling book on the trial, Eichmann inJerusalem, was not translated into Hebrew for many years.A debate about Arendt has become public only recently. In her introduction to thebook, which summarizes the fifty-year debate, Israeli historian and writer Idit Zertal,who co-edited the book with Moshe Zukerman, writes: “There are many ways toread the history of the twentieth century; but there is no way to read it withoutreading Hannah Arendt. In this sense, Heinrich Heine’s saying on Spinoza—that allour present-day philosophers, possibly without knowing it, look through lensesground by Baruch Spinoza, can be applied to Arendt as well. Hannah Arendt deliversthe lenses and concepts that are necessary to study and understand the century inwhich human-made progress and grandeur converged with their worst atrocities, andwith the extreme, total elimination of man himself, his humanity and his life.” 2Arendt was not completely right, and Hausner and Ben-Gurion were notcompletely wrong. As always, the truth is made of layers; some are Arendt’s andsome belong to the Zionist establishment. Yet then, in the times of Zionist orthodoxyand monolithic thought, it was impossible to switch to another channel or to hearother opinions beside those that crackled from the transistor radios, newspaperheadlines, and living-room conversation. Sixty percent of Israelis aged fourteen andover listened to the live radio broadcast of the trial’s opening session. Many of themfollowed the heavy media coverage closely. Israel’s population then was just a thirdof what it is today, but many of those children and teenagers who were listening aretoday’s leaders. So it is impossible to understand contemporary Israel withoutstudying the experiences that shaped the consciousness of the leadership’sgeneration. This generation did not hear the other voices, like Arendt’s. At the time, Idid not know her work, but today I turn to this honest and courageous woman to findthe tools and insight when I try to understand those years.I increasingly feel that the sixties, beginning with the Eichmann trial, were the realwatershed moment after which Israel’s political processes and public culture changedunrecognizably. I understand the childish need of a very young country to hangEichmann. Finally, an authentic Nazi with a known name had fallen into our lap. Hesurvived Germany’s defeat, the Nuremberg trials and the little vengeful executions of