THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

father. All I have left is to ask forgiveness for the many years of criticism. Forgive me,father. You towered over me.The chapter of Adolf Eichmann’s personal life ended, but only then did the Shoahchapter in Israeli identity begin. The Eichmann trial took place during the Bar Mitzvahyear of the state, in which the state’s parents would have proclaimed publicly,“Blessed He that exempted me of this one’s punishment,” according to Jewishcustom. We are free of Eichmann, but not at all resolved by his punishment: theShoah and its interpretations.Compared to that year, my Bar Mitzvah was in the year of the Six-Day War.Victory was magnified, even beyond its natural dimensions, because of the depth ofthe fears and worries in the three weeks of build-up to the war. Three weeks is asymbolic period. It took the Romans three weeks, from Tamuz 17 when theybreached Jerusalem’s walls, to Av 9, when they ransacked the temple, burned it, anddestroyed Jerusalem, in the year a.d. 70, the year of the Ruin. It is the ultimate Jewishexpression of awaiting the inevitable annihilation.Governments do not fall at once, and movements do not end in one fell swoop.Processes and trends take time to ripen and form, and public opinion needs patienceto translate feelings into political acts. The dying Mapai government was givenanother shot of life with the Six-Day War, which coincided with the tumultuous yearsof the stormy 1960s. The war captured the imagination of the enthusiastic Israelis foranother moment in history. In the eyes of many, the war was the last battle fought inthe War of Independence. It was a miraculous war that brought to the surface greatpatriotism and renewed trust in the leadership. It was followed six years later by the“Third Temple Ruin” war of Yom Kippur. The images of defeat were shockingcompared with the bravado born in 1967. When Israeli TV broadcast reels ofhumiliated Israeli soldiers holding their hands up, they looked like the child wearing acap and holding up his hands in the burning Warsaw ghetto. It shattered the image ofthe undefeated native Israeli, the Sabra, a member of the Labor Movement by birth.History is not just extraordinary events; it is also the consistent, ordinary flow ofeveryday life. The next historic coalition was already flowing in mental currents,flushing all until it crowned Mr. Shoah himself, Menahem Begin, the first prime