THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Today we are armed to the teeth, better equipped than any other generation inJewish history. We have a tremendous army, an obsession with security, and thesafety net of the United States, the world’s greatest superpower. Anti-Semitismseems ridiculous, even innocuous compared with the strength of the Jewish people oftoday. Therefore the oath “never again” takes on new dimensions and nuance.Never again? We have made “Never again” possible for ourselves. What aboutnever again for others? Never again? On the contrary, it happens again and again,because of indifference. This apathy to their fate was made possible primarily by theoperating system that was installed in me at birth: The Holocaust is ours, and all otherkillings in the world are common evils, not holocausts. Well, if it is not a holocaust, it’snone of my business. Therefore I am not responsible. Therefore I do not have to cryout in protest. The lives of many thousands, perhaps millions, could be saved if theState of Israel and the Jewish people, myself included, had stood at the head of theinternational struggle against hatred and the annihilation of any people anywhere,regardless of color, gender, creed, origins, or residence. We did not stand at the headof this struggle. And the swords are still drawn.For us, the Shoah is unique in the history of the world. It is the logical climacticoutcome of anti-Semitism. We have never sought to view our Shoah as an event inthe historical continuum of others. We do not know the universal context of theShoah and therefore do not realize the consequences of our absence from protesting,alerting, and struggling against other people’s holocausts. My favorite bookshops inJerusalem, like in New York, organize their bookshelves so that Shoah literature is onone shelf and World War II on another. I read somewhere that in Germany, a mirrorimage of the German bookshelf exists: an artificial separation between Nazism andShoah. There is an artificial, even political, wall in the realm of consciousness. “Thedivision between the meaning of persecution for the persecuted and Nazi policy . . .blocks the ability to understand causative contexts of historical events,” Yifat Weissof Haifa University writes. “In addition to the direct damage that this division causes,more problems rise. The place of Nazism on the German history bookshelf and theplace of the Shoah on the Judaism bookshelf differentiates the various aspects of acommon historical event and attribute them to separate histories . . . disconnectedhistoriography traditions, German or Jewish.” 5If we broaden our discussion we cannot escape the conclusion that the teaching ofJewish history as unique and separate from general history is much in line with other
stories of the Chosen People, the people with a history of its own.For many, the Shoah is the deep abyss between the magnificent Jewish past andthe wretched world that we saw when the gates of Auschwitz were forced open.“The Shoah is a different planet,” K. Zetnik testified at the Eichmann trial. “Wechanted the Yizcor prayer,” wrote a young Israeli girl in a diary on her visit to Polandand the extermination camps, “I was crying, and I saw a group of youngsters fromabroad. They didn’t look Jewish to me. What were they doing here? Why are theydesecrating the holy? . . . In the evening, when we sat and summed up the day’sevents, I did not ask anymore. I said they should have no part in our Auschwitz . . .Everyone agreed.”For the non-Jew, the Shoah is a chapter among chapters, a trauma among theother European traumas. It resides in history alongside Napoleon, Versailles, Lenin,Spain, World War I and the divided Germany after World War II. Historians attemptto join the past’s fractures into a logical sequence, to connect the Jew to the German,the European, and the universal. But the Jewish narrative collects testimonies andmemories, painstakingly adding details. Our facts. Life in the shadow of trauma doesnot allow room for a bigger picture to emerge—that of the universal context ofhatred and its origins, of dictatorship and tyranny, of the history of genocide, not justthe Jewish genocide. “Two people emerged from Auschwitz,” wrote ProfessorYehuda Elkana, a wise man, a Shoah survivor, and an early mentor to me, “a minoritythat claims ‘this will never happen again,’ and a frightened majority that claims: ‘thiswill never happen to us again.’” 6Although the Shoah was, and still is, an opportunity to join the Jewish people withthe other peoples, we have not yet honored the invitation—on the contrary. Whateverthe reason, we joined ranks with the indifferent nations that stand by. How differentare we now from the other nations who stood by while we were being slaughtered?Late in the 1980s, the Israeli writer Boaz Evron wrote the following soberingopinion:I am willing to bet that if we had a border with Nazi Germany, andGermany turned against a minority within it, and we had good traderelations with it, we would have acted as the worst among them. Wewould have collaborated in the hunt of minorities such as the Poles
Page 5:
THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER; WE MUSTRISE
Page 8 and 9:
THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER; WE MUST RISE
Page 10 and 11:
In loving memory of my late parents
Page 12 and 13:
Notes 243Index 247
Page 14 and 15:
none of this could have happened.An
Page 16 and 17:
word “former” is attached to yo
Page 18 and 19:
This is how I explain the fierce pu
Page 20 and 21:
eternal renewal of the world. But n
Page 22 and 23:
CHAPTER 1
Page 24 and 25:
I WAS BORN IN JANUARY 1955 IN GERMA
Page 26 and 27:
When I finished writing my first bo
Page 28 and 29:
I had heard her say that more than
Page 30 and 31:
of my late father. We traveled far
Page 32 and 33:
CHAPTER 2THE HOLOCAUST, EVER-PRESEN
Page 34 and 35:
youngest son, Noam, did not join th
Page 36 and 37:
Bank; New Age and Buddhist experime
Page 38 and 39:
CHAPTER 3
Page 40 and 41:
WHERE TO BEGIN? HOW DO YOU START CL
Page 42 and 43:
ight, and Eban, if the 1967 boundar
Page 44 and 45:
CHAPTER 4
Page 46 and 47:
MY NEIGHBOR RAMI’S PARENTS CAME F
Page 48 and 49:
When he woke up, he continued the c
Page 50 and 51:
power. The local leadership of Ben
Page 52 and 53:
How could it be that everything “
Page 54 and 55:
As the Zionist movement aspired to
Page 56 and 57:
everything changed dramatically and
Page 58 and 59:
“Masada will not fall again” be
Page 60 and 61:
So, three traumatized communities c
Page 62 and 63:
CHAPTER 5
Page 64 and 65:
WHAT COLOR WAS THE HOLOCAUST? PROBA
Page 66 and 67:
seemed to side with me and my frien
Page 68 and 69:
into ploughshares and wait patientl
Page 70 and 71:
When my initial courtship of Yael c
Page 72 and 73:
only during the long incubation per
Page 74 and 75:
liked to compare the Palestinian Na
Page 76 and 77:
Fanon is an expert witness worth li
Page 78 and 79:
prevention.” How targeted could i
Page 80 and 81:
themselves to speak words that shou
Page 82 and 83:
followed the war? If not, how did h
Page 84 and 85:
war, therefore they should not know
Page 86 and 87:
CHAPTER 6LESSONS FROM THE HOLOCAUST
Page 88 and 89:
“nationhood,” including its int
Page 90 and 91:
in anger over the Dreyfus Affair, b
Page 92 and 93:
1943, upon hearing of the Warsaw gh
Page 94 and 95:
is compared to the Shoah, dwarfed b
Page 96 and 97:
ad fortune, to express anger, to re
Page 98 and 99:
e the cause of constant political f
Page 100 and 101:
use the refugee problem to denounce
Page 102 and 103:
Almost everywhere the Shoah serves
Page 104 and 105:
with the moral parity among the chi
Page 106 and 107:
CHAPTER 7
Page 108 and 109:
THE HIGH POINT OF MY SEVENTH GRADE
Page 110 and 111:
at least, before the Warsaw ghetto
Page 112 and 113:
than a million Jews who had walked
Page 114 and 115:
ebels and the disciples of the yout
Page 116 and 117: exterminated. A group of Jewish you
Page 118 and 119: grenade. Natan Rapoport, the sculpt
Page 120 and 121: we will not respond. We will sacrif
Page 122 and 123: against Us.” It is self-evident,
Page 124 and 125: of now we got lost. We need to retu
Page 126 and 127: CHAPTER 8
Page 128 and 129: BECAUSE OF ADOLF EICHMANN, I CAN’
Page 130 and 131: discussion about garbage technology
Page 132 and 133: gap between my father’s world and
Page 134 and 135: independent Jewish Commonwealth, th
Page 136 and 137: Eichmann harmony at the right pitch
Page 138 and 139: the victors at Nuremberg presented,
Page 140 and 141: the highest order. Without people l
Page 142 and 143: The landlady did not lie, and never
Page 144 and 145: of whom only one was a non-Jew, a g
Page 146 and 147: The Grunwald trial had become the K
Page 148 and 149: Canaanite left, and the yearling of
Page 150 and 151: to shape a new Israeli generation t
Page 152 and 153: trial . . . he would use expression
Page 154 and 155: light to humanity. But they continu
Page 156 and 157: suspended daily, and not just to ev
Page 158 and 159: minister who came from “there,”
Page 162 and 163: “WHO REMEMBERS THE ARMENIAN HOLOC
Page 164 and 165: . . . an ideologue with firm belief
Page 168 and 169: and Romanians. We would have shut o
Page 170 and 171: It turned out that the Dalai Lama,
Page 172 and 173: War II, an estimated half a million
Page 174 and 175: An empire without colonies launched
Page 176 and 177: So familiar and yet so far removed
Page 178 and 179: was the first governor of southwest
Page 180 and 181: mention other states, the Jewish wo
Page 182 and 183: square and deserted the universal h
Page 184 and 185: peoples’ holocausts. In a world i
Page 186 and 187: we raise our guests and force-feed
Page 190 and 191: JUDAISM IS A CIVILIZATION THAT IS T
Page 192 and 193: the Jewish Pantheon, namely in the
Page 194 and 195: dogma are the most dangerously viol
Page 196 and 197: His words express no condolences an
Page 198 and 199: most meaningful clash to take place
Page 200 and 201: Korah’s racism lacks the mechanis
Page 202 and 203: aka HaRambam. All of them belong to
Page 204 and 205: lecture, a professor stood up.“I
Page 206 and 207: The revolution that did not happen
Page 208 and 209: the deceitful war in Lebanon, for t
Page 210 and 211: and not in Le Monde, in French? His
Page 212 and 213: a new prayer book, a Siddur, in whi
Page 214 and 215: CHAPTER 11MAKE GOD SMILE AGAIN
Page 216 and 217:
Does it really matter who is guilty
Page 218 and 219:
Divine intervention did not come to
Page 220 and 221:
enemy-brethren? My Shoah question i
Page 222 and 223:
wept, and kept watch; but when the
Page 224 and 225:
acceptance of those who were discri
Page 226 and 227:
and impatient beliefs win over many
Page 228 and 229:
Chinese tyranny.The sum total point
Page 230 and 231:
—Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund
Page 232 and 233:
and outlooks. It was not just a dif
Page 234 and 235:
CHAPTER 12
Page 236 and 237:
HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD A MAN DIE? H
Page 238 and 239:
Israelis made a motion. So I starte
Page 240 and 241:
innovation that included my sister
Page 242 and 243:
heard this melody at any other home
Page 244 and 245:
nations that do not know you and on
Page 246 and 247:
I never made secret of my opinion t
Page 248 and 249:
admissible. I am sorry, but this do
Page 250 and 251:
prime minister with Germany’s pre
Page 252 and 253:
only synagogue where the cantor Mei
Page 254 and 255:
3. An official press release by Net
Page 256 and 257:
6. Yehuda Elkana, “In Defense of
Page 258 and 259:
INDEXAbraham, 107, 158, 178, 184, 2
Page 260 and 261:
British Mandate of Palestine, 99-10
Page 262 and 263:
faith, 206-9, 211, 213, 240Finkielk
Page 264 and 265:
198, 203-16, 226, 231-3, 239; color
Page 266 and 267:
Jonas, Hans, 205-6Jordan, 67, 82-3,
Page 268 and 269:
Namibia, 161-5, 174Napoleon III, 52
Page 270 and 271:
Rwanda, 86, 144, 151-2, 155, 158, 1
Page 272 and 273:
Ukraine, 29, 32, 36, 74United Natio
show all

THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?