THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

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His words express no condolences and no empathy, only a distinction between Usand Them, the People of the Torah and the “Negroes” of the world who have noGod. This is what happens in the process of restricting human wisdom to Jewishwisdom only: The narrower one’s lens, the tighter one’s limits. It leads to arroganceand patronization, a short way from racism and discrimination. Rabbi Yosef is proofthat a giant of Torah scholarship can be a humanistic dwarf.The late Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last Chabad-Lubavich Rebbe—whoseHebrew title, Admor, means our master, our teacher, our rabbi—stretched the limitsof his Hasidic sect’s dogma beyond legitimate Jewish boundaries. When his followersproclaimed him a Messiah while he was still alive, no one protested. Even when hisbody was lowered to the grave, some denied his death. “The Rebbe is alive,” theydeclared. A poster proclaiming “Long live our master, our teacher, our rabbi, theMessiah King forever and ever,” is still among the most conspicuous memorabilia inIsrael and New York. They turned the dead rabbi into the second messiah, who diedand was resurrected. The first messiah was also a Jew. His name was Yeshua, orJesus Christ. On their bodies new religions were born, none of them in the leastJewish. With his death and rebirth, the Rebbe’s theory of faith did not die. On thecontrary, it is alive and kicking. It is the faith of the extreme Right.From the first days of our patriarchs, two trends rose in Jewish history: exclusivityand inclusiveness. The exclusivists separated themselves from the world and detestedthe gentiles’ being and inputs; the inclusivists were open to adopt positive spirits andideas from other cultures. These trends began a long time ago, when Judaism wasconceived. The first was Abraham the Hebrew, the Ivri, who came from across theriver, where we originated. But this geographical expression became psychological,positioning us on one side of the balance and the entire world on the other side.Throughout Jewish history, our forefathers never succeeded in erasing thesignificance of the gentiles in our lives. Judah, the patriarch of the House of David,was the first Israelite to have a mixed marriage outside the patriarchal family. Hemarried “a daughter of a Canaanite man, whose name is Shua, and he took her andcame to her.” 4 Ruth the Moabite slept overnight at the feet of the Israelite farmerBoaz, who later married her according to Jewish custom. The couple created a
lineage from which David, the king of Israel, was born, starting a royal dynasty. It isclear that the ban on marrying Moabites was softened, perhaps even abolished. Thisis the weave that produced us. On the one hand, exclusivity; on the other,universalism. Jews and gentiles created the historical Jewish identity. The followingconversation took place among some of our sages from the Second Temple period:Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Yossei and Rabbi Shimon were sittingtogether, and with them sat Yehuda, son of Jewish converts. RabbiYehuda opened, saying: “How good are the deeds of this nation [theRoman Empire]. They built markets, they built bridges, and they builtbaths. Rabbi Yossei kept silent. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai replied,saying: “All that they built they built for themselves. They built markets,prostitutes to please them; baths, to groom themselves; bridges, tocharge tolls.” 5Rabbi Yehuda acknowledges the aesthetics and the infrastructure of the RomanEmpire. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, ever the segregationist, is suspicious. For him, anyforeign thing is a threat. One is a universalist; the other a xenophobe, as we havealways had an agitating split personality from the beginning.For me, the Jewish appreciation of aesthetics, grace, and charity must keep itsrespectable place, even when spiritual thugs attempt to exterminate it and eliminateour spirit. The lines of segregation in the world begin with the believer’s personalwake-up prayer, which includes the line, “Blessed are you, our God, king of theuniverse, for not having made me a gentile.” It is brought to light at the end of theSabbath, as we pray, “Blessed . . . who differentiate between Holiness and everydaymatters, between light and darkness, between Israel and the nations.” This is adistinct separation of one group, of everyday affairs, darkness, and nations of theworld, from the group of holiness, light, and the people of Israel. These distinctionsare made in numerous sources. The idea of the Chosen People can be explained inhistorical and human contexts. It could be that the oppressed Jews, who experiencedruin and persecutions, found refuge in dreams of grandeur. But now we are neitherpersecuted nor oppressed. The Land of Israel is rehabilitated and built. Reality haschanged, but the spiritual condition of some of us has not. Suddenly, the remedy thatwas meant to alleviate the pain becomes poisonous.The biblical dispute between Korah and his faction and Moses and Aaron is the
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THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER; WE MUSTRISE
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THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER; WE MUST RISE
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In loving memory of my late parents
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Notes 243Index 247
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none of this could have happened.An
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word “former” is attached to yo
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This is how I explain the fierce pu
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eternal renewal of the world. But n
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CHAPTER 1
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I WAS BORN IN JANUARY 1955 IN GERMA
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When I finished writing my first bo
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I had heard her say that more than
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of my late father. We traveled far
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CHAPTER 2THE HOLOCAUST, EVER-PRESEN
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youngest son, Noam, did not join th
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Bank; New Age and Buddhist experime
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CHAPTER 3
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WHERE TO BEGIN? HOW DO YOU START CL
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ight, and Eban, if the 1967 boundar
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CHAPTER 4
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MY NEIGHBOR RAMI’S PARENTS CAME F
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When he woke up, he continued the c
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power. The local leadership of Ben
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How could it be that everything “
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As the Zionist movement aspired to
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everything changed dramatically and
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“Masada will not fall again” be
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So, three traumatized communities c
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CHAPTER 5
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WHAT COLOR WAS THE HOLOCAUST? PROBA
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seemed to side with me and my frien
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into ploughshares and wait patientl
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When my initial courtship of Yael c
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only during the long incubation per
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liked to compare the Palestinian Na
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Fanon is an expert witness worth li
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prevention.” How targeted could i
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themselves to speak words that shou
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followed the war? If not, how did h
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war, therefore they should not know
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CHAPTER 6LESSONS FROM THE HOLOCAUST
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“nationhood,” including its int
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in anger over the Dreyfus Affair, b
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1943, upon hearing of the Warsaw gh
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is compared to the Shoah, dwarfed b
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ad fortune, to express anger, to re
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e the cause of constant political f
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use the refugee problem to denounce
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Almost everywhere the Shoah serves
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with the moral parity among the chi
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CHAPTER 7
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THE HIGH POINT OF MY SEVENTH GRADE
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at least, before the Warsaw ghetto
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than a million Jews who had walked
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ebels and the disciples of the yout
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exterminated. A group of Jewish you
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grenade. Natan Rapoport, the sculpt
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we will not respond. We will sacrif
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against Us.” It is self-evident,
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of now we got lost. We need to retu
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CHAPTER 8
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BECAUSE OF ADOLF EICHMANN, I CAN’
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discussion about garbage technology
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gap between my father’s world and
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independent Jewish Commonwealth, th
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Eichmann harmony at the right pitch
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the victors at Nuremberg presented,
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the highest order. Without people l
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The landlady did not lie, and never
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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 160 and 161: CHAPTER 9
Page 162 and 163: “WHO REMEMBERS THE ARMENIAN HOLOC
Page 164 and 165: . . . an ideologue with firm belief
Page 166 and 167: Today we are armed to the teeth, be
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
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Page 178 and 179: was the first governor of southwest
Page 180 and 181: mention other states, the Jewish wo
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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 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
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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
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Page 228 and 229: Chinese tyranny.The sum total point
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Page 232 and 233: and outlooks. It was not just a dif
Page 236 and 237: HOW MANY TIMES SHOULD A MAN DIE? H
Page 238 and 239: Israelis made a motion. So I starte
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Page 242 and 243: heard this melody at any other home
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I never made secret of my opinion t
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admissible. I am sorry, but this do
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prime minister with Germany’s pre
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only synagogue where the cantor Mei
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3. An official press release by Net
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6. Yehuda Elkana, “In Defense of
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INDEXAbraham, 107, 158, 178, 184, 2
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British Mandate of Palestine, 99-10
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faith, 206-9, 211, 213, 240Finkielk
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198, 203-16, 226, 231-3, 239; color
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Jonas, Hans, 205-6Jordan, 67, 82-3,
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Namibia, 161-5, 174Napoleon III, 52
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Rwanda, 86, 144, 151-2, 155, 158, 1
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Ukraine, 29, 32, 36, 74United Natio
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