THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

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and outlooks. It was not just a difference of opinion on text interpretation, but apolitical argument between the Shammai zealots and isolationists and the Hillelmoderates and pragmatists. This is how the dispute is described:Rabbi Abba said that Shmuel said: for three years the house ofShammai and the House of Hillel were divided. These were saying thelaw is according to us and those were saying the law is according tous. A divine voice came out and said: Both these and those are livingwords of God and the law is according to Hillel. If both were livingwords of God, why did the House of Hillel deserve that law beaccording to them? Because they were agreeable and meek, and theystudied their words together with the words of Shammai. And not justthat, they cited the words of the House of Shammai prior to their ownwords. 11The dispute between the two schools was so bitter it caused bloodshed betweentheir followers. There followed three years of total disagreement that tore apartIsraeli society. The religious dispute is understood, at least on its face: God said hisword, and the scholars of the two schools of thought argued as to the meaning of the“one and only,” as God is one and his truth is one with no alternatives. At the end ofthree years, a “divine voice” decided: “Both these and the others are living words ofGod and the law is according to Hillel.” It is not clear what that “divine voice” was. Itcould be an echo of the public sentiment that became the divine voice, vox populivox dei. It may be what we call today public opinion, yet the voice altered the debateculture in Israel unrecognizably.If the only God said his word, how could such fundamentally differentinterpretations exist and still be described as “living words of God”? It is either onethat is God’s word, or the other, but both? What kind of monotheism allowsmultiplicity of opinions and truths? It turns out, according to this Talmudic legend,which has become an asset of Judaism, that there could be more than one truth withinthe oneness of God. This revolutionary idea can provide great support to thereinvention and renovation of Jewish religious and interpretive pluralism. I hope thatChristianity and Islam also have such tools that enable a quantum leap forward intothe next evolutionary stage of theology. Without such tools and breakthroughs we arebound to go backward. We may have to resort to the dark ages of spiritual darkness
and religious wars that have proved fatal.From the Shammai-Hillel dispute and other disputes from which God was keptout, for the benefit of human discourse, we can make God smile again. It is wrong tothink that God is only satisfied when his altars are washed with the blood ofsacrifices. The only times Jewish sources describe, in legend, God’s satisfaction iswhen his children, namely us mortals, interpreted his intention differently from his will.When we force the human meaning on God’s intent and its rules, he sits there inheaven and says, “My children won me over indeed, won me over,” 12 and smileswith satisfaction. In order for God to smile more often, we need to win him over andover again. We need to give a new human meaning to old sacred scriptures, lest thosewho aspire to represent the ancient original will sweep us into a war of religiousconfrontations and conflicts. Otherwise, it could be that absolutist religions will againtake the place of the just-defeated human totalitarian ideologies and Hitler, Mussolini,and the rest of the world’s villains will replaced by Elohim, God, and their colleague,Allah.
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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
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The Grunwald trial had become the K
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Canaanite left, and the yearling of
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to shape a new Israeli generation t
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trial . . . he would use expression
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light to humanity. But they continu
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suspended daily, and not just to ev
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minister who came from “there,”
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CHAPTER 9
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“WHO REMEMBERS THE ARMENIAN HOLOC
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. . . an ideologue with firm belief
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Today we are armed to the teeth, be
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and Romanians. We would have shut o
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It turned out that the Dalai Lama,
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War II, an estimated half a million
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An empire without colonies launched
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So familiar and yet so far removed
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was the first governor of southwest
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mention other states, the Jewish wo
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Page 188 and 189: CHAPTER 10
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
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Page 200 and 201: Korah’s racism lacks the mechanis
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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
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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
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Page 222 and 223: wept, and kept watch; but when the
Page 224 and 225: acceptance of those who were discri
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Page 230 and 231: —Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund
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
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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
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