THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

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I had heard her say that more than once over the years. Now, taking advantage ofthe intimate moment, I asked her what I had dared not to ask. “But Mom, how canyou say such a thing? At the age of seven you lost your mother. At eight, half of yourfamily was slaughtered in Hebron. At fourteen, your father died of heartbreak, and inrecent years you lost Tzviya, your eldest daughter.”“True,” she replied after a moment of contemplation. “But all my life I wassurrounded by love.” Then she added, “Everybody loved me.”For many days to follow, thoughts on the power of the love that saved my motherwere spinning inside my head. A short time later, we spoke again and theconversation turned to the news. The Israeli Air Force was bombing and killinginnocent people in Gaza, on its beaches and streets, and in Lebanon’s villages andcities. My mother’s grandson is an IAF pilot, the captain of a transport plane.“I’m so glad he’s not a combat pilot,” she commented.“Why?” I asked, surprised.“Would I want my grandson to drop bombs on innocent people?”I was silent in the face of the courage of love that shone from her. As someonewho lost her childhood in Hebron in 1929, she could afford to be a bit less tolerant,maybe even show some glee, with respect to the suffering of “the Arabs” as enemiesof Israel, wherever they were. But it seemed that the same love that surrounded herhad also seeped into her. She became for me an embodiment of the ultimate Jewishheroine. Who is the hero of heroes? Jewish tradition teaches, “One who turns one’senemy into a loved and beloved friend.” If my mother could defeat her own personalinferno with sheer love and hope, then we all have a positive future.Like my mother, who has lived beside me all my life, Lucien and Janine, thewonderful parents of Yael, my partner for life, were also there—she as a youngwoman in love who supported combat, and he as a brave partisan of France’sJewish Resistance. When many of their friends turned to the right in the middle of thelast century, to the path of Jewish redemption and separatism, they turned to the left,toward the ideas of universalism and humanism. They dedicate the current chapter oftheir lives to revealing the goodness that shone through in the sea of evil of thosedays. Lucien, historian of France’s Jewish struggle, spends his days and nights tryingto locate and decorate “The Righteous Among Nations.” The Righteous are the non-Jews who risked their lives to save our persecuted brethren, thus preserving the
image of God by which humanity was created. The spirit of my in-laws hovers overevery abyss to which the book and my thoughts took me. Without them I could nothave known that there is an alternative, positive belief in the goodness of humans.This is not a history book. I am not an interpreter of the past, just a consumer ofthe news that it produces. I touch the past only to understand the conditions of thepresent. This is not another indictment of Hitler and his henchmen. They are foreverguilty in my court. This is our story beyond the evil of their crimes. The Shoah and theatrocities that the Nazis committed against us are an inseparable part of the activeIsraeli present. Since I want to repair the present for a better future for my childrenand their friends, I had no choice but to face the post-Shoah routine of the present;to try to understand, to change and to be changed. The following pages were writtenwith awe and reverence. If I hurt anyone, I apologize. If the truth hurts, I too suffer.From the time of its conception through to the birth of this book, the issue of anuclear Iran was on the agenda, and it still is today. As usual, politics and history arepaired: an atom bomb and anti-Semitism, dictatorship and hatred of Israel. PresidentMahmoud Ahmedinejad works energetically on his nuclear program and at the sametime calls for wiping Israel off the map. Is history repeating itself? Is a second Shoahon the way? We still do not have answers, but the panic is back. What does it meanfor me? Should I pack away my optimism, my faith in the nations of the world, andmy hope for a better future for my children and replace them with classic Jewishparanoia? This is the response of many, but it is not mine. I understand contemporaryJudaism differently. Something amazing happened to the Jewish people of this age,something that has happened only a few times to our forefathers in our torturedhistory. The world has changed in nature and character. World superpowers, most ofthe Christian churches, and a significant part of world citizenry vowed sixty years ago“never again,” and this time they meant it. We are not facing a great menacing enemyalone. The upheavals of Arab nations, Islamic zealotry and its dangers, directed at usfor years while we were on our own, have become the concern of many goodnations. Our personal enemy has become the common enemy, and an expansiveinternational coalition stands against it. This is a vastly different world than the one wehave known. The world’s stand and our own capabilities provide hope and faith. Thisis a world that I trust.The last few words of this book were written during an incredible trip that I sharedwith my youngest son, Noam. We went to Germany together to retrace the footsteps
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 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 40 and 41: WHERE TO BEGIN? HOW DO YOU START CL
Page 42 and 43: ight, and Eban, if the 1967 boundar
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 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 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
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 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
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
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THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

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