THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

in anger over the Dreyfus Affair, but by his rival Ehad Ha’am (Asher Ginzburg) andthe other Zionist intellectuals who sought to revive the greatness of the Jewish people,not to replicate its ills?The leaders of the pre-state of Israel paid lip service to the calamity in Europe.Segev draws a horrific picture of indifference:Haaretz once published a news story on the atrocities of theoccupation in Kharkov, Ukraine (“The Nazi oppressors pushed infront of them half-naked Jews and beat them along the city streetswith whips and rifle stocks. Frail old people and children fell helplesson the way and died in purity . . . ”). The story was run on page twoof the paper, under a headline of one column. There were otherstories in that column, and this was not at the top. Above it appeared astory on a great football victory of Maccabee Damascus . . . In timethe newspaper editors would claim that they did not believe theinformation that reached their desks . . . Therefore they published, butwith reservation, for safety. They often used question marks: “Half aMillion Jews Annihilated in Romania?” (Minor headline in Davar). 2Who can believe this today, when every alleged swastika makes a big headline?There are a number of Jewish organizations that make a living of reacting toexpressions of hatred that are not so terrible, not so important, sometimes simplyaccidental or the product of a deranged mind. Can we imagine, today, a questionmark in a headline about the death of half a million people?This downplaying reflected the leadership’s position and was the filtered productof the political watchdogs at the news desks, and in any case it was the position ofthe majority of the people living in the pre-state Israel. The local population was evenmore distant from the events in Europe than their leaders. Yiddish, the language of theShoah, was not theirs, nor were the places. Ponevezh, Lithuania, was by no meanslike Dgania, to the shores of the Sea of Galilee, and Lublin, Poland, was totallyforeign to Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley. Their distant cousins were more distant thancousins, and in the Land of Israel people were busy, especially with themselves. Onlywhen the gates of the camps were force opened, when the curtain lifted and theheaps of ashes became apparent to all, only then did the petrifying news penetrate. Itwas not just that their inaction was appalling, but also the realization that Eastern