Jonathan Tobin: Remembering the Holocaust in a post-'sacred survival' era
With each passing year, the number of Holocaust survivors – whose memories largely embodied the journey that Jews had taken from abject powerlessness and slaughter to current security and strength – decreases. With fewer of them to bear witness, the Holocaust could be fated to be viewed as one more piece of ancient history. Just as important, the growing willingness to universalize the Holocaust has lessened its ability to instruct Jews about their own history and fate.
That has led to a situation in which the Shoah is perceived by some as more of a weapon to be used against Israel and those seeking to perpetuate Jewish life as anything else. The canard that Israel is now as oppressive as the Nazis is the product of a desire by the Arab and Muslim world, and the Europeans, to justify their desire to erase history. But it has now been internalized by many Jews who have rejected both the idea of sacred survival, as well as the clear verdict of history that Zionism was the only logical and necessary response to the incurable virus of anti-Semitism.
Sacred survival as the sole motivation for Jewish identity was fated to collapse over time. Neither historical memory nor vicarious identification with Israel is enough to sustain Jewish life in the long run. Instead, its perpetuation of Jewish life requires a joyful embrace of all that is life-affirming in both Judaism and the heritage of Jewish peoplehood. To the extent that American Jewry will continue as a coherent community will be on the basis of choosing to embrace that positive vision.
But it would be a mistake to think that our focus on the Holocaust must be sacrificed in order to achieve a healthier Jewish future based on transmissible values.
To the contrary, the challenge for contemporary Jews is to incorporate the memories of the survivors and the sacrifice of the Six Million to forge a community that is forward-looking while still anchored in the same ideas of historical memory that have sustained Jews since they began recounting the story of slavery and the Exodus from Egypt thousands of years ago.
Nor, even as we rightly reject the narrow vision of sacred survival, should we forget that the fate of world Jewry is still linked to the tragedy of the Shoah. On the eve of Yom Hashoah this week, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics noted that by the end of 2018, the worldwide Jewish population stood at 14.8 million – a figure that is still less than the estimated 16.6 million who were alive in 1939 on the eve of the Holocaust.
Jewish life cannot be solely justified, as in Fackenheim's lesson, as a response to the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators. And thanks to the triumph of Zionism, the Jewish people are no longer helpless victims. But neither can we afford to forget that powerlessness is an invitation to future Jewish genocide.
Johnathan Sacks: A Lesson from the Torah: Vilification and Evil Speech Are Destroying the World
Judaism is, I have argued, a religion of words and silences, speaking and listening, communicating and attending. God created the universe by words — “And He said … and there was” — and we create the social universe by words, by the promises with which we bind ourselves to meet our obligations to others. God’s revelation at Sinai was of words — “You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a Voice” (Deut. 4:12). Every other ancient religion had its monuments of brick and stone; Jews, exiled, had only words, the Torah they carried with them wherever they went. The supreme mitzvah in Judaism is Shema Yisrael, “Listen, Israel.” For God is invisible and we make no icons. We can’t see God; we can’t smell God; we can’t touch God; we can’t taste God. All we can do is listen in the hope of hearing God. In Judaism, listening is high religious art.Jason Greenblatt: Humanity is in this together
Or it should be. What Tom Hanks shows us in his portrayal of Fred Rogers is a man who is capable of attending to other people, listening to them, talking gently to them in a way that is powerfully affirming without for a moment being bland or assuming that all is well with the world or with them. The reason this is both interesting and important is that it is hard to know how to listen to God if we do not know how to listen to other people. And how can we expect God to listen to us if we are incapable of listening to others?
This entire issue of speech and its impact on people has become massively amplified by the spread of smartphones and social media and their impact, especially on young people and on the entire tone of the public conversation. Online abuse is the plague of our age. It has happened because of the ease and impersonality of communication. It gives rise to what has been called the disinhibition effect: people feel freer to be cruel and crude than they would be in a face-to-face situation. When you are in the physical presence of someone, it is hard to forget that the other is a living, breathing human being just as you are, with feelings like yours and vulnerabilities like yours. But when you are not, all the poison within you can leak out, with sometimes devastating effects. The number of teenage suicides and attempted suicides has doubled in the past ten years, and most attribute the rise to effects of social media. Rarely have the laws of lashon hara been more timely or necessary.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood offers a fascinating commentary on an ancient debate in Judaism, one discussed by Maimonides in the sixth of his Eight Chapters, as to which is greater, the chassid, the saint, the person who is naturally good, or ha-moshel be-nafsho, one who is not naturally saintly at all but who practices self-restraint and suppresses the negative elements in their character. It is precisely this question, whose answer is not obvious, that gives the film its edge.
The rabbis said some severe things about lashon hara. It is worse than the three cardinal sins — idolatry, adultery, and bloodshed — combined. It kills three people: the one who speaks it, the one of whom it is spoken, and the one who receives it. Joseph received the hatred of his brothers because he spoke negatively about some of them. The generation that left Egypt was denied the chance of entering the land because they spoke badly about it. One who speaks it is said to be like an atheist.
I believe we need the laws of lashon hara now more than almost ever before. Social media is awash with hate. The language of politics has become ad hominem and vile. We seem to have forgotten the messages that Tazria and Metzora teach: that evil speech is a plague. It destroys relationships, rides roughshod over people’s feelings, debases the public square, turns politics into a jousting match between competing egos, and defiles all that is sacred about our common life. It need not be like this.
I learned about the atrocities of the Holocaust when I was a child directly from those who suffered through it. The memories of my extended family and their close friends helped shape who I became. Their stories were captivating and horrifying. Against all odds, after the brutal destruction of European Jewry, these survivors had the strength to raise strong Jewish families, strong American citizens, and build new homes in their new country. The fortitude of that generation was a marvel to behold.
My parents were luckier than most. My father's family was able to flee Hungary in time to save themselves. My paternal grandmother painstakingly tried to line up all the necessary visas to enable her family to escape Hungary. It was a desperately frustrating task, where the consequences meant life or death. One day, after months of my grandmother trying and failing, a German diplomat gave her the visas that she was so desperately seeking. My mother's family was liberated by the Soviet army. After the war, her family made their way back to Debrecen, Hungary, where they were reunited. They continued living in Debrecen until the Hungarian Revolution, at which point they fled Hungary and moved to the United States.
When asked to recount some of my most memorable moments during my nearly three years at the White House, I often speak about a Holocaust-related experience. One day I was privileged to visit the memorial commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with the Vice President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Israel, and the Prime Minister of Poland. For me to be able to stand there with them as a proud American, a proud Jew, and a Senior White House official was remarkable. Later that day I gave a speech in Warsaw and I was in awe when I realized that right in the front row listening to me were three elderly Righteous Among the Nations individuals who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
While I have remained on lockdown with my family for several weeks as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, I have had more time to reflect and try to grow as a person. Time to reflect and grow often eludes me during our fast-paced, normal lives. I hope to change this when we emerge from this isolation. I often think about the German diplomat and the three Righteous Among the Nations individuals who I met in Warsaw who, together with so many others, heroically put themselves and their families at great risk to save Jews.