The State of Israel commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day this past Monday, the 28th of Nisan, with a series of ceremonies designed to preserve the remembrance of the heavy calamity which befell the Jewish people. The chareidi Jewish community has declined to recognize the establishment of this date on its calendar, partly because it falls in the month of Nisan which is not an appropriate time for memorial days like this, but mainly because of the character, import and purpose lent to it by the Israeli government. The founders of the state explicitly chose this date to designate that terrible calamity since it also designates the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which ended with the total destruction of the ghetto and the evacuation of all its residents to the death camps. At the very onset of statehood, the founders sought to distance themselves from the millions of Jews who were "led to their death like sheep to slaughter", preferred to highlight the small handful who chose to confront, almost with their bare hands, the Nazi army. The founders' purpose was to inculcate in the young generation their ideal of "taking our fate into our hands." In fact, in order to express this, they named the day, "The Day of Holocaust and Bravery," Yom Hashoah veHagevurah. They did not intend to highlight the bravery and stamina of those Jews who stood staunchly and firmly to defend their religious principles and preserve their Divine image in the face of extreme debasement and pressure, but rather to extol the actions of the handful of Warsaw fighters who went forth in a suicidal act to futilely challenge the Nazi war machine.
Many days have passed since then and slowly, even in the State of Israel, the realization began to surface that the true heroes were not the fighters and rebels but the Jews who struggled for survival in order to perpetuate the Jewish people. Indeed, after the War, they shook off the cinders of the smokestacks and the dust of oblivion from the camps in order to revive the Judaism of the ages.
One of the hopes of those who founded the State of Israel was that the world would learn the lessons of the Holocaust and not repeat those awful mistakes. However even this basic vision was not realized and today anti-Semitism gets stronger from year to year and hatred of Jews is almost part of the official policies of many modern states. Often they are still embarrassed to call this hatred by its proper name, but they have a convenient substitute for the Jews of old in the State of Israel of today.
Under the guise of humanism and pluralism, the State of Israel itself constitutes one of the most central platforms for spreading anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel throughout the entire world. This chilling phenomenon demands a rethinking and reckoning on the part of the government heads. They must examine the situation wherein Jews, can act without any concern for the welfare of their brethren in Israel or in the world, and under the misguided pretense of ethical motives, as it were. Even those who nursed no expectations that the `enlightened' world would internalize the lessons of prejudice, incitement and hate - at least expected that within the very state they established, the historical travesty be remembered in order to project its lessons unto future generations.
But it is precisely within the `enlightened' Zionist camp that we find a process of Holocaust denial. Not a direct denial, but by a continuing and extended comparison of the Nazi genocide of Jews with the State's attitude towards the Palestinians. The equivalence of modern Israeli soldiers to the Nazi storm troopers is voiced over and again by the spokesmen of that `enlightened' camp in articles, books, performances and in media interviews throughout the world. If amongst Jews there are those who draw comparisons between the treatment by the Israeli army of the Palestinians and the treatment by the Nazi Germans to the Jews, how can we complain about the world at large making such comparisons all the time?
If there is a central lesson to be drawn from the awful Holocaust, it is in the collapse of all humanism, of a culture based on human achievements alone. The Jewish nation, which suffered the most from it all, should draw the lesson and stay away from all the disgusting Western culture, and cleave rather to the Divine Torah, that lifted us up throughout the generations and in exile all over the world. Instead, the modern State tries to imitate all the low innovations of the West, and, worst of all, now persecutes all those who are faithful to the Jewish tradition that the Nazis sought to destroy.
Therefore, before the State expects the world to remember the Holocaust and its lessons, we had better examine ourselves and see to what extremes the self-hatred of men of letters has contributed to the home-bred anti-Semitism and examine the State's attitude towards those who steadfastly and loyally carry on the ancient tradition which the Nazis pursued with full force. The State of Israel has to make a self examination to learn how a situation was created whereby the Zionist vision of a state to put an end to all anti-Semitism actually produced with its own hands an alternate brand of anti-Semitism fed by the very ones who were supposed to be the blessed fruit and products of Zionism.
