There is an entire controversy over a joint statement between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Polish president. There are those who side with the affirmation in that statement exonerating the Polish nation from any guilt, in exchange for outstanding political cooperation with the Polish government. Many, however, attack the Prime Minister for what they term as betrayal of the Holocaust victims who found their death at the vicious hands of Poles.
Needless to say, the very subject is proof of the bankruptcy of Zionism which promised to remove the existence of anti-Semitism towards the Jewish people. And here, dozens of years into Jewish statehood, we still find the need to negotiate over the negative price of whitewashing anti-Semitism in Europe.
This dispute brings to mind the controversy over German reparations. Heading the opponents stood the Leftist camp which staged violent demonstrations in city squares, headed by leaders of Mapai which was then the ruling party. Chareidi Jewry stayed out of the discussion. The Chazon Ish then expressed his stand to his confidante, Rabbi Shlomo Lorenz: "It is not my responsibility to exert myself in a matter that we are not obligated to deal with."
The ideological aspect of the issue was expressed by the Rosh Yeshiva of Chevron, HaRav Yechezkel Sarna, in writing. He then stated that the question must be placed at the doorstep of secular Zionism, rather than presented to the chareidi public. Why? He explained:
"There is no question that we should accept all remuneration from those reshoim in order to ease the life of the Holocaust victims. What then? Those who are opposed view acceptance as a legitimization, an expression of pardon and forgiveness to the offspring of the German murderers.
"This concern only applies to those who venerate world culture, especially that of European countries. Those who do so feel they must find a symbolic channel through which to express some commemoration of their opposition to unforgivable deeds. But the chareidi community, whose life is firmly established on separation from world culture and condemnation of its materialistic credo, preserves by its very persisting faith the spiritual victory of the Jewish people, and it does not need any further declaration or symbolic expression of our position that we feel fortunate not to have our portion with their portion and not to have our destiny with their ilk."
Rabbi Moshe Sheinfeld, close confidante of Torah leaders, wrote caustic words on the topic:
"A people whose stand is thus, whose very identification is thus, will place no faith in the promises of world leaders, nor will they be disappointed from the perfidy of the wicked gentiles. They will not revel over a puny shadow of liberation. It demands full restitution for millennia of suffering, does not consider national sovereignty and political independence as full satisfaction for generations of persecution. It does not seek merely its own tikkun, but a restoration of the Heavenly Throne which is not whole. This alone, and nothing else! This alone and nothing less!"
The Judaism which adheres to its patriarchal path, is not dependent upon any declaration from the outside world. Jews do not recognize them as partners in any way, and no denial or recognition of this or another sort can wrench from it its victory of the spirit, and the revulsion it feels to those who rule by might and lost their human image throughout history.
