Subject: JUICE Holocaust 10: Remembering the Holocaust
Date:    Wed, 3 Jun 1998 00:34:23 +0000
To:      "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

From:          JUICE Administration <juice@wzo.org.il>
To:            holocaust@wzo.org.il
Subject:       JUICE Holocaust 10

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                  World Zionist Organization
                Jewish University in CyberspacE
          juice@wzo.org.il         birnbaum@wzo.org.il 
                     http://www.wzo.org.il 
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Course: Meanings of the Holocaust
Lecture:  10/12
Lecturer: Elly Dlin


Lecture 10: ISRAELI SOCIETY REMEMBERS THE HOLOCAUST

ASPECTS OF MEMORY

Expanding on what has previously been said about memory (especially in the
8th lecture), memory forms, collects and grows in non-systematic ways.
Societies (through its various leaders, opinion-makers and educators) exert
much effort to organize and control memory; they do so with widely varying
degrees of success.

It is useful at the outset to differentiate between "voluntary" and
"involuntary" memory, where voluntary is open, consciously-chosen and
deliberately expressed.  It may be controlled, structured, and even
manipulated to create the meanings and significances that are desired.
Involuntary memory emerges without control.  It "explodes", apparently all
by itself, and is unlinked to conscious will.  Therefore we will exclude
involuntary memory from this particular presentation.

Memory can give people strength and a feeling of unity.  It can be the
substance of dreams and ideologies that may motivate people to take bold
actions.  But it can also limit, traumatize, create uncertainty and cause
paralysis, particularly when there is a fixation on wounds (real or
imagined), unresolved pain and unrelenting grief.

Memories on the societal and national levels are enlisted to serve the
beliefs and practises that are held by the group. The jargon term for them
is the CIVIL RELIGION.  The 3 main functions of a Civil Religion are: 
        a) to legitimize the system,
        b) to unite the population, and
        c) to mobilize citizens to fulfill common tasks.

In an excellent presentation entitled THE CIVIL RELIGION OF ISRAEL (Leibman
and Don-Yechiya, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1983) 3
historical phases are described:  1) the pre-1948 Yishuv; 2) <Statism> from
1948 to 1967, and 3) the contemporary period following the Six-Day War.  In
my adaptation of their periodization, I have added a fourth phase that
begins with the 1990s.

PERIOD 1: THE YISHUV (MOSTLY PRIOR TO 1948)

This is the period in which Zionism tended to stress the revolutionary part
of its ideology.  The spirit was combative, confrontationalist, <the
negation of the exile>.  It emphasized the drive to radically transform
traditional religious Jews who worked mostly in small time trade and crafts
into a modern dynamic agricultural and industrial society; to reshape a very
old people into a new society, resurrected in a new/old Land (Die Alt-Neu
Land is the title of the book by Theodore Herzl, the founder of the modern
Zionist movement).

Zionism was a yearning for personal responsibility and activism, as
illustrated by Ber Borochov in his praise of the Evil Son in Haggadat
Pesach.  Explicitly in contrast to the traditional tale, the evil son is
seen as a positive example to be emulated because: he distances himself from
God and religion; he rejects the blind belief in divine inspiration as the
driving force to human history; and he refuses to relegate his future to
supernatural sorcery, magic and miracles.  His way is a bid for direct and
personal activism, for self-control, responsibility for one's own fate and
sovereignty over oneself.  It is the mood expressed in the words of the
Chanukah song that was written by the first Chief Education Officer of the
new Israeli Army: "We found no oil.  No miracles happened to us."
 
Antisemitism and pogroms were seen in this first period of development as
being solely the problem of the GALUT: "Jews must put an end to their exile
before the exile puts an end to them!"  And the single conclusion to be
drawn was the need to make aliyah, immediately!

But that is hardly an important lesson for the children already growing up
in the Land of Israel.  Therefore the subject of the Holocaust was largely
ignored in this country in the period that immediately followed the War.
Besides, the Yishuv was fully occupied with the fight for its physical
survival and its people had little time, energy or resources to devote to
fixations on the past.

This is the context that explains Ben Gurion's initial opposition to the
erection of a major State-funded Holocaust memorial in Israel.  Such were
maybe needed in London, Paris, Cairo and New York but not where the central
lesson of the event (the need to be here and to give one's all for the
survival of the Jewish State) was the daily reality of those who lived and
struggled in Israel.

A shift occurs early in the second period - the clearest signs being the
passing of  Knesset laws designating an official day for remembering the
Holocaust (1951) and a law establishing Yad Vashem (1953).

PERIOD 2: STATISM (1948-1967)

The period of Statism is marked by the trend to translate ideology into
institutions, to shape the quasi-legal partly voluntary, somewhat
underground organizations into a battery of government bureaucracies and to
shift youth movement-style slogans into national policies.

Israeli society was radically transformed after its independence.  Some
obvious examples are the banning of the Red Banner on State Schools and the
singing of the Communist anthem "the Internationale".  May Day, once a
central event in the civil calendar, eventually withered and disappeared to
the point that today the offices of Israel's Labour Unions function normally
on that day.

The declaration of the 27th of Nissan as Holocaust Heroes' and Martyrs'
Remembrance Day (it fell on April 23 this year) was a reaction against
earlier attempts by the Chief Rabbis to include the remembrance of the
Holocaust on the 10th of Tevet (which this year was on January 8).  It was a
struggle over <the ownership of memory> and over who will be empowered to
shape the lessons of the past.

Allowing the Rabbis to subjugate the Holocaust under a traditional religious
observance such as the General Martyrs' Day (Yom Hakaddish Ha-Klalli) would
have placed it within normal and familiar structures.  But many felt the
Holocaust to be abnormal and unfamiliar.  Its lessons could not be grouped
in with traditional religious ones.  It was a unique event that must be
noticed as a decisive break, a rupture of unprecedented nature, a quantum
leap to a different dimension from which no return to the familiar patterns
of daily life could be possible anymore.

Zionist activists who consistently rejected religious leadership and
frameworks argued that it was these very beliefs and responses that had led
the Jewish people to the gates of Auschwitz in the 1940s.  The Messiah did
not come!  Salvation did not happen!  Even the totally innocent were beaten
brutally, shot and incinerated!  They saw traditional faith as an opium
which kept the masses passive in the face of murder and during the hour of
rebellion.

If there were lessons to be learned from this terrible event Zionists
pointed to the need to shake off the numbing shackles of religion and to
seize control over one's destiny and away from the hands of a cabal of
elderly Rabbis.  In their minds the activists response to the Holocaust was
best displayed by those nationalistic Jewish youth who took up weapons and
who bravely fought against the Nazis.  The Holocaust should not be
commemorated by the rote repetition of outdated 16th century Polish-Jewish
liturgies but by rededicating oneself to becoming an active agent in the
molding of one's own history.  Memory should not be left in the hands of
obscurantist religious leaders but in those of the most enlightened and
progressive elements of the new society (i.e. socialist-Zionist-youth).  The
venue for commemorating the Holocaust should not be a synagogue but some
new, secular, national memorial site and the date should be reflective of
the premier event of Jewish activism during the Holocaust - the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising.

The 27th of Nissan and Warsaw Ghetto Square at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem fit
that bill.  

The date is almost equidistant from the last day of Passover and Israeli
Independence Day.  The placing of Holocaust Remembrance Day between these
two major and already existing special days sets up a new social dynamic.
It smashed the traditional Jewish cycle of Pesach-the 50 days of the
Omer-Shavuot and instituted in its place a new dynamic of Pesach-Holocaust
Remembrance Day-Remembrance Day for the Fallen Israeli Soldiers-Independence
and, after 1967, the reunification of Jerusalem.  

This new cycle focuses on the theme of slavery-to-freedom,
darkness-to-light, suffering-to-redemption, powerlessness-to-sovereignty.
In short, the Zionist dream becoming reality.

Inherent within it is the potential conflict between humanitarian ideals and
physical survival and the need to choose one over the other or, as Ben
Gurion put it in 1951: "If all the great ideals of the world were placed on
one side of the scale, and Israel's security on the other, without
hesitation I would choose the security of Israel."

This set the stage for the third period.

PERIOD 3: GROWING POLARIZATION AFTER THE SIX-DAY WAR

The Six-Day War changed everything once again.  Israel emerged victorious in
yet another all-out conflict but now it convincingly established itself as
an immutable reality.  Suddenly Israel had became big, strong and more
confident than ever before albeit it was also more isolated, condemned and
scorned than ever before.  The Israeli understanding was deja-vu: eternally
present antisemitism was again rearing its ugly head.  Zionism had NOT
eliminated antisemitism and Israelis were NOT different than other Jews.
Yet there was one crucial and terribly important difference:  antisemitism
in the past threatened defenseless Jews while Israel was well-disposed to
respond.  In fact, now the situation was completely reversed: it was the
turn of the antisemites run, hide and to be afraid!

The Six Day War split Israeli society into two almost equal halves.  The
Holocaust-inspired lesson for the RIGHT was: How easy it was - and still is
- to kill Jews.  And their operative conclusions were to mistrust the
promises of everyone but ourselves.  Western politicians and other
governments won't be there for you when you really need them so you had
better have a strong army that is battle-ready at all times to respond and
to defend you.  Hold on to as much territory as possible, especially the
heights; build on the tops of the hills to control territory; be prepared to
wait out the enemy; be more determined than he is;  and besides we have no
where else to go, they have another 22 Arab States to live in.

The LEFT derives the opposite lesson from the Holocaust: i.e. how easy it is
to become a Nazi.  How quickly good people can have their morals and ethics
corrupted, how occupation oppresses the powerless but is also poisonous to
the fiber of the occupier.  The danger of becoming <Judo-Nazis> in the
phrase coined by Prof. Yehoshua Leibowitz or the danger of
national-religious yeshiva students in the settlements acting like
Hitlerjugend (according to Prof. Moshe Zimmerman).

The LEFT also has its operative conclusions: PEACE NOW, immediate
disengagement, extending the olive branch, taking risks for peace, Oslo 1
and Oslo 2 and a Palestinian State beside Israel.

PERIOD 4: Operation Desert Storm

A number of new factors seem to denote  that a fourth shift has taken place:

1) The Gulf War of 1991 was different than previous wars in the region.  It
was neither an all-Arab affair nor was it Arabs against Westerners (with
Jews/Israel identified as Westerners).  The international coalition led by
the United States and the United Kingdom included Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf States and protected Israel.  There was a new acceptance of the
permanence (if not yet legitimacy) of the State of Israel and a new
alignment of forces.  

2) Israel is no longer a pariah-nation in the decade of the 1990s.
Diplomatic relations have been reestablished with India, China and most
other countries in the world.

3) Israeli political leaders were awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. 

4) New persecutions such as Serbian Concentration Camps, ethnic cleansing in
Bosnia, Cambodian Killing       Fields, and the mass murder of innocent men,
women and children in Rowanda look all too familiar and seem to some (not me
- but there are others) to support a view that the Holocaust was not unique
after all.

5) Holocaust symbols (yellow badges, swastikas and the like) have been
popularized and misused in demonstrations and political posters (dressing
Yitzhak Rabin in the uniform of a Gestapo officer).  One member of the
Knesset described the Israeli government as a Judenrat.

6) There are no longer any Jews of Conscience or Prisoners of Zion being
tortured or imprisoned because of their beliefs.

7) The teaching of the Holocaust has entered the mainstream.  It is the
subject of best-selling books, popular television dramas and commercially
successful feature films.  The topic is mandated for study in Israel and
several of the states in the USA and recommended in many more, plus it is
recommended in the new National Curriculum for History in the United
Kingdom.  Museums, memorial sites, and pilgrimages to the Holocaust sites in
Eastern Europe are no longer either difficult or rare.

8) After the debacle of the Demjanjuk Trial, more trials of War Criminals
Trials are doubtful.  Time and the unavoidability of aging are changing the
demographic profile of the Jewish people.  Soon the Holocaust will be
history, not personal experience.

What do all of these changes mean?  Does it mean that the Holocaust is
drifting away from us, along the road of forgetfulness towards oblivion?
Not necessarily!  Yet the issues are dynamic and <the times they are
a-changing>.

Chanukah, Purim and Pesach are historical events whose details and lessons
are recalled every year, despite the fact that they are all well beyond the
personal memories of anyone who is alive today.  

Will the Holocaust be the same?  Will the Holocaust be ritualized into a new
Jewish tradition?  Only time will tell. 

But what is evident is that millions today are interested in the Holocaust.
A reported 400 million people around the world bought tickets to Stephan
Spielberg's film SCHINDLER'S LIST.  Holocaust museums in Jerusalem,
Washington, Los Angeles, and elsewhere, the recently-opened museum in New
York and the soon-to-be-opened permanent gallery in the Imperial War Museum
in London demonstrate their attraction to millions, mostly non-Jews.

The Holocaust is part of human history, part of our identities, part of the
story that explains how we have come to be where we are today.  

The challenge is to find an appropriate balance that allows us to relate to
the Holocaust and not to forget it but also to allow other aspects of life
to influence us and not be fixated on it. In a line: we must neither be
BLIND TO the Holocaust nor be BLINDED BY it.

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