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Yom HaShoah the “Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust
a day or profound emotion and introspection
a day of commitment and resolve
A day unique in our collective and individual connection with our history…
with our faith… with God…and with each other
Remember! Do not forget! We are witnesses to the horror… and to the silence.
The cries of “Never Again!” heard…or implied.
For me, this day highlights the irony…the travesty…
and, yes, the obscenity of what Israel has become…
of the leaders and her policies the Israeli body politic has chosen decade after decade…
of the consequences of settling the West Bank and removing Palestinians from East Jerusalem…
of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians both Moslem and Christian…
of the deliberate repression of information and discussion in our community…
of the silence of most of our community and our “leaders” …
of the lack of any meaningful concrete action except for words
and ineffective snail-paced political lobbying
I will remember history!
I will remember the Nakba… the IDF accounts and video interviews with Israeli soldiers at the time of the removal of 750,000 Palestinians from their villages and the atrocities committed… I’ll remember our denial and silence growing up and even now when the Boulder Jewish News prints an article denying that anything happened…Ill remember that no one responded addressing this outright lie or the responsibility and necessity of historical accuracy,
I will remember the pictures and stories of the massacre in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in 1982 by the Christian Phalange…when there was no longer any more PLO military there…when Ariel Sharon knew damn well what would happen when he let them enter the camps…and the ignored calls from his own soldiers to intervene. I’ll remember sitting in a racquetball court in Toledo, crying with my Lebanese Catholic friend who could not believe that his cousins could commit these atrocities. Just as I could not believe that Jews would let this happened. And Israel later chose this beast to be Prime Minister. Someone who had lied to his own Prime Minister about his intentions in Lebanon.
I will remember the lead up to that fateful day of November 4, 1995… the hate spewing out from right-wing hardliners in Israel: “Traitor” … “Murderer” … “Nazi “… and “We’ll get rid of Rabin with blood and fire.” I’ll remember videos and pictures showing Netanyahu speaking on a podium with posters of montages of Rabin in a Nazi uniform in the background… (all other Likud leaders refused to speak.)
I will remember pictures of a procession through the streets of Ra’nana showing Netanyahu in front of an empty coffin bearing the slogan, ”Rabin is killing Zionism” and that of a hangmen’s noose.
I will remember the words of Rabin (first heard in a 2015 documentary) about Gush Emunim [the ‘Bloc of the Faithful’), the ideological founders of the violent extremist settlement movement as “one of the most acute dangers in the whole phenomenon of the State of Israel… comparable to a cancer in the tissue of Israel’s democratic society. It is a phenomenon of an organization that takes the law into its own hands.” He warned that Israel risked becoming an “apartheid” state if it annexed and absorbed the West Bank’s Arab population.
And… on a day when we confront the reality of that past horror (that can trigger memories of other past tragedies).., I’ll remember videos, pictures and stories of Jewish pogroms in Area C that have become routine in daily life: the murders, the burning of villages, the destruction of homes and orchards. I will remember the failure of our leaders to call it what it is: “ethnic cleansing.” Yes. Ethnic cleansing!
The systematic attempt to get rid of an unwanted ethnic group through violence (including murder) fear, the physical destruction of housing and community institutions such as schools, recreation centers, and houses of worship, or forced displacement and deportation.
The Israeli government gives these terrorists arms…IDF soldiers participate…the JNF helps fund them financially and by placing “at risk youth” in the most extreme yeshivot. The Shin Bet does not consider them a threat…the army or police gives them a free ride.
And…I will remember that a segment of American Jewry has given the settlement movement hundreds of millions of dollars and when Trump nullified Biden’s too late and too feeble attempts to stop this flow of money and sanction the perpetrators, our leadership was silent.
I will remember the travesty, even obscenity of Netanyahu and other Israeli politicians exploiting “Never again!” after the horrific events of Oct. 7th. I will remember the Israeli government ignored the warnings of the female soldiers who reported what was happening on the ground. I will remember how flimsy the protective wall was for the kibbutzim next to Gaza…how the Israeli government allowed and even urged Qatar to financially help Hamas, knowing full well where that money was going to be used for.
I will remember the responses when I spoke to leaders about having a memorial program to honor and reflect on Rabin: “Not everyone liked Rabin,” “No one is asking for it,” “We don’t have ceremonies for Likud politicians.” These remarks would not have been made in the years immediately following his death. Our leaders are caught in the “AIPAC syndrome.” Defend and protect the State. The State has become our golden calf.
We have sacrificed Jewish ethics and morality for the sake of the state…for the sake of the mantra…”We are one” and for the sake of fighting against the real threat of antisemitism. Our leaders talk about an “open tent” and “holding the middle.” In reality, it means that the JCC or synagogues not show films or documentaries about what is happening or bring in speakers from Israeli-Palestinian groups whose members have lost loved ones to violence or address the issue of how Israel wages war through the lens of Jewish law, and, ”chas v’shalom” a Palestinian victim of the Jewish pogroms or an American volunteer who has witnessed these atrocities.
Yom HaShoah compels and demands that we remember. The question is “Who is going to shape and control the content and context of what we remember and what are their self-interests?”
And I will remember the moving prayer of the Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in 2013:
“Today, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the victims of the greatest crime of man against man – the young, the old, the innocent, the million and a half children, starved, shot, given lethal injections, gassed, burned and turned to ash, because they were deemed guilty of the crime of being different.
‘We remember what happens when hate takes hold of the human heart and turns it to stone; what happens when victims cry for help and there is no one listening; what happens when humanity fails to recognise that those who are not in our image are none the less in God’s image.
‘We remember and pay tribute to the survivors, who bore witness to what happened, and to the victims, so that robbed of their lives, they would not be robbed also of their deaths.
‘We remember and give thanks for the righteous of the nations who saved lives, often at risk of their own, teaching us how in the darkest night we can light a candle of hope.
“Today, on Yom HaShoah, we call on You, Almighty God, to help us hear Your voice that says in every generation:
“Do not murder.”
“Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbour.”
“Do not oppress the stranger.”“We know that whilst we do not have the ability to change the past, we can change the future.
“We know that whilst we cannot bring the dead back to life, we can ensure their memories live on and that their deaths were not in vain.
“And so, on this Yom HaShoah, we commit ourselves to one simple act: Yizkor, Remember.
“May the souls of the victims be bound in the bond of everlasting life.”
