Haaretz Editorial: The Holocaust - Get over it
The Holocaust - Get over it
There are readers, many of them, who at this very moment are thinking "Oh no, here it comes, the litany, the ostentatious suffering, the reveling in victimhood, the endless preoccupation with the woes of the Jews."
There are readers who at this very moment are thinking, "These Jews, with all due respect, they learned nothing from the Nazis - they're just as bad in their treatment of the Palestinians, if not worse."
In fact, one of those who chose this Holocaust Remembrance Day to tell us to get on with our lives was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With exquisite timing, Ahmadinejad chose the eve of Yom Hashoah to issue his latest advisory, telling the Jews of the Holy Land that they should pack up and move away - to Europe, the place, he says, we all came from.
It might be time to break it to Ahmedinajad that most of us didn't come from Europe, and few of us have any interest in living there. It might be time to break it to our readers who believe that we are as bad as the Nazis, that the compassion showed by individual Israeli officers soldiers in a broad range of contacts with Palestinians often has a great deal to do with the soldiers' consciousness of the Holocaust and of persecution of the Jews.
Anyone who knows this newspaper, knows that it makes great efforts to expose mistreatment of Palestinians by members of the security forces, in an effort to assure that wrongful practices are stopped.What we do not do, is to do enough to expose and thus encourage the acts of compassion and human generosity that anyone who really knows the IDF, knows is part and parcel of the way the army works.
Some of the most compassionate IDF officers are, in fact, the children and grandchildren of survivors. Hundreds of thousands of them. For them, there is no question of getting over the Holocaust. They will not. For them, every day of their lives is Yom Hashoa. Even after two generations.
It doesn't end, even if you try to make it end. The sins of the Nazis will be visited upon the Jews, perhaps until the tenth generation.
Sixty years on, the Holocaust bears different lessons for all of us. Some believe that the lesson is do unto others before they do unto you. Others believe that the lesson has much more to do with compassion and tolerance even when it may seem undeserved, when the blood cries vengeance. War does that to you. It replaces compassion with hatred.
Just this once, however, it might be time to look at the Holocaust for what it remains - a wound that will never heal, an experience that is beyond our experience, comprehension, or puny, wrongheaded automatic comparisons to current events.
Just this once, after all these years, let us honor the victims and survivors with introspection, with compassion, with modesty, with respect, with awe.
COMPLETE EDITORIAL HERE
There are readers, many of them, who at this very moment are thinking "Oh no, here it comes, the litany, the ostentatious suffering, the reveling in victimhood, the endless preoccupation with the woes of the Jews."
There are readers who at this very moment are thinking, "These Jews, with all due respect, they learned nothing from the Nazis - they're just as bad in their treatment of the Palestinians, if not worse."
In fact, one of those who chose this Holocaust Remembrance Day to tell us to get on with our lives was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. With exquisite timing, Ahmadinejad chose the eve of Yom Hashoah to issue his latest advisory, telling the Jews of the Holy Land that they should pack up and move away - to Europe, the place, he says, we all came from.
It might be time to break it to Ahmedinajad that most of us didn't come from Europe, and few of us have any interest in living there. It might be time to break it to our readers who believe that we are as bad as the Nazis, that the compassion showed by individual Israeli officers soldiers in a broad range of contacts with Palestinians often has a great deal to do with the soldiers' consciousness of the Holocaust and of persecution of the Jews.
Anyone who knows this newspaper, knows that it makes great efforts to expose mistreatment of Palestinians by members of the security forces, in an effort to assure that wrongful practices are stopped.What we do not do, is to do enough to expose and thus encourage the acts of compassion and human generosity that anyone who really knows the IDF, knows is part and parcel of the way the army works.
Some of the most compassionate IDF officers are, in fact, the children and grandchildren of survivors. Hundreds of thousands of them. For them, there is no question of getting over the Holocaust. They will not. For them, every day of their lives is Yom Hashoa. Even after two generations.
It doesn't end, even if you try to make it end. The sins of the Nazis will be visited upon the Jews, perhaps until the tenth generation.
Sixty years on, the Holocaust bears different lessons for all of us. Some believe that the lesson is do unto others before they do unto you. Others believe that the lesson has much more to do with compassion and tolerance even when it may seem undeserved, when the blood cries vengeance. War does that to you. It replaces compassion with hatred.
Just this once, however, it might be time to look at the Holocaust for what it remains - a wound that will never heal, an experience that is beyond our experience, comprehension, or puny, wrongheaded automatic comparisons to current events.
Just this once, after all these years, let us honor the victims and survivors with introspection, with compassion, with modesty, with respect, with awe.
COMPLETE EDITORIAL HERE
posted by uhuru1701 at 8:53 PM
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