Where are you for Yom Hashoah? di Uri Misgav
Illustration: IDF soldiers participate in a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony in Jerusalem.
Photo by Daniel Bar On / Jini
Should anyone ever wish to study how Israel imploded into a black
hole of messianic-victim ultranationalism, the evolution of Holocaust
Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, could serve as an excellent metaphor.
What began as a single memorial day, restrained and austere, has over
time morphed into a week-long festival.
The
preparations start the minute Passover ends. Israelis and all the
institutions that purportedly serve them (government, military, schools,
media) are beside themselves, and new projects are announced left and
right. The Spokesperson’s Unit of the Israel Defense Forces, for example
launched an Internet project
in the spirit of the “selfie,” asking readers to take a picture of
themselves with a Holocaust survivor and post it online. Chief of Staff
Benny Gantz is making his contribution to those good old IDF values
(“After me!,” “Let’s go!”).
Here’s
a representative Facebook status, posted this week by that “ambassador
of Israeliness,” Finance Minister Yair Lapid: “Where are you for Yom
Hashoah? Three years ago, [my wife] Lihi and I were invited to a
friend’s home for a ‘living-room memorial’ (“Zikaron Basalon,” or Memories@home).
Instead of a formal ceremony, we sat in the living room with a bunch of
other people – most of them younger than we – and we heard a Holocaust
survivor relate her story. The ‘gang’ asked questions, tried to
comprehend what it was like on that ‘other planet,’ and mainly listened.
After the woman left, we kept talking. Someone brought out a guitar and
sang. Someone else talked his grandmother’s Holocaust. I spoke about my
father [former Justice Minister and Knesset member Yosef “Tommy” Lapid,
now deceased], about how the Shoah defined him, and through him defined
me.”
This
is an important text. In style, it is remarkably similar to Lapid’s
description of his party’s reconciliation gathering with wayward MK Adi
Kol at the home of Education Minister Shay Piron. At the time, I termed
it “Badulina
in Oranit,” after the New Age best-seller that offered Israelis easy
answers to complicated issues. Perhaps we’re now at Badulina in
Auschwitz.
The
key, of course, is the implication that we are eternally doomed to
define ourselves as Israelis by means of Holocaust. But we should also
focus on how it starts — “Where are you for Yom Hashoah?,” like “Where
are you for Pesach?” Holocaust Remembrance Day has become the Festival
of the Shoah. The few who try to resist either settle for a feeble,
knee-jerk complaint about the state’s failure to provide adequately for
survivors or take refuge in hopeless cynicism.
It’s
no wonder that the hoary joke about Holocaust Remembrance Day being the
Ashkenazi Mimouna is making the rounds again. Zikaron Basalon
definitely seems to be drawing inspiration from the Moroccan-Jewish
post-Passover holiday’s spirit of hospitality. And the whole Shoah
commemoration thing goes far beyond the living room, of course. Soon it
will be time for the Marches of the Living, the pathos-laden speeches
and, of course, the inevitable slogan– “In every generation, they rise
up against us to destroy us, and the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us
from their hand.”
In
the 1940s, God didn’t quite specialize in saving Jews, but Yom Hashoah
has taken on a religious cast. Israel’s schools are saturated with this
linkage. The education minister, a rabbi and devout adherent of the
school trips to Poland, has directed the expansion of the Holocaust
curriculum to all ages. This week, I learned that second-graders are
being taught about the Shoah, by young religious woman who are doing
national service in lieu of military service, of course. When these
children reach high school, they will be sent en masse to visit the
death camps, to recite Kaddish and the El Maleh Rahamim prayer, wrapped
in the Israeli flag.
They
will go on to the army, where they will fight the Nazis and their
helpers. Perhaps they’ll be lucky enough to take a picture with one of
the last living survivors. By the way, the hashtag chosen for the army’s
selfie project is #WeAreHere. Where are you for Yom Hashoah? In the
words of the Partisans’ anthem, we are here, and our marching steps will
thunder.
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