From the Rabbi’s Desk May 2024
Rabbi Carla Freedman
When World War II ended in 1945, the concept of “The Holocaust” was unknown, as were the facts and figures,
the horrors and the scope of the events referred to by that name. The concentration camps had been liberated,
the survivors moved to “displaced persons’ camps”…some of which had recently been concentration camps
themselves…and everyone’s attention was focused away from the war years and experiences toward a life of new possibilities.
The survivors did not speak about their experiences to their new families; they did not publish first-person accounts, or novels, or poetry.
Several factors changed that. The Diary of Anne Frank was first published in 1947; it took years till it was available in many languages. Perhaps the key event in the rise in public consciousness of The Holocaust was the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem, culminating in his hanging in 1962 (for the crime of genocide, which is the only crime carrying the death penalty in Israel to this day). The trial involved first-person accounts and eyewitness reports, making The Holocaust an unavoidable subject. And that released a torrent of research,
accompanied by personal accounts, novels, poetry, music, theatre, and dance.
It became clear that this “event” stood far apart from the millennia of persecutions, expulsions, governmentsanctioned and/or conducted attacks (pogroms), forced conversions, tortures, etc., of Jewish history.
The organized extermination of 6 million Jews made the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (twice, in 586 BCE and 70 CE) seem mild. It had to be woven into the fabric of the new State of Israel, both out of respect for those lost and out of respect for those who survived.
The government of Israel chose to create a Holocaust memorial event to acknowledge that those 6 million Jews
did not simply go to their deaths “like lambs to the slaughter”, as had been said many times. Rather, they picked the date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on the first evening of Pesach, 1944. That uprising, fought by poorly equipped Jews living under dreadful conditions, lasted 63 days, before the Nazis simply flattened the
ghetto. The defiance, the courage and heroism of the uprising said more about the Jews who died than the camps and the gassing and war by bullets.
But in Jewish tradition, we do not mix our simchas with somber events. So the Israelis deferred their Holocaust
observance till after Pesach, to the 28thof Nisan. And Yom HaShoah is observed on that date unless it is Shabbat, in which case it is deferred till Sunday.
This year, Nisan 28 begins on the evening of May 5th. Join us at the United Methodist Church at 7 pm for this
community-wide observance.This year, the issue of genocide is not a reference to events decades ago, but to
current events, still unfolding. And while we read aloud the names of people…of all ages…who died in The Holocaust, we will all be thinking of those who may still be captives of Hamas. We will be thinking that the charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of the Jewish state, and yet it is Israel that was accused of genocide.
We honor all those who have paid the supreme price because they are Jews.