Years ago, my wife and I had the privilege of spending a week with some of the surviving leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Among them was Simcha “Kazik” Rotem. In the midst of the fighting, 19-year old Kazik was tasked with passing from one part of the Warsaw Ghetto to another and into the Polish side of the city to support the uprising. He then famously snuck back into the burning ghetto through the sewers, ultimately leading survivors out of the ghetto and into the surrounding forest.
I vividly remember one evening when, as a number of us were gathered at a bar, Kazik went around the table, turned to each of us with his piercing stare and asked: “What was the lesson of the Shoah?”
I’ll never forget his answer:
“What happened to the Jewish people means that the Jewish people must fight to make sure that this will never happen again – to any people.”
For Kazik, a man who witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust, and who went on to immigrate to pre-state Palestine and fight for the survival of Israel, the lesson of the Shoah was clear: “never again” means not only that the Jewish people must survive; it means that the Jewish people must survive for a purpose, to make sure that nothing like the Holocaust ever takes place again.
There is something special about the duality of his conclusion, and the determination with which he stated it, that I find particularly appropriate for all of us at NIF. Israel was the refuge for so many Jews in the wake of the Holocaust. But it can and must be more than just a refuge. It can and must be a just society that lives up to the values that the Jewish people have cherished over millennia.
On this Yom HaShoah, let us recommit ourselves to building a safe, liberal, and democratic Israel, and ensuring that Kazik’s words are never forgotten. Let us support those Israelis working both to secure Israel’s future, and to help it shine with the best of our Jewish and democratic values.
“Never Again” for more than just us Jews is a task beyond us. We just do not have that many of God’s capabilities. Witness all the mass murders in the millions of people that have occurred since WWII. Israel assisted where it could, including Sudan. Closer to home Israel does have a problem with a group of people claiming to compete with us over the right to possess the Land of Israel (Palaistine in Hellenistic Greek, ie “the land of the wrestler”; Palestina in Latin; Palestine since then for all non Jews; Falasteen since 1960’s since Nasser’s establishment of the PLO).
The Falasteenians consider the deprivation of the land they called home before 1948, the equivalent of the Shoah. It isn’t but that is their claim. Not all claims are equivalent. After all, the Falasteenians have had a State to call theirs since 1920 when the British Mandatory powers gave them Transjordania as being their homeland and everybody concerned agreed with loud amens.
I cannot agree with NIF’s insistence the two claims are equivalent ! Sorry, simply cannot.
If that parallel is indeed made by the NIF, it’s a distortion of truth. Are you referring to this piece? I did
hear a young Palestinian woman make this claim in a psychology course a few years ago when someone questioned the trend of suicide terrorists. People in class sat silently, in shock or discomfort or both when she said the Palestinians had experienced a Shoah.I had to speak up and said – you are perhaps mistaking the word “Shoah”.What you are describing could be described as a trauma, but that’s not the same as Shoah, deliberate, systematic genocide.
Great I’ve been arguing and explaining the etymology of Palestine for years. I challenge people to go to Google translate or any other translator and type in wrestler and see what they get – Palaistes.
And I explain that this was the norm in Greek. They would take the name of the country and translate the meaning into Greek (more or less) so Knaan (Canaan) was named Phoenicia (after the mollusk red dye), Nahariim / Naharin (in Aramaic) became Mesopotamia, and Kemet (black land) wasn’t used, instead they used the Hebrew Mizriyim (the narrow land) into Aegyptus -> Egypt.
As far as Falistin, it just shows that it is not an Arab name, but a transliteration. And it came from writing, since the P -> B when spoken, but if first encountered in writing, it becomes an F. BTW, outside of the Arabian Peninsula, of all the Arab states only Iraq and Algeria are derived from the Arabic. All others are based on the local languages. Again that is just to point out who were the indigenous populations, and who were the invaders.
The Palestinians Arabs (that is how they wanted to be addressed since they didn’t want to be lumped in with the Jews in the 1930s) have two and a half states as it is. They need another? And what have they done with those states? I’m a very strong anti-monarchist, but must admit if it wasn’t for the Hashemites, Jordan would probably look more like Gaza.
Dani, thank you indeed. I just wacked my forehead with the palm of my hand! Why didn’t I think of this before??? OF COURSE Mitzraim comes from Tzar !!! Narrow !! Because that’s exactly what it is , narrow and long!! And it isn’t Mitz-RAIM, rather as you say: MitzRIM. Col hacavod!!
As for the rest , you are absolutely correct.
Our problem is not of rights, but of practical solutions in an area that is overpopulated. The Falasteenians simply have nowhere to go but to Jordan, and the Hashemites simply do not want them, justifiably so. UNLESS: yes, unless: their eastern desert can be made to turn green. Impossible? Given enough water and (xcuse me) manure, and add trickle irrigation and perhaps vertical wall crop growing, and you can get a truly magnificent country. Trouble is: even if this gets done, and is successful, it still does not mean the Falasteenians will move there en masse. Pity!!!
Historically, every problem that loomed huge in the past, ultimately was replaced by other problems and its importance became null and void. All we need is patience and a strong military and of course backing, and the problem we have with the Falasteenians will very probably eventually go away.
Yes, indeed. However, in fairness, one must realize that without a land and without a strong culture base (as we had), a people cannot persist and continue existing. They will simply disappear, absorbed in the host culture. In reality, this disappearance is an identity holocaust. Not a physical one, and not a planned one, but for them, from their own perspective, truly a shoah. Actually, what has kept the Falasteenians as a group sufficiently cohesive to pass as a People, is the intense dislike by their own brethren.
1. Well, Daniel Sokatch did not claim that: (don’t put words in his mouth & then knock them down). Here he simply argued that we should (help) prevent a shoah anywhere– a point still worth making. If we cannot succeed, well, then Lo Alecha Ha-melachah. And we should be careful not to cause it ourselves (*not* the Naqba, but an ethnic cleansing and extermination that more & more Israelis now contemplate).
2. Naqba is not same as Shoah– a “catastrophe” in their view, but not the same.their “catastrophe”
3. You make interesting etymological point about “Falasteen” — “Yisra-el” is likewise wrestler with God. An affinity with each other if we treat this properly: wrestle with the difficulties, don’t paper them other in either extreme direction.
JD, to your 3 points;
1. The current Judaic ideology of the non-Orthodox includes the concept of Never Again in its expanded form, actively working to make mass murders less prevalent in humanity’s future.
2. Agreed, but from their point of view it is equivalent. You cannot argue with emotion, however based on false comprehension.
3. That was my point: “Palestine” or “Falasteen” are actually “Eretz Yisrael” after transmutation into Greek and further slight modifications over two millennia. Your point that the Arabs of Palestine are also struggling with God in their own way, attempting to wrestle with their own difficulties. Problem is, they do so illogically, conterproductively, solely emotionally, absent careful analysis of the situation which would lead to resolutions of their real problems. Indeed, it is the definition of what constitutes their real problem which is the political/emotional hurdle they cannot seem to overcome: turning the calendar back to the early 20th Cent. Even that segment of the Falasteenian world that is willing to coexist with Israel based on the current division of land (with some modifications), does not come to grips with the truth that unless they emulate the achievement spirit of Israel, the land mass of Falasteen is insufficient to feed their numbers. They actually have only one practical solution to their problem, which is “lebensraum”, and that involves the greening of the eastern Jordanian desert (using Israeli desert agriculture techniques), to which they could move. Yes the Hashemites would object, but if loyalty and fealty were to be given the King’s family, Jordan and the Falasteenians could gain prosperity and quiet. The Falasteenians being human however, I suspect that should they ever achieve such a paradisiacal solution, they would unhesitatingly invest their effort into creating a military that could threaten Israel.
Dani, actually Mitzr-Aim it is nonetheless, since the country is comprised of two long and narrow sectors: Upper and Lower. I thank you for your insight.