Hear Our Voice

Today is Yom HaShoah, the day, chosen by the Jewish people, for remembering the Holocaust. Historically, there’s lots of debate about whether Israel became a state, because of the Holocaust. That in the shadow of the horror reported and documented for millions of people throughout the world, the world had a momentary lapse in its anti-Semitic muscle memory, and that this led to a breakdown in that which normally would have halted the world from acting on behalf of the Jewish people. I know this is a rather cynical characterization. 

Of course, there are many others who correctly argue that Israel became a state because of Zionism.  Zionism, as the term put into use by the famous Theodore Herzl in the final years of the 19th century, or the 2500 year old ahavat Tzion (the love of Zion) as in the “If I forget thee o Jerusalem may my right hand forget her cunning…” (Psalms 137:5) as a concept, an integral idea, a building block of the very essence of Judaism -> that there is a land our ancestors were promised by God, which they settled and built their world upon and around close to 3000 years ago.  This is the Central theme of Zionism that has always been and continues to be at the center of all Jewish practice and teachings. And that as history shows, its 20th century iteration could only have been built in this same place. And that in 1948, with a clear record and history of at least 1948 years of oppression, persecution, expulsion, and dehumanization of the Jews, with the Holocaust being only the most recent and worst manifestation, the land known as “Palestine” was the only possible place where Jews could and would find refuge. And by “Jews” at that time, I refer specifically to the hundreds- of-thousands-large remnant of the Jews of Europe, who miraculously survived the Holocaust, but in 1948 were the last group still held in the DP camps. All the other survivors of the war had been repatriated or had emigrated.  But to the Jews, the doors of the US, Australia, England, Brazil and Argentina, Canada, South Africa and more were closed. The countries of the world didn’t want to deal with us.  Thus, the United Nations voted to make Israel a modern Jewish state in large measure to give us some place to go.  

More than anything else, Israel is a refugee project. What’s more, despite their votes and bellicose actions against Israel, her Arab neighbors agreed with Zionism! Israel’s Arab neighbors agreed that Israel was the place where the Jews belonged. Otherwise, how can you explain Iraq’s and Syria’s and Lebanon’s and Morocco’s and Tunisia’s and Egypt’s policies, starting in 1948, of “delivering” their Jews to the land of Israel, formerly known as Palestine? (These “Arab” Jews, who traced their lineage in those Arab countries often more than 1000 years earlier.) And let’s remember, the only reason why Israel and Judea came to be known as “Palestine,” is because of the 2nd century CE Roman effort to eternally dispossess Jews from this land (by giving it a name inspired by Israel’s worst ancient enemy, the Philistines. (For a review of the horrific enemy of the Philistines, check out Amazon’s recently distributed TV series, “The House of David,” or you can find the source for the teleplay in the first and second books of Samuel, the first book of Kings and the First and Second books of Chronicles. Its all in there!)

So Yom HaShoah is today. A day to reflect and remember that the Chancellor of Germany, Herr “he who shall not be named,” could never have brought the Holocaust to bear had there not been at least 1900 years of Jew hatred sewn into the societies amidst whom Judea’s first century remnant (not to mention all those expelled to Babylonia and their progeny hundreds of years earlier) would find and seek refuge.