Is One Day Still Acceptable?

“Why post this blog now?”

The question was addressed to me a few years ago upon distribution of the blog post Unintended Journey on May 1, 2016 (1). It came as a complete surprise, and to my dismay. That posting delved into an emotionally searing experience I had while visiting Germany, a country I always believed I would never set foot in. The timing for release of the post was a day or two before Holocaust Remembrance Day, and was intentional. I considered the post’s message quite à propos for the day’s sacred imperative of remembrance. This year’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust is still months away, so why revisit this prior episode now?

For starters, let’s take a step back to get a 20/20 perspective of recent events, events now reverberating with history. On streets, in synagogues, homes, or stores, whether at night or in daylight, in small towns or cities, in the East or in the West, Jews are being viciously and often fatally assaulted. This pattern was unimaginable a decade ago. It’s more than sobering, it’s shocking. 

Is it prelude to the experience of other Jewish communities throughout diaspora history, those in Spain, Egypt, Poland, and Iraq? Is setting aside but a single day annually for remembrance still acceptable?

Not that long ago, German Jews were at the apex of their existence. As in the US today, they achieved admirable successes in science, the arts, academics, jurisprudence, and in government. Tragically, within a few short years the community’s upward bending golden arc was shattered. Nazis masterfully blamed Jews for Germany’s ills and as their troops goose-stepped across Europe, they orchestrated destruction of Jews throughout the continent. Jewish society plummeted  from its apex. 

Wehrmacht on the move

When the smoke cleared and details of the decimation entered public awareness, Never Forget became the rallying cry of Holocaust Remembrance and was seared into our consciousness.

Shoes collected from victims as they prepared for 'disinfection showers’ 

upon arriving at Auschwitz

Yet in 2018, seventy plus years later the Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study commissioned by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany found many adults already lacked basic knowledge of what happened. In fact, 41% of Americans and 66% of millennials did not know what Auschwitz is. 

A subsequent 2019 American Jewish Committee study found that a third of American Jews were hiding their Jewish identity out of concern over their safety. What is happening? Is setting aside but a single day annually for remembrance still acceptable?

Gaping archway of Birkenau, Auschwitz II

One and a half million people passed through the entrance, they left as ash through the chimneys

‘History is a way of knowing the past. Done right, it reveals the present and illuminates the future’ (2).

If one subscribes to this postulate, it’s not a stretch to conclude we are not doing it right. Pretending this time in history will be different is not a strategy. The resurgence of anti-Semitism could be a result, in part, of the vanishing legacy of the Holocaust. The recent spate of violent anti-Semitic acts demand a paradigm shift in action. 

Es Brent (It is burning) was the rallying song of partisans who brought the fight to the Nazis. The chilling lyrics describe a town on fire and admonishes brothers in arms to not merely stand and look, but to take up the tools to put out the fire. So, what tools do we have for deployment now?

Here’s what our community leaders have advocated:

1. Stepping up education of youth by parents and teachers for understanding that hateful acts will not be tolerated
2. Holding social media outlets accountable for what they publish
3. Lobbying elected officials and law enforcement agencies to improve safety and security at our institutions, and to vigorously prosecute crimes followed by handing out tougher sentencing 
4. Standing together with people of all backgrounds so it is understood an attack on one is an attack on all. Hatred that may start with the Jews never ends with the Jews.

‘Make no mistake: Anti-Semitism is not a Jewish problem; anti-Semitism is an American problem and a global, human problem. Anti-Semitism is, at its core, an expression of a society’s need to have an ‘other’ to define its own identity and to blame for its troubles, whatever they may be, in any given period'. (3)

Everyone has a role to play if hate is to be beaten back to under the rocks from which it has slithered out. It remains to be seen which action each of us will take. 

Action will illuminate the future.

An umbrella day outside the Museum of Jewish Heritage in NYC.

The Auschwitz Exhibit is currently on display.

1. Unintended Journey 
2. M. Vogel - President, Lower East Side Tenement Museum. The institution teaches about and honors the diverse waves of immigrants who arrived at our shores and went on to help build America. 
3. Marc Baker (President CJP), Jeremy Burton (Executive Director JCRC), and Robert Trestan (Regional Director ADL). Op-Ed, Boston Globe - January 3, 2020

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                                                                         all images © David Greenfield