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Life after "maus"

02/10/2022 09:10:00 AM

Feb10

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers

As is the normative life cycle of a news event, things quiet down and we move on to the next big news story, a veritable life of connect-the-dots moments that does not necessarily end with a pretty finished product. If I take a view from 30,000 feet, I think that the poor decision by the McMinn Board of Education is symptomatic of a far greater problem: the watering down of the Holocaust.

The continuous parade of one person after another, many of them frequently in positions of power or authority, comparing some aspect of the pandemic to the Holocaust is not only painful to watch, and tiring to hear, but abhorrent. Let me state it as clearly as possible: There is nothing that one can compare the Holocaust to.  Not now, not ever, God-willing. That’s the whole point of Holocaust education, from which I learned the mantra of “Never Again”. When children learn how one of the most advanced societies on the planet at that time can sink so low as to institutionalize the wholesale murder of what Adolph Hitler termed a “race” of people might be beyond understanding, so that is why Holocaust education is an imperative in every state, in every school district in the United States, if not the world. When we learn how antisemitism evolved into the “Final Solution”, society is better equipped to recognize warning signs early on and respond appropriately. What I see are warning signs that the lessons of the Holocaust are either not being taught at all, or not taught properly.

Our national response to the events in Charlottesville, which occurred five years ago this coming August, were weak. Where was the moral outrage? At least the antisemites stood publicly as they ranted “Jews will not replace us”. I never thought that I would live to see that in America. But then, I never thought that an alleged gunman would enter the Tree of Life and massacre eleven Jews. The daily acts of antisemitism, in word and deed, have become far too frequent, and that should not only concern the Jews of the United States, but all citizens. When we get accustomed to daily antisemitism, we gradually feel the effects of a quiet novocaine that seeps into our moral centers and just turn away, accepting that this is the normative way of life. I faced antisemitism growing up, and had hardened myself to what I thought was the admission fee of being Jewish in America. October 27 changed that. Antisemitism will never be okay. I refuse to live my life as a victim, cowering in fear that antisemites are lurking around every corner. I am a survivor.

Judaism brings a nearly four-millennia tradition of “loving your neighbor as yourself”, “remembering the stranger”, “taking care of the orphan and the widow”, and helping the poor, just to name a few mitzvot. Our mission is tikun olam, fixing the world, for indeed the world is broken. I am proud that Judaism has a path of goodness forward as written down in the Torah. What is the goodness that the antisemites bring? What is their version of tikun olam? The moral decay in the United States is palpable. The absence of strong moral leaders to effect change in America is equally palpable. Yet I have faith that we are capable of far better, for I have seen the goodness that ordinary people do every single day.

I regularly quote the Psalms, my source of hope and inspiration in times of travail. We read at the conclusion of Psalm 27: Yet I have faith that I shall surely see God’s goodness in the land of the living. Hope in God. Be strong, take courage, and hope in God. I do.

Fri, March 29 2024 19 Adar II 5784