By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Sunday, April 15, 2007
This Sunday, April 15th, is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yom HaShoah. In the past week the world learned that some teachers in schools throughout Great Britain at the Key Stage 3 level (11-14 year olds) have stopped teaching the Holocaust for fear of offending Muslim students. What could be a more poignant example of the urgency of memory and witness that Yom HaShoah represents – not just for the Jewish people – but for the conscience of the world. It is bad enough that this happened in the land of Churchill who in the darkest hours of the darkest days swore, "Victory against all odds; victory despite all burdens; victory in spite of all terror." What would be worse is if we remained silent. For as the poetry of the "Song of the Partisans" expressed, this is a story "Written in blood and not in ink." A story that needs to be repeated again and again. For it is a story that intertwines mankind's last, best hopes for courage and character. A story not only of 6 million Jewish dead, but of all of mankind's transcendent yearnings for redemptive change. A story also of words. Words that sear the heart to the present day.
The oaths of free men and women maintaining allegiance to the survival and success of liberty. Defenders of the Spanish Republic swearing "No Pasaran!" They shall not pass! The fascists shall not pass. The valiant souls of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters who staved off Nazi might longer than any national army and swore that, "Yet one day our time will come!" The challenge of a brave, young American President standing in West Berlin and looking east daring Soviet tyrants that if they did not think freedom works "Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen!"Let them come to Berlin!
Republican Spain; the Warsaw Ghetto; West Berlin were all tiny embers of freedom. But those embers kept hope alive and roared into great flames of liberty. Today the world once again faces a threat as deadly as fascism, Nazism and communism. After a century flooded by an orgy of blood that killed some 80 million, the free world is defied, and defiled, by the murder and mayhem of Islamism and the bloodlust of its theocratic hegemony. Once again free men and women are called upon, in Thomas Jefferson's words, to "Pledge eternal vigilance over any attempt at tyranny over the mind of man."
And there are words for this challenge as well.
Words as old as the scriptures and as bold as our dreams. And they come from today's tiny ember of freedom. They come from the family of free nations' frontline defender. They come from Israel. The words are those first spoken by tank commanders when they took up their commissions. They marched up a mountain to an ancient hilltop fortress where 900 men, women and children withstood Roman assaults and finally chose suicide over submission. That hilltop is called Masada. And the oath that is taken promises that "Metzadah shuv lo tipol!" Masada shall not fall again! Not just the physical Masada. But the Masada of collective memory and witness. The Masada that belongs to all men and women who choose to live free. For only in mankind's history; only in our fidelity to its teaching; can we give future generations the power to withstand the evil that men do.
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