The Israel Defense Forces has fulfilled many objectives throughout Israel’s 61 years of existence. One of the most important is its role in education: helping those who did not complete high school, providing vocational training via military assignments, serving as a melting pot for Israel’s very diverse society.
The IDF often takes (and should take) on missions of national importance that are otherwise left unattended. The current Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi, has taken us back to our roots, reminding us we are a Jewish country and the IDF is a Jewish army, that our actions are based on the values of the Holy Book and that at the core, we are a nation that sprang out of the ashes of the Holocaust. These basic values that seem to have lost some of their shine over the years have received a renewed attention.
Today, close to ten thousand soldiers, including several dozen high ranking officers, visited over 8,000 Holocaust survivors throughout Israel under the heading “Flower for the Survivor.” This project reminds the survivors they have not been forgotten while allowing soldiers the opportunity to hear first hand, possibly the only time in each soldier’s life, a story from a survivor. It is as important as ensuring that every Israeli citizen would visit Jerusalem at least once in one’s life – another assignment fulfilled during one’s military service.
The survivors have been in the news lately, mostly because we are waking up to the realization they are almost gone. Soon a new generation would rise who would know no live survivor of the Holocaust. Members of that generation would then turn to textbooks that would talk about a conference the president of a sovereign country has convened to evidence there was no Holocaust. These indisputable facts would be in line with other events at the beginning of the 21st Century, all by a league of nations then called the United Nations.
If one were to research it further, one would find that the head of one of the more visible and established human rights organizations in the United States of America hesitated to call the Armenian Genocide by its name lest he offended the Turks. It turned out the Turks replied with grace, and the Holocaust-that-never-happened suffered yet another hit, this time from within the Jewish community itself.
We do not learn the lesson. There are still those among us who carry the number engraved into their arm. There are not many. They will never forget. There are still more who are now grandparents who remember the Holocaust as their childhood memories. They are now in their 70s. Soon, much sooner than we would wish, only we will be left, those who heard the stories directly from the survivors. But after us, it is all a Zionist scheme to claim the land that does not belong to them, a skillful propaganda, an art of deceit perfected by the Jews.
None of us knows what tomorrow may bring. Iran has made good on all its promises thus far, and a scenario in which it attacks Israel would not be unthinkable. On the contrary, if I had to wager a bet, I would expect it to happen. Israel on the other hand, from its Chief of Staff to its Prime Minister and President, has said repeatedly it will not allow Jews to be persecuted – wherever they are. Flying over Auschwitz, Israeli fighter pilots made a solemn swear to remember, not to forget, not to allow it to happen ever again.
At this morning’s Cabinet meeting in Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu said:
"Six million of our brethren were massacred during the Holocaust. Sadly, not everyone learned the lesson. As opposed to those dark days, today a strong Jewish state stands to ensure the continued existence of the Jewish people in the face of this new anti-Semitism.
In the final reckoning, the State of Israel is the answer and the key to ensuring the existence of the Jewish People, to ensuring its security as well as its welfare and the welfare of the survivors."
President Shimon Peres in a special statement on the Durban Review Conference commented: “I am very grateful to the United States of America and the other six countries that decided not to attend this shame of Durban, and to keep a human face and human hope for people who would like to see a world without racism, without terror, without hanging, and without incitement. So we don't have a conference, but we have a Lord in Heaven, and we shall pray to him today.”
I am reminded of a special ceremony at the Israeli Knesset for the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem. The invited guests were seated next to the foreign corps. There, too, I counted less than two handfuls. But why go far? How many embassies are in Israel’s capital? (Hint: Israel’s capital is not Tel Aviv.) None. In Durban, then, less than a handful of countries taking a stand, or more correctly, so many other countries taking a much more vocal stand.
Apparently, humanity has learned very little from the Holocaust. A race as advanced and as cultured as the German nation became into animals. Fast forward seven decades and ask yourself – can the Iranians, who are on the forefront of science in the service of evil, not use their knowledge and capabilities to usher in al Mahdi’s return? Theirs is not the European culture. Theirs is the mentality of nomads in a desert, with honor killings, stoning of women or burying them alive and public lynchings.
We have learned so very little, and we are bound to forget even that much. We are therefore bound to repeat the horrors of the Holocaust, and if history is any indication, the next one will dwarf the Second World War, 1939 – 1945.
This year’s central theme of the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day is “Children in the Holocaust.” About one and a half million of the six million Jews who perished were children. The number of children who survived is estimated in the mere thousands. Following is President Shimon Peres’s address at the opening ceremony in Israel.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
Speaker of the Knesset Reuven Rivlin,
President of the Supreme Court, Justice Dorit Beinish,
The Chief Rabbis, Rabbi Shlomo Moshe Amar and Rabbi Yona Metzger,
Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,
Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Mr. Avner Shalev,
Holocaust survivors,
Righteous Among the Nations,
Distinguished guests,
Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, simply because they were Jewish. 1.5 million children were annihilated just because they belonged to the Jewish people. They were called Moshe, Avraham, Rivka and Leah – even though they were yet to understand the meaning of their names. One out of every three of our people was murdered during those six cursed years. Each victim had a name. Each murdered Jew had a future. The genocide committed by the Nazi murderers was a historic crime of unprecedented proportions.
The State of Israel is our historic victory over the Nazi beast that left no stone in Europe unturned. Soul-searching about the Holocaust is not yet over, and may never be over, not for us, and not for the world at large. Nazism was defeated, but anti-Semitism is still alive and well. The gas has dissipated, but the poison remains. There are still Holocaust deniers and hot-headed skinheads in the world, those who bear the sort of visceral hatred that leads to racist murder.
The conference opening today in Geneva constitutes an acceptance of racism, rather than the fight against it, and its main speaker is Ahmadinejad, who calls for the annihilation of Israel and denies the Holocaust.
There are also the Righteous Among the Nations – we will never forget their heroism.
Criticism of the Jewish State is also tinged with chilling anti-Semitism. Among those who collaborated with the Nazis, and those who stood by and let the Holocaust happen, there are those who criticize the one state that rose to grant refuge to Holocaust survivors. The one state that will prevent another Holocaust.
Anti-Semitism is not a Jewish disease, and its cure is incumbent upon those who perpetrate it.
It is hard to fathom why despots such as Hitler the Nazi, Stalin the Bolshevik and Ahmadinejad the Persian chose the Jews as the main target for their hatred, their madness and their violence. Perhaps they targeted the Jewish people because of its spiritual power – a nation poor in material possessions, but rich in values - for he who is infected with megalomania fears the power of the spirit. The Jews did not worship idols or authority, and their God gave mankind its conscience. We were the first to believe that every person is created in God’s image, and we were commanded to sanctify life and prevent murder and discrimination.
We have learned that our spiritual heritage is dependent on physical security. A people which lost a third of its members, a third of its children to the Holocaust, does not forget, and must not be caught off-guard.
The first lesson we took from the Holocaust, therefore, was the need to immediately establish a Jewish homeland – a Jewish state. Without it, the survivors would have been left homeless, and their lives would have remained exposed and prey to destruction. The State of Israel is not merely the Jews’ protective shield, but an ideal of historic import: to be a nation with a moral message.
Existence and heritage are inextricably linked. We never asked other nations to defend us, and we have made the decision that spiritual conflict will not divide us.
We must not let the memory of the Holocaust diminish, and we must ensure that the memory-bearers do not lessen in number. The Jewish state must ensure the continuity of the Jewish people, for our people has just one country. Our forefathers gave the world the Ten Commandments over 3,000 years ago, and yet there is no need for an updated version. The greatness of the Jewish people is derived from the might of its spirit.
Israel must be an example to its children, and a source of pride for those Jews who do not live here. The Jewish people helped establish the State, and the State must now help its people, preserve its identity, give its children a Jewish education, and enable the Jews to ensure that their descendents remain Jewish.
The IDF has given security to the State of Israel, whose soul thirsts for peace. In Israel’s eyes, peace is not just a matter of political wisdom, but a fundamental Jewish imperative.
We never set out to conquer. We did not rush towards domination. We rejected lordship, we fought discrimination, we protested slavery, we forbade violence. We believe in the preeminence of man, and we pray for Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) and world peace.
We are struck not just by the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust, but also by our people's extraordinary fortitude. This is also a lesson for the future – to combine faith and power. To be a just people in a just world. Whoever tries to break our spirit will learn that the spirit cannot be extinguished. Even though our ship may be narrow, it is a mighty wind that blows through its sails.
The Holocaust will always be in our hearts, and we realize that there is much work ahead of us: to build a state that is worthy of its fathers’ sacrifice, and is an answer to its sons’ prayers.
In the series “Postcards from Israel,” Ari Bussel and Norma Zager invite readers throughout the world to join them as they present reports from Israel as seen by two sets of eyes: Bussel’s on the ground, Zager’s counter-point from home. Israel and the United States are inter-related - the two countries we hold dearest to our hearts - and so is this “point - counter-point” presentation that has, since 2008, become part of our lives.
© Postcards from Home, April, 2009
Contact:
aribussel@gmail.com
