My friend posted a video of Holocaust survivors living in Israel. The video features the survivors speaking briefly of their experiences and then, for each one, the camera pans out and you see them standing next to a grandchild, or great-grandchild, wearing an IDF uniform.
It’s a powerful video. It’s powerful to see Jewish people whose families and lives were destroyed because they were powerless now living in a place where Jews have the power to protect themselves and, to a large degree, determine their own fate.
This past Monday marked the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. Many moving tributes were offered, many profound words were shared.
75 years later, what do we want to learn from Auschwitz? From the Shoah overall?
I would urge two things, each of which are equally important. Two things for which I have been advocating for years. Two things which potentially can give a point of overlap and galvanize shared resolve from the right, the left and the center in this time of increasing polarization.
1. We must protect ourselves
2. We must protect others
Some are vigorously supportive of our right to protect ourselves and say, why should we worry about others - let them worry about themselves.
Some are vigorous advocates for the protection of others’ rights and get awkward and apologetic when it comes to what I believe to be legitimate and necessary expressions of Jewish power.
Frankly, each group needs to do some serious reflection. Each group needs to take steps to recognize that self-protection and protection of others is mutually reinforcing, strategically and morally right, and fully grounded in our tradition.
We must protect ourselves. We must protect others. It is the dual mandate that I believe should emerge from our internalization of the horrors of the Shoah and it also emerges from our Torah.
How do we protect ourselves?
First, we protect ourselves through physical strength. We ought not apologize for having a Jewish State with an army that offers protection to its inhabitants - Jewish and otherwise. Several years ago I was honored by FIDF, friends of the IDF, which provides support for IDF soldiers in the form of scholarship, rehabilitation, lone soldier outreach, support of families of fallen soldier and more. A friend said, I want to acknowledge you’re being honored but I would rather not make a donation to support this organization. So this person made a donation to another organization that supports important causes in Israel. And I said, thank you, but I have one simple question. Would you rather that there not be an IDF, that there never would have been an IDF? Not in 1948? Not in 1967? Not today, when Hamas and Hezbollah are looking to murder innocent Israelis, Jewish and otherwise?
Second, we protect ourselves through education. Against the backdrop of rising antisemitism abroad and here in the United States, we help to protect ourselves by educating ourselves and others about the Shoah and its connection to antisemitism. You are surely aware of the widespread ignorance among younger people when it comes to the Shoah.
Recently, through the efforts of congressional leaders and advocates inside and outside of the Jewish community, the House of Representatives overwhelming passed what has been termed the Never Again Education Act to provide resources for Holocaust education in schools throughout the country. The following appears in the act’s summary:
This bill creates the Holocaust Education Assistance Program Fund for the Department of Education (ED) to (1) award grants to eligible entities to carry out Holocaust education programs, and (2) conduct periodic regional workshops to provide teachers with technical assistance on how to incorporate Holocaust education within state and local education standards.
ED shall (1) create and maintain a Holocaust education program website containing resources for middle grades and high schools; and (2) establish the Holocaust Education Advisory Board to advise on developing application criteria for the fund's grants, to advise on content for the Holocaust education program website, and to lead efforts to solicit donations for the fund.
Several months ago I attended a meeting at Great Neck South Middle School organized by local professional and volunteer leaders, outlining the bill and expressing hope that it would pass, which it did overwhelmingly.
The Great Neck Public Schools already offer significant Holocaust education, but there are many school districts across the country that do not, and this bill will go a long way toward providing them with the resources to do so.
This is an enormous step forward in educating the next generation about the Shoah - the causes, the aftermath - in ways that will ideally have positive repercussions vis a vis the treatment of Jews and everyone else.
We must protect ourselves - through physical strength, which helps to ensure that we will not be defenseless against those who wish to harm us, and through education, which helps to increase the likelihood that we, and others of good will, can respond to hatred before it metastasizes into violence.
And we also must protect others. We cannot just worry about ourselves. To those who say, let’s just worry about ourselves - and there are many who do - I say, it’s a good thing that the Christians and Muslims who risked their lives to save Jews during the Shoah didn’t say, “let’s just worry about ourselves.”
I’ve told this story before and I’ll tell it again. Decades ago, when Ruth Messinger was speaking to a Jewish audience about the need to protest the genocide in Darfur, someone got up and said, I’m paraphrasing, we Jews have our own problems - let someone else worry about the people in Darfur.
And after that person sat down, someone got up and said, again I’m paraphrasing, I survived Auschwitz. Most of my family did not. If people across the world had cared enough about us to speak out at the time, things might have been different. We of all people must protest what is happening.
That includes genocide. That includes racism. That includes mistreatment of those who are vulnerable for whatever reason.
Back to the Torah. What is the legacy of Egypt? What is the legacy of over 400 years of slavery in Egypt?
1. The Israelites will establish their own army so that moving forward, they will have more power to determine their fate. They will also establish a creative, multi-sensory means of educating generations to come about the trials of Egypt and the ultimate liberation. והגדת לבנך V’higad’ta l’vinkha - you shall tell your child - this is what happened. Through questions, answers, special foods. The Torah creates a blueprint for self-protection through physical strength and education. But of course, that is only part of the legacy.
2. ואהבתם את הגר כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים “You shall love the stranger because you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt” and more statements like this. Not urging revenge, but rather urging a cultivated empathy that comes from the direct and shared experience of suffering.
Every year, Temple Israel’s Shoah committee has a breakfast gathering to review the accomplishments of the past year and look forward to the next.
At our most recent breakfast, we spoke about the rise in antisemitism and hatred towards other groups and the need to speak out. The comment was made that we need to focus on protecting ourselves - quoting Hillel - אם אין אני לי מי לי im ein ani lee mee lee. If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And one of our members, Vera Eden, who survived Auschwitz, said of course we need to protect ourselves. But we know there’s a second part of the statement - וכשאני לעצמי מה אני u’kheshe anee l’atzmee mah anee? If I am only for myself, what am I?
Vera, as many of us know, spent decades as a Jewish educator - our children her as their first grade teacher at Solomon Schechter of Nassau County - and when she spoke recently with students at Schechter Manhattan, she emphasized that one of the lessons of the Shoah must be the need to speak out when anyone is being unfairly targeted.
75 years after Auschwitz was liberated, thousands of years after we left Egypt, the message is still the same. A human being deserves to live with security and freedom. I matter and you matter. We must protect ourselves and we must protect one another. There is no other way.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 1, 2020, Parashat Bo, several days after the 75th Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz
It’s a powerful video. It’s powerful to see Jewish people whose families and lives were destroyed because they were powerless now living in a place where Jews have the power to protect themselves and, to a large degree, determine their own fate.
This past Monday marked the 75th commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. Many moving tributes were offered, many profound words were shared.
75 years later, what do we want to learn from Auschwitz? From the Shoah overall?
I would urge two things, each of which are equally important. Two things for which I have been advocating for years. Two things which potentially can give a point of overlap and galvanize shared resolve from the right, the left and the center in this time of increasing polarization.
1. We must protect ourselves
2. We must protect others
Some are vigorously supportive of our right to protect ourselves and say, why should we worry about others - let them worry about themselves.
Some are vigorous advocates for the protection of others’ rights and get awkward and apologetic when it comes to what I believe to be legitimate and necessary expressions of Jewish power.
Frankly, each group needs to do some serious reflection. Each group needs to take steps to recognize that self-protection and protection of others is mutually reinforcing, strategically and morally right, and fully grounded in our tradition.
We must protect ourselves. We must protect others. It is the dual mandate that I believe should emerge from our internalization of the horrors of the Shoah and it also emerges from our Torah.
How do we protect ourselves?
First, we protect ourselves through physical strength. We ought not apologize for having a Jewish State with an army that offers protection to its inhabitants - Jewish and otherwise. Several years ago I was honored by FIDF, friends of the IDF, which provides support for IDF soldiers in the form of scholarship, rehabilitation, lone soldier outreach, support of families of fallen soldier and more. A friend said, I want to acknowledge you’re being honored but I would rather not make a donation to support this organization. So this person made a donation to another organization that supports important causes in Israel. And I said, thank you, but I have one simple question. Would you rather that there not be an IDF, that there never would have been an IDF? Not in 1948? Not in 1967? Not today, when Hamas and Hezbollah are looking to murder innocent Israelis, Jewish and otherwise?
Second, we protect ourselves through education. Against the backdrop of rising antisemitism abroad and here in the United States, we help to protect ourselves by educating ourselves and others about the Shoah and its connection to antisemitism. You are surely aware of the widespread ignorance among younger people when it comes to the Shoah.
Recently, through the efforts of congressional leaders and advocates inside and outside of the Jewish community, the House of Representatives overwhelming passed what has been termed the Never Again Education Act to provide resources for Holocaust education in schools throughout the country. The following appears in the act’s summary:
This bill creates the Holocaust Education Assistance Program Fund for the Department of Education (ED) to (1) award grants to eligible entities to carry out Holocaust education programs, and (2) conduct periodic regional workshops to provide teachers with technical assistance on how to incorporate Holocaust education within state and local education standards.
ED shall (1) create and maintain a Holocaust education program website containing resources for middle grades and high schools; and (2) establish the Holocaust Education Advisory Board to advise on developing application criteria for the fund's grants, to advise on content for the Holocaust education program website, and to lead efforts to solicit donations for the fund.
Several months ago I attended a meeting at Great Neck South Middle School organized by local professional and volunteer leaders, outlining the bill and expressing hope that it would pass, which it did overwhelmingly.
The Great Neck Public Schools already offer significant Holocaust education, but there are many school districts across the country that do not, and this bill will go a long way toward providing them with the resources to do so.
This is an enormous step forward in educating the next generation about the Shoah - the causes, the aftermath - in ways that will ideally have positive repercussions vis a vis the treatment of Jews and everyone else.
We must protect ourselves - through physical strength, which helps to ensure that we will not be defenseless against those who wish to harm us, and through education, which helps to increase the likelihood that we, and others of good will, can respond to hatred before it metastasizes into violence.
And we also must protect others. We cannot just worry about ourselves. To those who say, let’s just worry about ourselves - and there are many who do - I say, it’s a good thing that the Christians and Muslims who risked their lives to save Jews during the Shoah didn’t say, “let’s just worry about ourselves.”
I’ve told this story before and I’ll tell it again. Decades ago, when Ruth Messinger was speaking to a Jewish audience about the need to protest the genocide in Darfur, someone got up and said, I’m paraphrasing, we Jews have our own problems - let someone else worry about the people in Darfur.
And after that person sat down, someone got up and said, again I’m paraphrasing, I survived Auschwitz. Most of my family did not. If people across the world had cared enough about us to speak out at the time, things might have been different. We of all people must protest what is happening.
That includes genocide. That includes racism. That includes mistreatment of those who are vulnerable for whatever reason.
Back to the Torah. What is the legacy of Egypt? What is the legacy of over 400 years of slavery in Egypt?
1. The Israelites will establish their own army so that moving forward, they will have more power to determine their fate. They will also establish a creative, multi-sensory means of educating generations to come about the trials of Egypt and the ultimate liberation. והגדת לבנך V’higad’ta l’vinkha - you shall tell your child - this is what happened. Through questions, answers, special foods. The Torah creates a blueprint for self-protection through physical strength and education. But of course, that is only part of the legacy.
2. ואהבתם את הגר כי גרים הייתם בארץ מצרים “You shall love the stranger because you yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt” and more statements like this. Not urging revenge, but rather urging a cultivated empathy that comes from the direct and shared experience of suffering.
Every year, Temple Israel’s Shoah committee has a breakfast gathering to review the accomplishments of the past year and look forward to the next.
At our most recent breakfast, we spoke about the rise in antisemitism and hatred towards other groups and the need to speak out. The comment was made that we need to focus on protecting ourselves - quoting Hillel - אם אין אני לי מי לי im ein ani lee mee lee. If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
And one of our members, Vera Eden, who survived Auschwitz, said of course we need to protect ourselves. But we know there’s a second part of the statement - וכשאני לעצמי מה אני u’kheshe anee l’atzmee mah anee? If I am only for myself, what am I?
Vera, as many of us know, spent decades as a Jewish educator - our children her as their first grade teacher at Solomon Schechter of Nassau County - and when she spoke recently with students at Schechter Manhattan, she emphasized that one of the lessons of the Shoah must be the need to speak out when anyone is being unfairly targeted.
75 years after Auschwitz was liberated, thousands of years after we left Egypt, the message is still the same. A human being deserves to live with security and freedom. I matter and you matter. We must protect ourselves and we must protect one another. There is no other way.
Originally delivered at Temple Israel of Great Neck on February 1, 2020, Parashat Bo, several days after the 75th Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz
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