'Zaguri Imperia.' Anti-Holocaust Day monologue has become popular among progressive circles
Photo: Ohad Romano
Artistic freedom and distortion go hand in hand
Op-ed: There are two places where the Holocaust can be ridiculed: Anti-Semitic circles and the field of art.
In "Zaguri Imperia," an Israeli television series about a Moroccan family, the father recites a monologue about Holocaust Remembrance Day. He refuses to stand during the siren. He demands a special day in memory of the "ma'abarot" (the refugee transit camps in Israel in the 1950s).
There are two places where one can engage in ridiculing the Holocaust: Anti-Semitic circles and the field of art. Among the anti-Semites, it is clearly a despicable thing. Among the artists, it is met with exclamations of encouragement. Art is an important thing. There is no truth there. Lying is permitted. It's fine when we are talking about encouraging people to think – it's a problem when we are talking about a political agenda promoting the current lie.
The Holocaust, as we all know, is for Ashkenazi people. So don't come to us with your memories, the Moroccan Zaguri demands. After all, you're to blame for our troubles.
The monologue was met with words of encouragement from the progress forces. It's "subversive," "brilliant," "brave," and so on. It’s just a shame, one of the reviews said, that the subversion is softened later on. It's really not okay that the Moroccan avant-garde won’t go all the way. It's a shame that he turns into an obedient Sephardic who is willing to participate in the Holocaust celebrations.
Hate Speech
Ben-Dror Yemini
Op-ed: Even if it is allegedly permitted to curse Arabs or call for Israel's destruction, it must not be done with state's support or at its expense.
That was the case when Hannah Szenes was turned from a hero into an informer. It's true that this claim has no trace in the historical documentation, but what does it matter – there is a need to shatter the Zionist myth.
It happened in Mohammed Bakri's "Jenin, Jenin," the anti-Israel blood libel being spread around the world.
Cast of 'Zaguri Imperia.' Of course the Sephardim suffered discrimination, but a holocaust? (Photo: Ohad Romano)
It happened recently in a film about the Selma march for black people's rights led by Martin Luther King, a historical march. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched in the first row alongside King. The march became one of the milestones in the black people's struggle for rights, and the Jewish partnership in the struggle is one of the inalienable assets of America's Jews.
But in the film, which became a hit in the US, the Jew disappeared. Like in the old Pravda newspaper. Of course it matches the tendency to erase the Jews' part in the struggle. "I'm not a historian," the filmmaker said in response to the critics. A work of art and distortion have become a perfect match.
Now it's Zaguri, with a monologue which seeks to ignore the memory of the Holocaust because of what happened to the Sephardim in the transit camps. It's unbelievable. Even if we assume that there is some truth in all the claims about the transit camp era, even if we assume that the Ashkenazim received housing before the Sephardim, even if we assume that discrimination is a historical fact – this statement is an insult to intelligence.
The Ashkenazi establishment discriminated; it didn't exterminate. There was distributive injustice; not genocide. And whoever is thrilled by this contemptible comparison is not much different from the Holocaust deniers. It's not Zaguri the artists. It's the school which supports this direction, it's the agenda of the fans of the comparison between the Nakba and the Holocaust.
And it doesn’t matter that Ashkenazi Jews not only discriminated, but also sacrificed their lives to help Jews immigrate from Arab countries. And it doesn't matter, in the context of the Nakba, that it was the Arabs who declared out loud that the goal is to annihilate the Jews. And it doesn’t matter that one of their leaders, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a Nazi for all intents and purposes who planned to annihilate all the Jews of the Arab world. It doesn’t matter. Because artistic freedom legitimizes any lie.
Why the Zaguri monologue has already become popular among the progressive circles, and a distinguished professor even wrote an article praising and glorifying it. The Sephardim suffered, she wrote. Of course they suffered. But a holocaust? Is she serious?
There is no need to limit artistic freedom, which includes the right to lie, falsify and distort. All that is left for the camp of sane people is to present the truth. It's not entirely clear that it will win, but it's entirely clear that we must not give it up.
