Past, present, and future
Visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust museum evokes dark thoughts about Mideast realties
I have studied the Holocaust since I was a child and consider myself to be well aware of the atrocities that the Jewish people, along with other "undesirables" suffered at the hands of the Nazis. My parents always made sure that we knew about the past in order to recognize and prevent the same thing from ever happening again in the future. Sometimes it surprises me just how much the past can speak to us about our present and help us ask questions to shape our future.
The moment that struck me the most on my Birthright trip and has stuck with me every day since was exiting the cold darkness of Yad Vashem to see the magnificence of Jerusalem spread out before me, all white and gold and beautiful with a sun that radiated throughout the entire city. All I could hear were the voices of the Holocaust survivors who said that their source of hope and comfort through the ghettos and death camps was to say to each other, “Next year in Jerusalem!” And here I was experiencing what they so longed for when they were being tortured in Nazi death camps.
Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem (Photo: Yossi Ben David)
A few days ago I revisited Yad Vashem and it laid heavy on me how different the experience was after actually living here in Israel. This time it wasn’t the end that struck me, but the beginning. Hitler said openly in his speeches that his mission was to rid the world of the Jews, who were comparable to rats and must be exterminated like rats. Jews were murdered in broad daylight, shot in the head while the townspeople of Eastern Europe watched and did nothing. After watching a video of Hitler’s speech our guide turned to us and said, “When somebody says they want to kill you, don’t pretend that they don’t mean it.”
Now I have to go back in my story because in the morning before I visited Yad Vashem I had the privilege of meeting with an Israeli Arab Muslim journalist whose comments from someone of his background were very powerful. He said that, “The Arab world survives by making people focus their hate on someone else, particularly the Jews and Israel. I don’t like Hamas but I can’t say that they haven’t been honest. From the beginning they have been open and clear about their message, that Jews don’t have a right to be here, Israel should be an Islamic state, and they will never recognize Israel’s right to exist. If you think that they are going to wake up and want a real and lasting peace it is just not going to happen.”
Shifting perspectives
I came to Israel fresh from the American Jewish liberal Left wing who wanted nothing more than to believe that peace is possible between all people if we can just put violence aside; if we can all just look at each other as human beings who have a father and a mother and a family that loves them and wants to see them come home safe at the end of the day.However the more I live here the farther away peace seems, because there is no real partner for peace on the Palestinian side. All we need to do is just listen to the rhetoric coming from the mouths of our neighbors today, not like we did in 1938. Hamas states in their charter that their goal is Jihad and the death of the Jews and that peace accords are a treacherous scheme of the Zionists.
I came to Israel because I fell in love with the country the minute I stepped foot in it. I came to learn and ask questions and see if the kind of thinking that I came here with has any realistic chance of succeeding in today’s Middle East. The age we live in and the limitless power within it need questions.
There is a dark space at the center of our culture and the people standing in front of us seem to have no more answers than you or me or the rest of the world. All we can do is to keep questioning ourselves, our actions, and hold our own and other world leaders accountable for their actions. We are all still waiting for answers, which might never actually come.
