Posts Tagged ‘Holocaust’

 

Joining “Never Again” with “Never Give Up” – in Praise of Yesterday’s Student Protesters

Posted on: March 15th, 2018 by Hayim Herring

 

The phrase “Never Again” is generally associated with the Holocaust, the Nazi German state’s planned and executed genocide against the Jewish people. The aim of Nazi Germany in World War II was simple and horrific – eradicating Jews from the human race. That meant obliterating their past history, their then-current existence, and future continuity. The origin of “Never Again” and its connection to the Holocaust is historically unclear. But Cameron Kasky, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who is Jewish, is credited with adopting #NeverAgainMSD (Marjory Stoneman Douglas) as the hashtag that helped to mobilize student protests for sensible gun reform, which we saw again yesterday. Kasky, and several other student leaders have been relentless in their commitment to change. Their goal is also simple: they want to know that they and other school students in the U.S. can walk into their classrooms without having to fear that they might be the next victims of a mass shooting.

 

Does it matter that a specific phrase, applied to a certain people, at a certain time, has taken on renewed and reinterpreted meaning? I think that it’s not only a powerful and brilliant adaptation of the phrase but one that none other than Elie Wiesel, the late Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was often associated with this phrase, would approve of. While Elie Wiesel was the chronicler par excellence of the Holocaust and gave personal and collective voice to its Jewish victims unlike any other literary figure of the last Century, he also spoke out against genocide in countries like Sudan and spoke for victims of violence throughout the world. His personal experience compelled him to speak on behalf of those who could not, regardless of their background.

Some may remember the moment when Wiesel’s unshakable belief in the preciousness of all human life made a tangible difference. On April 22, 1993, Elie Wiesel was fittingly invited to be a speaker at the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He was sharing the stage with President Bill Clinton but had to improvise this most critical speech, because the rain had turned the words of his text into runny ink marks. And, as reported by the Washington Post this is what he said, as he faced the audience, and then turned to President Clinton:

“Forgive me. I’m just back from Sarajevo,” he said, pushing the papers aside. He told the audience about the devastating effects of the Bosnian conflict — the mass killings, the destruction of Muslim sacred sites, the cold-blooded murder of thousands of children. “I cannot put that place out of my mind. It has robbed me of my sleep.” He turned to Bill Clinton, seated on the dais behind him. “Mr. President. You must do something.” It was too much for Wiesel to stand at the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, that embodied the promise “Never Again,” while the scenes of the mass killings that he had just seen again were haunting him. And those words made a difference. Eventually, President Clinton led the effort to involve NATO in ending the deliberate bombing of innocent civilians during the Kosovo War.

The mass protests of high school students around the country, who have adopted the slogan, neveragainMSD, honor the phrase, “Never Again,” by expanding its meaning in a way that seems consistent with Wiesel’s approach. While it is historically inaccurate to compare gun violence in the US, perpetrated by individuals or groups representing an ideology, to state- sponsored genocide, its use is a legitimate reminder that the preventable loss of innocent lives should do more than alarm us, more than cause us to pray together and hold vigils and protests, but to work collectively to restore the value of human life, and answer our school children’s basic human question: “Can’t we go to school without worrying about being shot?” with a swift, affirmative, “Yes!”

And for those who are cynical about the possibility of reform, it seems fitting to remember the words of another Nobel prize winner, this time in physics, Stephen Hawking’s, who died yesterday. He once said, “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.
It matters that you don’t just give up.”

NeveragainMSD, Never Again anywhere, is a reminder to politicians that these students, and many adults, are not giving up this time.

Wars Against Israel: Beyond the Gaza Operation

Posted on: July 28th, 2014 by Hayim Herring

 

Intertwined Lives Once Again

 

This past Shabbat, we completed reading the Book of Numbers in the annual Torah cycle. The close of that book sets the stage for the Jewish people’s next steps, from wanderers to returnees to their ancestral land. But two tribes, Reuven and Gad, and one half of the tribe of Manasseh, remain on the other side of the Jordan and do not enter the land. Interestingly, while Reuven and Gad directly ask Moses for permission to remain in Transjordan, Moses is the one to designate half of the tribe of Manasseh’s portion in Israel and half in Transjordan (Numbers 32:33) Moses creates an intentional Diaspora, and causes the exile of one part of a family from another. Why?
 

Perhaps Moses foresaw the need to create a reality where Jewish people inside and outside of the land of Israel had a shared a past. The severing of direct family connections might better ensure their chances for a shared future. If only two whole tribes separated from the other ten, it would have been much easier for each side to forget about the other. But by splitting a single tribe in half, Moses increased the odds that caring would transcend geography and time, and that a family that was literally divided would better remember that a shared past meant an intertwined future, one in which each half would help the other in times of need.
 
And that is the contemporary situation of worldwide Jewry again. We share not just a past, but also a present in which many of us have immediate family members and some of our closest friends in Israel. We are both obligated and personally motivated to secure a shared, peaceful future for the State of Israel and Jewish communities around the world.
 

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“Never Again” Depends On How You Define “Never Again”

Posted on: May 2nd, 2013 by Hayim Herring

 
 

A few weeks ago, in Israel and other Jewish communities around the world, some Jews and a smaller number of Christians observed Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah). For more than two years, we’ve been global witnesses to the Assad regime’s systematic killing of segments of its own population. Its most recent lethal weapon has almost certainly been verified as the chemical weapon, Sarin gas. In the shadow of the last survivor’s of the Holocaust, it’s difficult to take seriously the Holocaust-derived declaration against genocide, “Never Again,” that has become a universal rallying cry against all acts of genocide. Like “red lines” that can’t supposedly be crossed without consequences, it seems like genocide is negotiable and open to rationalization. (more…)

Jews, Tattoos & Holocaust Taboos: Some Possible Implications

Posted on: October 10th, 2012 by Hayim Herring
Jews, Tattoos & Holocaust Taboos: Some Possible Implications

photo from: nytimes.com

My daughter and I were discussing a story that recently appeared in the New York Times about younger Jews inventing new ways to remember the Holocaust and communicate its history to people who either don’t know it or want to forget it. Some have decided to have their forearms tattooed with the same number of surviving older family members. They’ve done so in the spirit of zakhor-remembering Nazi genocide and making sure that horrific atrocities are not perpetrated again. (No comment now about democratic nations standing idly by the blood of Syrians being massacred.) This imperative is even more essential as the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles while the prominence of Holocaust deniers increases.

I’m going to leave the Jewish legal issues aside on the question of permanent tattooing. If you want to learn more about them, just search online for “Jews, tattoos, rabbis and Jewish law” and you’ll see the opinions. The bottom line: the weight of Jewish legal precedent is against permanent tattooing and has generally viewed tattoos as desecration of the body and not “body art.” Note-there is a minority view, never adopted, that prohibits only those tattoos used for idol worship, a view that some rabbis are now re-examining to reconsider their stance against this practice.

My daughter’s thoughts moved my needle from “opposed” to “uncertain” about how I feel about Jews taking tattoos with the numbers of Jewish Holocaust victims. I do think this phenomenon should awaken us to the feelings about tattooing that younger generations have and their admirable response to taking up the challenge of remembering the Holocaust in their way, in an age when there will soon no longer be living survivors. But I also think that we need to think further into the future about possible implications. For example:

What’s your thinking on this issue? Please respond- remembering Holocaust genocide in a post-survivor era, when governments still brutalize populations, is a pressing matter.