Drash for Yom Hashoah

I will deliver the following drash during the GOld Coast Jewish community's commemoration of Yom Hashoah - Holocaust Remembrance Day - on 7 April.

Neo- Nazi rally in Germany

The Shoah as a ‘Call to Arms’

I want to tell two you stories, about two periods of my residence in Germany, separated by 18 years.

The first time, in 1986, was for three months.  This was when there were two Germanys.  I was in West Germany, the Federal Republic, in Munich to be precise.  It’s the city that is generally acknowledged as the Birthplace of Nazism.

I suppose I expected to see a Nazi behind every lamppost.  But I didn’t.  On the contrary.  I repeatedly struck up friendly conversations with Germans.  And when it came out that I was Jewish, the German was often immediately apologetic for what his or her parents and grandparents had done to the Jews of Europe.  And then they would often quiz me about Jewish this or that.  It seemed that many Germans of my age – too young to have experienced the war – had a genuine curiosity about the Jewish world that their parents had destroyed.  At the time, there was a weekly program about Judaism and Jewish culture, on Bavarian State Radio, on Friday afternoons.  Many Germans told me that they listened to this program religiously.

I returned to Germany in 2004 and lived there until 2008.  It was a completely different country.  East and West Germany, the Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic, had been reunified.  I remember seeing the images of the Berlin Wall coming down, and the jubilation of everyday Germans, both Ossies and Vessies, at the time – in 1989.  I knew that the Germans had struggled since then with the financial costs and social tensions resulting from reunification.  And that was not the only big change in the country.  The advent of the European Union also brought profound change.  The entire landscape of Europe, not just Germany, seemed different. 

Germans were turning increasingly inward.  They were searching for a positive national identity.  This was something that the introspection following the Second World War had largely denied them.  There was still some curiosity about Jews and Judaism.  But with the rise of a new generation farther removed from the horrors of Nazism, Germans generally didn’t want to be bothered. 

But that’s not all.  During the years 2004 to 2008, and in the years since then, there has been an increasing amount of anti-Jewish violence in Germany.  I personally know several Jews who were attacked, or threatened during these years.  These attacks and threats get lost in a general atmosphere of distrust and violence aimed at various groups of perceived ‘foreigners’ in the country.

The renewed voices of hate and intolerance in Germany are dismaying at the very least.  This, in a country whose hate and intolerance has not availed her, or the world in the past.  It is inexcusable.  But I don’t blame the Germans for their inward turning.  I long wondered what it would be like to be a citizen of a country, in which one could not feel pride.  A citizen of a ‘pariah’ state.  But of course, the solution to overcoming a troubled past is to transcend it.  To take it and become better because of it.  Not to forget it.  But that’s what is happening among Germans today – they are forgetting the past.

We Jews understand the importance of memory, even if we apply it selectively at times.  This is why we must continue to remember the Shoah, the Holocaust.  And this is why we must make remembering the Holocaust not just about us Jews and how we suffered under Nazi tyranny.  If we hold these events year after year, and do nothing else, what have we achieved?  We can feel a bit of the righteousness of the victim.  We can feel aggrieved once more.  We can take some perverse pride in thinking that the world, at the very least, doesn’t care about our suffering.  And we can make some of the handful of non-Jews who attend these events feel guilty.  This, even though they had no hand in the atrocities that we remember tonight.  Look, I enjoy throwing a little Jewish guilt as much as the next person…but we can accomplish far more!

So let me offer a challenge.

Let’s remember the Shoah, and let’s keep the images of the genocide of the Jews of Europe alive.  Let’s continue to gather annually at events such as this one, to re-acquaint ourselves with these images.  And then let’s use the renewed horror, and let it motivate us. 

Let the horror motivate us to allow historians and archivists such as tonight’s speaker, Jayne Josem, to really educate us about the Shoah.  Then we can respond rationally when confronted by those who deny it ever happened, or by those who just honestly want to know more. 

But let’s also let the horror, motivate us to know how to respond, and to respond respectfully but forthrightly regarding the State of Israel.  To respond to those who attack what is arguably one of the most tolerant and multicultural countries in the world, as an ‘Apartheid State’ and worse.  To those who demonize Israel for defending her people and her sovereignty.  Is ‘anti-Zionism’ simply a more socially-acceptable form of anti-Semitism?  You know, one could make a convincing case that, often, it is. 

Let’s let the horror motivate us to get more involved in the national conversation about how to create in Australia a country where all citizens are welcome.  Is Australia a ‘racist country’?  I doubt it, but there is some element of xenophobia that shows itself here from time to time.  Let’s be one of the loudest, and clearest voices in Australia to argue against this tendency.  Since we were victims of xenophobia, let us work to build bridges of trust between citizens. 

Finally, let’s let the horror motivate us to work to expose genocides that are going on in the world even now.  This is the biggest tragedy of the Shoah.  Even in its wake, genocides have wracked various parts of the world.  Cambodia.  Rwanda.  Bosnia.  The Sudan.  It has happened again and again.  Have we raised our voices loud enough when it has?  We must ask ourselves this difficult question.

The Shoah should be more than a tragedy for the Jewish and German peoples, with other groups of Europeans such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, and the Romany people serving as minor players.  It should be more than something to cry over, something to make us build monuments and museums and hold ceremonies.  It should be a ‘call to arms’ to work for a better world.  (And of course, I use the phrase ‘call to arms’ metaphorically, not literally!)  Because it is popularly seen as a ‘Jewish issue,’ it must start with us.  I know that it can seem to be a daunting task.  There are less than 100,000 Jews in this country of 22 million.  And less than 14 million Jews in a world of seven billion souls.  Such a big task for such a small people!  But it’s a task that must be done.  Are we going to wait for someone else to do it?

So today I challenge you.  Let’s remember.  And let’s let our remembering lead to something positive.  Let’s sit down in the days to come, and have a conversation about what that ‘something positive’ might be.  Let’s let the Shoah serve as a ‘call to arms’ to motivate us toward ever greater positive acts to make the world a better place.  Even though we are few, and we are tired, and we wish someone else would do it.  As Rabbi Tarfon proclaimed:  It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it. (Mishnah Avot 2:21)  What can we do?  Let’s discuss and see.  Perhaps next year, when we gather again to commemorate Yom Hashoah, we will be able to point with pride to some new work that we will have started.  This, in honour of the memory of the six million Jews who perished.  In honour of the memory of the 17 and a half million total victims of the Nazi Holocaust.  May their memories live on and inspire us.