Remembrance of the Holocaust in Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett speaks in the Forest of the Martyrs at the Holocaust Day ceremony in 1954

Scroll of Fire

TheHolocaust Remembrance in Israel refers to how the Holocaust is expressed in the country's social and cultural discourse. This encompasses commemoration as well as the various ways the Holocaust is situated within the Israeli ethos. Examining the place of the Holocaust in Israeli public memory involves historical, sociological, anthropological, and cultural discussions. Holocaust remembrance also significantly impacts theological issues, such as religious faith during and after the Holocaust. ^[1]

Holocaust remembrance reflects the way the Holocaust is perceived within the secular Zionist Israeli ethos, and to a large extent the national religious public. The ultra-Orthodox community and Israeli Arabs, however, have quite different perceptions of the Holocaust. ^[1]

Over time, several changes have occurred in Holocaust remembrance in Israel. The most prominent is a shift from a collective to a personal-individual approach. Terms like "the Jewish people" and "six million" have given way to personal survivor narratives and the "Every Person Has a Name" project to commemorate victims' names. This humanization extends to the perpetrators as well, as the Nazis are no longer depicted as inhuman monsters, but as humanity in its most extreme form.

Another change is the transformation of victims into heroes. The image of the fighting, pioneer Israeli Sabra could not easily identify with Holocaust victims. In the early years, only ghetto rebels and partisan fighters were celebrated. However, over time, endurance and holding out to the last were also redefined as heroism. Consequently, the status of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has diminished compared to non-violent resistance, such as smuggling food and secretly studying Torah.

The state's place until the eichmann trial

The state approach

The approach prevalent in the state's early years is defined by researchers as "the state approach," identifying its origin in the study house of David Ben-Gurion. This approach was based on several principles: ^[2]

• The State of Israel is the center of the Jewish people, a center for its loyalty and identification and a focus for the formation of its identity and the preservation of its existence.
• Negation of the Diaspora: The State of Israel symbolizes the opposite of the passive and subordinate existence of the Jews in the Diaspora; a citizen of the State of Israel is a proud, self-confident, and free Jew. The heritage of the Israeli Jew does not rely on the Diaspora, but rather on his earlier history, when he indeed was a free man.
• Integration into the family of nations: The proponents of the state approach aspire to integrate the State of Israel into the family of nations as an equal among equals. The victim consciousness of the Diaspora is invalid, as it prevents this integration, and therefore the Diaspora and its heritage must be negated. Antisemitism is but a consequence of the unnatural existence of the Jewish people in the Diaspora; when Jews have a normal existence, in a state like all other states, antisemitism will be eradicated.

The Holocaust was perceived as the absolute opposite of the state approach, an approach of self-confidence, strength, and national pride; the state approach could not rely on a history of defeat and humiliation, nor on the heroism of the ghetto fighters due to their ultimate defeat. The state approach could not accept identification with the Holocaust in the process of shaping the new Israeli identity. Moreover, this approach argued that the Diaspora existence is inferior to the independent existence in a sovereign state, to the extent of characterizing the Diaspora as a disease.

These two factors led to the Holocaust not being able to be an essential part of the national memory that the state approach tried to build. Indeed, the Holocaust was mentioned in official ceremonies (ironically and symbolically, the burial of the ashes of Austrian Jews – the first Holocaust remembrance ceremony in Israel (June 1949) which had a state character, was initiated by Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Jew, then still unknown, from his place in Linz, Austria), but only as proof of the victory of the state approach, in the sense of see what happened to the Jewish people without a state. Hence, there was no place for the Holocaust as a central factor in shaping the Israeli identity. Beyond that, positioning the Holocaust as a central factor in the Israeli discourse could create feelings of xenophobia, isolationism, and a worldview of "a people that dwells alone" – the opposite of the state approach's goal.

A monument in the courtyard of the "Kdushi Novosolitsa" synagogue in Ramat Hasharon

Private memory and public memory

The picture that emerges from this description is that there was a repressed and silenced Holocaust consciousness, and almost no public discussion on issues related to the Holocaust. Historian Anita Shapira emphasized that on one hand, this indeed was the situation in certain aspects; but on the other hand, the Holocaust was a central topic of public discussion during those years. Physically, the "Forest of the Martyrs" was planted, memorials were erected, remembrance days were established, and museums were founded, such as Yad Vashem and the Ghetto Fighters' House. In public buildings not directly intended for commemorating the Holocaust, commemoration was mainly evident in their names, some of which were vague, called "Memorial of the Martyrs," and some were more explicit, called "Holocaust Martyrs." Some were named after destroyed communities, for example, "Martyrs of Novoselits," and in a synagogue in Be'er Sheva, they even chose the name "Martyrs of Auschwitz." The characteristic of these synagogues is large memorial plaques with names of Holocaust victims and remembrance days for the destruction of this or that community that its members founded the synagogue. Many poets dealt with the Holocaust, historical documentation projects began in that decade, and more. Beyond that, the 1950s were characterized by a series of public uproars around issues directly related to the Holocaust. In two prominent cases, the public debate was stormy to the point of violence: the Reparations Agreement and the Kastner trial. In these cases, the Holocaust was highly politicized, as different factions and groups interpreted the memory of the Holocaust in the way that seemed right to them. This situation seemingly contradicts the state approach mentioned above. Anita Shapira proposes a division between "private memory" and "public memory." The Holocaust was central in the collective, public worldview of the State of Israel. The Holocaust served as a model for the existential threat to the State of Israel, from which its policy was derived; as a clear model for the Diaspora Jewry, which the State of Israel aspired to change; and as an extreme expression of antisemitism that the State of Israel could prevent. Therefore, the Holocaust was "owned" only by the State of Israel; the State of Israel demanded that the memory of the Holocaust be preserved exclusively in the State of Israel, as the sole heir of the memory of the millions. But in this way, the memory of the Holocaust became an anonymous, immense memory, and therefore not amenable to internalization and perception. The Holocaust was a terrible myth, part of history; the personal, individual story was pushed aside and disappeared, and did not find its place in this period within the collective memory. Several factors pushed the personal story aside:

• The tremendous effort involved in establishing the state, with the War of Independence and the recovery that followed;
• The prevailing culture of mourning at that time, according to which mourning was considered a private matter, and its public expression was only as part of the general mourning;
• The fact that the trauma was so recent, and therefore so difficult to touch, to treat, and to discuss.

The discourse culture of the 50s, in fact, involved ignoring the personal, private experience, and attributing everything to the giant myth of the Holocaust, the general-Jewish, national myth. Accordingly, there was no place for personal discourse; there was no desire, and no ability, to hear the personal experience, which deviated greatly from the general myth, as cultivated until then. On the fate of Holocaust survivors in this culture, the writer Aharon Appelfeld commented

From the eichmann trial to the 1980s

Tale Of Century – Eichmann Tried For War Crimes

Erosion of the state-centric approach

This worldview began to erode over the years. There are several key moments in this process:

• The Eichmann Trial – the testimonies heard for the first time exposed the Holocaust to the Israeli public, thereby breaking the barrier of ignorance;
• The waiting period before the Six-Day War exposed the Israeli public to a state of helplessness, a feeling of the eve of annihilation – the Israeli consciousness for the first time felt a shared fate with the exposed-to-annihilation Diaspora Jew;
• The Yom Kippur War introduced into the collective Israeli identity feelings of weakness, humiliation, captivity, and the like, and shattered the myth of the invincible Sabra; these were feelings that until then were fully associated with the Diaspora Jew, the anti-thesis, as mentioned, to the Sabra.
• "The Upheaval", which occurred in 1977, legitimized groups that until then were not at the center of Israeli society, and the change in the elite also made room for an identity different from the "Sabra" identity that had existed until then. This situation allowed for a change in the existing memory patterns, which until then had been shaped by the long-standing leadership of the Labor movement, and hence also allowed for a different Holocaust consciousness.

This is a long and complex process, and these are only the most acute and dramatic points in it. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which until then was perceived as a model for "appropriate" behavior during the Holocaust (as opposed to most victims who went "like sheep to the slaughter") in terms of the Zionist ethos, begins to be pushed aside, and identification with the victims increases. The memory of the Holocaust legitimizes "securitism" and the feeling of "the whole world against us". The existence of the State of Israel began to be understood more and more, and the threat of annihilation slowly disappeared; these facts allowed for an increasing engagement in the internal affairs of the State of Israel. The level of discussion begins to shift from the collective emphasis that characterized it until then, to the private, individual level.

The new approach

Holocaust Memorial

The new approach that was formed expressed the following perceptions:

• The Holocaust was the ultimate expression of eternal antisemitism towards the Jewish people, antisemitism that is now directed towards the State of Israel.
• The Holocaust is a warning sign, intended to call for Jewish unity against global hatred.
• It is necessary to emphasize the memory of the Holocaust and place it at the center, as a lesson, as creating feelings of guilt in the world and a commitment towards the State of Israel, and as an explanation and justification for various actions.
• There is a similarity between the Holocaust and the current Israeli-Arab conflict: the lesson of the Holocaust is the lack of trust in the surrounding world and hostility towards Jews, on one hand, and the need to strengthen the connection between parts of the Jewish people and its heritage, on the other.
• The new approach emphasizes martyrdom, the sanctification of God's name, and the bravery of all Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

This is a clear and sharp contrast to the state-centric approach. The ways of expressing memory and its place in the Israeli discourse change significantly in light of this approach.

Criticism of the new approach

The new approach was identified with right-wing circles and the religious Zionist movement. This approach has received considerable criticism, the main points of which are:

• The new approach emphasizes the hatred of Jews by non-Jews;
• The memory of the Holocaust receives an orientation of power, namely: the main lesson from the Holocaust is the massive effort to strengthen the State of Israel, and to prevent any concession or compromise in its relations with its neighbors and other nations;
• The new approach obscures the universal lesson of the Holocaust, and creates a glorification of power and violence.

The Book of Names

From the 90s of the 20th century to today

The detailed memory

The Book of Names in Hand According to Danny Gutwein, these two periods led to a third period of Holocaust remembrance, a period that should be called "the period of The Detailed Memory". This period is characterized by several points:

• It began with the First Lebanon War and the First Intifada;
• A characterization of this period is in the personal feeling of the citizens of the State of Israel: the undermining of the national consensus, the rise of the ethos of personal fulfillment at the expense of the collective ethos, and the undermining of personal security;
• A third and important characterization of this period is in the rise of post-Zionist trends, from both right and left.
• The privatization of memory is expressed in the reference to the Holocaust through the prism of the individuals in it: the "Every Person Has a Name" project clearly characterizes this spirit.

Types of reference to the Holocaust today

In fact, there are today three main types of reference to the memory of the Holocaust.

• The official, state-level reference: the Holocaust is a basic component in the collective Israeli and Jewish identity, in Israel and in the diaspora.
• The private reference, the individual story, which Holocaust survivors and also the second (and even third) generation try to pass on.
• "Anti-story", as defined by Shapira, a narrative that seeks to disconnect the Holocaust from its Israeli and Jewish significance, and aims to establish it in a universal and different model from the existing institutional model. This worldview sees in the filled memory of the Holocaust (the second approach) a perception that justified the oppression of various minority groups, and casts doubt on the legitimacy of this memory and its contents.

Teaching the Holocaust in the education system

Changes have also occurred in the ways of teaching the Holocaust, accordingly. From the establishment of the state until the Eichmann trial, there was, in fact, no engagement in formal education with teaching the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a private and personal event. The main commemoration was around the rebels and partisans, and those who were not part of this legacy were pushed aside from the circle of commemoration and did not even try to integrate into it. However, this exclusion also caused that when there were events related to the Holocaust – and we have already mentioned several prominent and stirring examples, such as the Kasztner trial and the reparations from Germany – huge emotional storms erupted. Yet, these storms did not lead to a change in the education system, and after they subsided, they disappeared without impact. The presence of the Holocaust in schools was mainly in memorial ceremonies, etc., meaning at the emotional-experiential-social level. The establishment of "Yad Vashem" marked the beginning of organized academic work on the subject, but in its early years, "Yad Vashem" was far from being able to fulfill what was expected of it. The Eichmann trial initiated thought processes on the subject, despite all being under the shadow of the question "why did they go like sheep to the slaughter", and most of the programs were apologetic in nature. The shock that the Eichmann trial brought still did not change the education system's programs. Historical research was not yet cohesive enough to deal with the subject, and the education system was not yet mature enough to handle it. Close to the Six-Day War, "Yad Vashem" was established as an official institution representing the Israeli stance to foreign visitors, but the education system still saw the Holocaust as a subject to be dealt with only close to Holocaust Remembrance Day. The change only began in the seventies, as a result of general changes in the Israeli education system, the main ones being structural changes in schools and the implementation of integration. This change also led to renewed thinking about the curriculum, and the Holocaust was defined as one of 26 elective subjects, out of which the history teacher had to choose three (as opposed to the mandatory subjects, which were supposed to be studied in much greater depth). After this decision, a public debate developed, on two axes: one, a political debate, whose goal was to make the Holocaust one of the mandatory subjects; and the second, an educational debate, about the goals of teaching the Holocaust, its content, and its emphases – whether to teach the Holocaust as purely historical and research-based instruction, or also as a tool for conveying an educational message. The first debate ended in 1979, with the decision of the Pedagogical Secretariat in the Ministry of Education and the Supervision of History Studies to allocate a third of a study unit to teaching the Holocaust, beyond the studies of the 20th century and the teaching of the history of the Jewish people in recent generations. A year later, the Knesset's decision on an amendment to the State Education Law was accepted, according to which an additional goal was added to the goals of education in Israel – education for "Holocaust and Heroism awareness". Since the eighties, there have been two trends. The first trend, according to which the Holocaust is taught in the education system today, presents the Holocaust according to the Zionist narrative. This trend emphasizes the emotional, experiential aspect of the Holocaust, placing the Zionist and Jewish story at the center, and even disconnecting it from the history of the 20th century, and in fact from the historical and academic dimension. Szczekar calls this approach "existential". This approach appeals to the emotions through various means, including youth trips to Poland, with the goal of placing the Holocaust at the center of the discussion, and creating a deep identification of the students with its victims. The second trend is the academic trend, which has a universal perspective and is based and focused on academic research, even at the cost of clashing with the previous trend.

The media

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, television broadcasts are aired in a different format that suits the atmosphere of the day, and news channels dedicate time to broadcast the stories of miracles and survivors in addition to airing the state ceremony through television.

The memory of the holocaust in theHaredi society

In the Haredi society, similar to the secular society and in some aspects even more so, the memory of the Holocaust is a foundational narrative. However, unlike the 'Israeli' nature of memory, 'memorial ceremonies' and public commemoration are not accepted in the Haredi society. Instead, in the Haredi society, commemoration within the private domain is very common – when children are named after family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, and in the community dimension – when many Hasidic communities and many Lithuanian yeshivas (such as the famous Ponovezh Yeshiva) carry the names of communities that were almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust, and see themselves as continuing their path. Concurrently, in the Haredi consciousness, the significant victory over the Nazis is the establishment of large families on the personal level, and the strengthening of the world of Torah on the public aspect. One of the explanations given for the uniqueness in the nature of Holocaust memory in the Haredi society, shows that the way of the Haredi society to cope with the physical and theological rupture created by the Holocaust was to create an ethos of "continuity" between the Jewish existence that preceded the Holocaust and the Jewish life in the Land of Israel, while viewing the Holocaust as a terrible tragic event that joins the chain of tragedies that the people of Israel had to endure in the diaspora (contrary to the Israeli narrative that saw the Holocaust as an event that signifies the end of the 'diaspora' and the State of Israel as the absolute antithesis to the Jewish existence that preceded the Holocaust). In the 60s, Moshe Prager, a Holocaust researcher, founded "Gnazach Kidush Hashem" – the central museum and archive in the Haredi sector for Holocaust research, in Bnei Brak ^[3]

Holocaust remembrance in the idf

"Witnesses in Uniform" delegation in Auschwitz As a continuation of the education system, the centrality of the Holocaust in the modern history of the Jewish people is also emphasized to IDF soldiers, out of loyalty to the command "Never Again" and from learning the lesson that a strong stance, a powerful army, and the ability to act independently are vital for preventing the recurrence of the Holocaust. IDF soldiers routinely visit Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters' House, the Massuah, and other Holocaust research centers. In addition, the IDF operates the "Witnesses in Uniform" program, within which IDF soldiers in uniform visit the extermination camps in Poland, accompanied by Holocaust survivor witnesses. Standing proudly with the Israeli flag and in uniform at the Jewish people's extermination sites is often described as a central experience in forging Jewish and Zionist identity. A special bond has been woven since 1995 between IDF soldiers and Holocaust survivors, within the framework of the "Flower for a Survivor" project. In September 2003, a flyover of three Air Force planes took place over Auschwitz, parallel to the "Witnesses in Uniform" ceremony of the corps on the ground. The photo of the flyover has since been hung in many senior offices in the military. In August 2020, a "Flyover of Remembrance to the Future" took place, a similar flyover of planes from the Israeli Air Force and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) which passed over the Dachau concentration camp and over the Fürstenfeldbruck air base, the site where nine Israelis were murdered in the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics. August 19, 2020.

References

1. "ארבעה מיליון ניספים במאגר יד ושם". www.inn.co.il. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
2. "⁨750 אלף שמות של קיבנות השראה נרשמו עי'י \ר ושם" ⁩ — ⁨⁨דבר⁩ 1 ינואר 1957⁩ — הספרייה הלאומית של ישראל │ עיתונים". www.nli.org.il (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2024-04-16.
3. היון, אליעזר (2022-05-01). ""קידוש השם" במקום "כצאן לטבח": האיש שעיצב את זיכרון השואה בחברה החרדית". Ynet (in Hebrew). Retrieved 2022-05-01.

Further reading

• Roni Stauber, The Lesson for the Generation, Holocaust and Heroism in the Public Thought in Israel, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2000
• Micha Balef, A Voice Not Silenced: Shaping the Memory of the Holocaust and its Commemoration in the Kibbutz Movement, The United Kibbutz Publishing House and Yad Tabenkin, 2008.
• Bella Guterman, Hanna Yablonka, Avner Shalev (Editors), We Are Here – Holocaust Survivors in the State of Israel, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2008.
• Boaz Cohen, The Coming Generations How Will They Know – The Birth and Development of Israeli Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2010.
• Rivka Parciack, Here and There, Now and in Days to Come – The Holocaust Rift and its Expression in Cemeteries and Monuments in Poland and Israel, Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2007.
• Liat Steir-Livny, Two Faces in the Mirror: Representation of Holocaust Survivors in Israeli Cinema , Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2009.
• Yair Auron, The Pain of Knowledge – Issues in Teaching the Holocaust and Genocide , The Open University Press, Tel Aviv, 2003.
• Dori, N. (2018). The Flag, The Broom and The Boots: Two Holocaust Stories for Young Children. Kiryat Shmuel, Haifa: Shanan – The Religious Academic College of Education.
• Liat Steir-Livny, The Mountain of Memory Will Remember in My Place: The New Memory of the Holocaust in Israeli Popular Culture, Tel Aviv: Resling, 2014.
• Liat Steir-Livny, Remaking Holocaust Memory: Documentary Cinema by Third-Generation Survivors in Israel, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2019.
• Michal Govrin, Dana Freibach-Heifetz, Eti Ben-Zaken (Editors), But There Was Love – Shaping the Memory of the Holocaust, Carmel Publishing, 2021.

External links

• Efrat Balberg, Historiography, Consciousness and Memory: Historical and Pedagogical Aspects, on the Yad Vashem website
• Teaching the Holocaust through Literature, on the Yad Vashem website
• Michal Shaul, Holocaust Memory in the Ultra-Orthodox Society- A Story of Continuity and Persistence, on the "Yad Vashem" website
• Anat Livneh, Shaping the Holocaust Memories of the Survivors Influenced by Their Encounter with the Land, a research based on memoirs about the Holocaust published in Israel between the years 1945–1961, 2006
• Liat Steir-Livni, One Trauma, Two Perspectives, Three Years: Aspects of Holocaust and Revival in the Land-of-Israel and Jewish-American Propaganda 1945–1948, Herzl Institute, University of Haifa, 2018.