Blog « Bnei Akiva

The Mazkir Muses

April 18th, 2012

Article published in the Jewish News:

We have reached a crossroads in the teaching about the Shoah

Holocaust education in the Jewish community can’t continue as is. Though many discuss the dangers of increased Holocaust denial, the greater threat is within the community itself and is that of Holocaust apathy.

Holocaust education until now has relied on constant references to its contemporary nature and the first hand testimony of survivors. Over the coming decades both these factors will be lost. Jewish people in future will undoubtedly take note of the Holocaust, but what is to say that it will be any more ingrained in the psyche of future generations than the Spanish Inquisition or the Crusades?

There are a number of challenges which effective Holocaust education must overcome. The first is the seemingly inevitable descent of Holocaust education into a negative conception of Jewish identity. Jewish students are ‘guilt-tripped’ into believing in abstract concepts such as Jewish identity and Jewish continuity. Ultimately, only a positive approach to Jewish identity can succeed, so attitudes such as Emil Fackenheim’s, that there is now a 614^th commandment to defy Hitler through our mere existence, are unproductive. It is true that the approach of the Jewish community has begun to evolve, most evidently in trips to Poland which focus on the vibrant pre-Holocaust life rather than the death and destruction. However, since our community receives so much of our Holocaust education from broader society, a focus on the death camps and unfathomable statistics is unfortunately still the norm.

Another difficulty which arises is of familiarity breeding contempt. I remember as a madrich (leader) a 7 year old chanich (participant) jovially wandering around our Shabbat afternoon group stating repeatedly that ‘Hitler killed himself by shooting himself in the mouth’. Children from a very young age are made familiar with the Holocaust both inside and outside our community. The temptation to teach children from as young an age as possible is particularly alluring due to the realisation that any education which relies on Holocaust survivors will soon run out and the relative ease in which the topic creates a raw emotional response. However, we as a community must avoid introducing the Holocaust to those who are too young. I remember one chanich as young as 15 (the age at which Bnei Akiva begins to grapple with the topic in earnest) giving out the message that he had already, outside of BA, been overexposed to the Holocaust.

We feel that the real solution to this dilemma is innovation. Traditional education about the Holocaust cannot be relied upon to educate the next generation. It is for this reason that we as youth movements are endorsing the Forum for Yom HaShoah’s efforts to firmly entrench Yom Hashoah in the Anglo-Jewish calendar. Established in Israel and across the world shortly after the Holocaust, Yom Hashoah is itself an innovation; the idea of instituting a new day in our age-old calendar a radical one, but Yom Hashoah can represent innovation in other ways too. Unlike Holocaust Memorial Day, which marks the liberation of Auschwitz, Yom Hashoah commemorates the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. The message is that our Jewish identity can be active rather than passive.

This is particularly evident to us as youth movements; the uprising was led by youth movements, with the main protagonist, Mordechai Anielewicz, a member of Hashomer Hatzair. Anielewicz understood that the ‘traditional’ guise of a meek Jew was not appropriate to his times. He innovated, both in his adoption of Zionism as a key vision and aim for the Jewish people, but also in his unique ability to inspire his fellow Jews to rebel against the Nazis rather than accept their fate. This was counter-cultural. In Anielewicz’s own words: ‘whatever may happen to you, remember always: Don’t adjust! Revolt against the reality!’

The Jewish community needs to seriously evaluate how it educates current and future generations about the Holocaust with a clear and prominent refusal to adjust to the ensuing and worrying reality of apathy. Yom Hashoah isn’t by itself the answer, but is the start of a process which is very much due. Ceremonies which have been endorsed by the Forum for Yom HaShoah are a valuable start.

As youth movements we might present a possible path forward, since we are run by the youth, encourage evolution and are open to a constant influx of new ideas across the board. We are confident that even though we do not yet have all the answers, our community will adapt and evolve to deal with this daunting but hugely significant challenge.

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