“And to them I will give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (a “yad vashem")…that shall not be cut off” (Isaiah, chapter 56 verse 5) As jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem safeguards the memory of the past and imparts its meaning for the future.
I had the opportunity in my early career as a Communal Worker, being the lead Counselor, taking teenagers to Israel for a six week stay in that country. For three concurrent summers 40 teens would discover this part of the world, expanding their universe learning about life in the Middle East. Each summer as a part of the six week experience, we would find ourselves visiting Yad Vashem. Exhibitions at Yad Vashem were curated in order to promote dialogue about the Holocaust…its universal lessons, and the relevance to the daily life of the 21st century. My experience with the teens I took to Israel, was more…it begged such questions from them as…how did people not see how restrictive the Nazi’s really were…why was it all a surprise, causing a reaction rather than action…where were the smarter people, the ones who could have stopped Hitler’s rise…why were lies substituted as truth, never questioned. When our group visit ended, and we boarded the bus heading for our next site to visit, without hesitation, each year I took the teens to visit, Yad Vashem, a discussion would ensue, motivated by the teens. It would always begin with the concept that WE are too smart, NOW, to let anything like the Holocaust happen again.The teens became defiant in their voices, stating that only dumb people won’t learn from history, adding that even dumber people look the other way if the bad part of history is permitted to be repeated.
All the citizens of the nation, Jewish or not are confronting a rise in bigotry, hate, xenophobia destroying our lives slowly like the run off from the waste water of a faulty nuclear facility. We saw it happening at the Trump rally’s. The media permitted it to ebb and flow like the tide, pretending that to be balanced in news coverage, all they had to do was ignore the racist overtones of Trump. The GOP, afraid of real democracy, knowing one person one vote would eliminate many of the their politicians, looked the other way, always pretending that Trump DOES NOT represent their values. The Democrats, with their usual lack of backbone, looked the other way. The Evangelicals satisfied that their Lord and Savior only cared about the Gays not marrying, or the ladies not having abortions, aligned with Trump and ignored and of the other Thou Shalt Not’s. WE ALL saw it coming, and pretended that THIS IS after all AMERICA…we know about history, and Alfred E Neuman would say, “What Me, Worry!”
