Is this truly the way for a religious Jew to speak or write?! It is our belief that our ultimate redemption will speedily transpire in our days, b’ezrat Hashem Yitbarach. I recall listening to a radio program in Israel entitled “Ha-Yerushalmim” where veteran residents of Jerusalem reminisced their childhoods in pre-1948 Eretz Yisrael. One of the participants who grew up in Meah Shearim commented that he entered into a sefarim shop in Yerushalayim during the week of Tisha B’Av (during the mid 1990’s) and to his horror and utter dismay, he saw that the vendor was selling a beautiful leather-bound kinot with gold-plated pages; he noted that when he was a child, at the end of every Tisha B’Av, the entire congregation would place their kinot pamphlets in the Geniza while praying may this be the very last Tisha B’Av that the Jewish people will need to have recited kinot. At which point, this commenter burst into tears pining: “Hem mantzihim et a Galut (They are perpetuating the diaspora!)!”

May Hashem have compassion on His people and with His help may we no longer recite the Kinot not for 100 more years and not even one more year, amen ken yehi ratzon!

B’virkat HaTorah v’HaMitzva,
David Eisen, Adv.
Bet Shemesh

I was reading your posts from a different perspective. My bad. I still think the argument can be made not to look at why it was created, but rather what is stands for now (which would obviate the Yom Haatzmaut issue).
Thanks for clearing it up, I’ll try to read it better next time

On a lighter note: Gershon’s last line (comment 50) of “I’m referring of course….”out of town” (west of the Hudson/south of the Verrazano) reminds me of something a classmate said to me a few months back. In discussing what was “out of town” (NYC being the town) he said “anything north of the George Washington Bridge.” Having gone to YU for college, I was quite amused to learn that I went to school “out of town”

Good Shabbos,
-Adam

They worked for our generation that knew about the Shoah second hand; many/most of our contemporaries were children of survivors and knew even as they didn’t really know. (See, BTW, Yaakov Salomon’s excellent article on the aish website on this topic).

Many don’t say Yizkor in the first year of aveilus, to coin an analogy, so the day and its observance were secondary to the knowledge that was inescapable in that generation.

However, how do you address the fact that in our mainstream (read: right wing, whether Chassidish or Litvish) yeshivos and Bais Yaakovs, the forgetting that Michael accused his Chattanoogans of has already taken place WRT to the events of only 60 years ago?

The topic, not only the day, are ignored completely and the only ones who know anything about it are those whose knowledge sources are outside the yeshivos/BYs.

(I’m referring, of course, to NY yeshivas; clearly “out of town” (west of the Hudson/south of the Verrazano) YMMV.)

Gershon

Edvallace, you’re looking at the trees, and you’re so offended by what you see, you’ve forgotten about the forest.

If the American civil rights struggle taught us one thing it was this: you don’t make someone love you by replying to their hatred with more hate. That, incidently, is an old jewish message, a message that goes back to Hillel and Akiva.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.
What is despicable to you, do not do unto others.

Ed, you’re so angry, you’ve forgotten your own anger is only making things worse.

Independence is Ke’Pshuto. We are no longer under foreign rule. There is a state run by Jews. It is at least as good a situation as we had under ach’av, Herod, Yanai, or any of the other dozens of governments taht were downright hostile to torah (yanai killed the chachamim!) and we still appreciated and celebrated them. In fact, according to the Rambam, it seems that the celebration of Chanukah is in no small part because sovereignty returned to the Jews for 200 years. And remember, that sovereignty was the Hasmonean kings who were not only anti-torah most of the time, but also were inherently illegitemate as kings since they were also kohanim.

From Edvallace’s post, one would think Israel was an ultra-secular state that tramples on religious rights, not a country whose capital city is led by a charedi mayor.

Two issues:
1)When you choose a day you choose a day that is unique, that has something special. Kristalnacht, V-E day, liberation of Auschwitz, any of those days would be fine if you wish to commemorate the Holocaust. They chose this day. What’s wrong with that? Something tells me that if it was Kristalnacht or any day besides Tisha B’av you would be just as against it.
I like the approach mentioned of a two tier rememberance. Perhaps, as time goes on, Yom HaShoah will shift to Tisha B’av. It may be a natural occurence. That doesn’t mean that its a problem to have it on a different day now. We commemorate all kinds of bad things on days other than Tisha B’av, don’t we?

2) Even if Yom HaShoah is on the wrong day (if that’s possible) and was instituted for the wrong reasons does that change 60 years later? Do the original reasons this date was chosen even matter? There are various minhagim whose reasons are no longer valid yet we still keep them. After a certain time the day takes on a life of its own, as it were.

3) Would someone please answer the whole ‘not mourning in Nissan’ thing when we have Sefirah and hosts of funerals where they say “I know we shouldnt give hespedim but….”

–Adam

Since you seem to “saddened” by this thread allow me to cheer you up a bit with some perspective from the other side.

you write: “If one has no interest in Yom Haatzmaut (beats me why one wouldn’t)”

Here’s a reason for you to think about. What does Yom Haatzmaut signify exactly? Independence from whom? The Arabs? The US? The Germans? Has Israel really materialized into the “safe haven” it was promised to be by the secular Zionists?

Is that why the IDF is now in the process of removing Jews from their homes? Or do we need a new Israel where Jews can live safely without fear of the IDF?

Perhaps this is freedom from the poisonous Western culture. Is that why we’re fighting a battle to prevent Gays from parading their abominable behaviour in the holy streets of Yerushalaim? Or are we celebrating the freedom to establish a Supreme Court that flagrantly rules against every religious issue beought before it?

No thanks!

“As I also stated before, Yom Hashoa exists, and to not participate in the events of the day( (or week)in even the tiniest way, by standing still for 2 minutes when the siren sounds for example, or to continue proclaiming the mostly invalid reasons against it, etc. does nothing to promote unity with those( including many Orthodox) who do respect it’s validity, and only perpetuates in the mind of the not yet religious, how far apart they are.”

So does the fact that the Conservative and Reform branches in Israel advocate for the Gay Parade in Yerushalaim along with a select number of “Orthodox Gays” also mean that if successful, since it “exists” we must be respectful and stand in silence while they parade?

Respect goes both ways my friend. When it’s only one way, it’s called subservience, not repect. When the discos close on Tisha B’Av and the businesses on Shabbos, we will consider standing still on Yom Hashoah. That’s called respect. When everything sacred is trampled on again and again, to follow their alien practices is not respect, it’s ridiculous.

“Rabbi Menken has wishful thinking in regard to how much Yeshiva students know about it.”

Really?! Growing up, the only Jewish books available were on the Holocaust. Artscroll and Feldheim publish over 100 books on the Holocaust, and who do you think is buying and reading them? The fact is that most secular Jews have a very basic smattering of the significance of the Holocaust, and unfortunately only see it as another reason to get as far away from tradiditonal judaism as possible.

That, my friend, is what ought to sadden you. Not the fact that some observant Jews don’t bother to pretend that they agree with a meaningless designation.

And don’t bother with the insensitivity business. Most of my father’s close family were killed in the Holocaust and I care about it as much the next person.

Yom Hashoa on this date (or around this time) is, as I stated previously, relevent to the lead up to Yom Haatzmaaut. If one has no interest in Yom Haatzmaut (beats me why one wouldn’t) then Yom Hashoa is even more meaningless, which is really the gist of the divide.

As I also stated before, Yom Hashoa exists, and to not participate in the events of the day( (or week)in even the tiniest way, by standing still for 2 minutes when the siren sounds for example, or to continue proclaiming the mostly invalid reasons against it, etc. does nothing to promote unity with those( including many Orthodox) who do respect it’s validity, and only perpetuates in the mind of the not yet religious, how far apart they are. Rabbi Menken has wishful thinking in regard to how much Yeshiva students know about it. There’s so much more to say. I’m saddened by this thread.

A related, but totally different point what have we learned from Holocaust, or even from an experience of the revolt in Warsaw Ghetto and absence of any meaningful gentile assistance at that time? Have we not just witnessed an 8 year long process when Israel’s government placed the security of its citizens at a whim of its Palestinian peace partners, and then for two years showed total impotency in light of a wave of slaughter that marked the end of that pinnacle of Israeli diplomacy? Can we forget Barak, brave, intelligent leader, making phone calls after especially bloody terrorist attacks and warning Palestinians that he will be forced to fire a missile, please vacate the target area? And should we consider, would the response of the Sharon government, be as effective, had he and Israel not enjoyed wall to wall support of Christian fundamentalists in U.S. How great is Hashem’s chessed, to witness in our lifetime, Eisav going over and kissing Yaakov. Never Again? It is in our hands to insure: “Never Again”? Just ask Israel’s generals and diplomats” What do we do when there is no peace partner and there is no military solution and the international community is impatiently knocking on our door to bring objective peace force into our backyard?

Isn’t this exactly what you accuse Michael Feldstein of doing? I won’t accuse you of not having statistics, but if you are going to tell everyone to look at them at least provide some to back yourself up. Furthermore, we may recognize a distinction between Jewish and Israeli that others may not. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t proud to be Jewish. Just that they may not have the same differentiation as you, or I, do. Assuming such a differentiation should (ideally) exist.
Additionally, those American Jewish secular families who are fading into the American melting pot have, in some cases, only the Holocaust as a definition of Jewish identity. Is that sad? As you point out, yes, it is. Is it an ongoing tragedy? Yes, it is. But the point is that absent a day to commemorate the Holocaust they would have *nothing*. Would that be worse? Yes. Would that be a greater tragedy? Yes. Isn’t it better to keep them in the fold, albeit to a small extent? Would you close the Shul to the “Yom Kippur Jew” because that is the only day he goes to shul? Or the Jew that shows up only for Yizkor? They’ll be gone when the next generation takes its place. But for now there is still hope.
That these people don’t have any other connection is indicative of the failure of outreach of our communities. Yes, yours, mine, everyone reading this. It is our responsibility to reach out to them. They are hanging by a lifeline, grasping at what they see as important. When they saw the tatoos on the arms of their parents and heard the horror stories some of them resolved that they would observe this day. Out of respect? Out of honor? Who knows. But this is their connection, their lifeline. Cutting them off or saying that its better that they have nothing is a nice way of shifting the blame from where it really belongs.

According to your logic, it would be better for these secular jews to be totally divorced from Judaism now. I would prefer to push it off as far as possible and see what we can do to keep them in the fold.

2) In response to Dilbert, Yaakov Menken wrote:
“This is only apparent to one operating under the misconceptions that (a) Da’as Torah is somehow equivalent to nevu’ah, prophecy, and (b) The Rabbis were concerned only with physical safety. Both are wrong, and the speculation that the Shoah might be a “problem” for the “right wing” is incredibly offensive. The reality is that the majority of the martyrs in the Holocaust were observant, Orthodox Jews, and every major yeshiva and Chassidic group of the day was displaced or destroyed. There is no group that suffered more than the “right wing.”

Which then raises the question of why it should be listened to, or so strictly adhered to, if it is not nevuah. Why we at times appear to give more deference to “da’as torah” than we would to nevi’im. We won’t question da’as torah, to do so is heretical, but a navi we can ask for proof. But this is an issue for a later discussion

3) At the risk of repeating what Hanan proposed, the idea is that there be a two-fold Holocaust Memorial Day/Rememberance Day. For those who went through it, for those who know those and have seen those who went through it, we have Yom HaShoah. As time passes it gets subsumed into Tisha B’av and all of our other tragedies.

So Yaakov, what would be the problem with that? Granted, originally it wasn’t perfect. But then again, the Chashmona’im were Kings, we had many Kings that did bad as well, leaders which went astray, false nevi’im and false messiahs.. Is there anyone here reading this now, who would say that because Jews can go back to Israel now because of secularists, because of those like Herzl, that we, the religious, should not? Ridiculous. How many of us are involved in actions of the secular Israeli government, taking government funded buses, relying on a secular Army? That we stay away from things which began, and continue to be, imperfect, is ridiculous.

It is our job to fix it, to take what was imperfect and perfect it. Few, if any today, look at Yom HaShoah as a day chosen because the other days were filled with weakness of lambs to the slaughter. I don’t, and I’m 24. In fact, Yom HaShoah might have been chosen as the perfect day. When thousands of people are being slaughtered day in and day out, you take the day that has something different to use to commemorate it. To use as a rallying point. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising struck a chord. Why? I don’t know. Nor doesit matter. It just did. And that’s the day you choose. If you wanted to choose the day Auschwitz was liberated, that would work too. The idea is that the dya chosen has something different, something to rally people behind.

4) I also have no seen an answer to Dilbert’s point (I believe it was his) that we have other days of mourning, specifically Sefirah. Why should we commemorate the deaths of 24,000 talmidim of R. Akiva (other girsa: soldiers) so long ago for a period of 33 days and not set aside a single day mourning the 6,000,000 killed sixty years ago?

–Adam

PS: All in all I’m enjoying this discussion tremendously. Keep up the good work all.

Bottom line is that the substitute Judaism’s don’t help – they only perpetuate the disaster by convincing their innocent victims that they need not pursue the real thing.

We are not uncovering secrets, but acknowledging the obvious. This is how the date of Yom HaShoah veHaGevurah was set. Reconstructionist Rabbi Michael Strassfeld, hardly known to be a right-wing fanatic, puts it this way — with a tip from the Ma Rabu blog (which has much more about this):

Its connection with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising seems to me to make us agree with those who would desecrate the memory of all the 6 million by emphasizing only those who engaged in armed resistance against the Nazis. It reflects a defensiveness about–and thus an acknowledgement of some truth in–the statements made by those who accuse the Jews of being led to slaughter as sheep. To emphasize the Warsaw Ghetto revolt is to accept those critics’ field of discourse by trying to prove that some Jews did fight back. The Warsaw Ghetto should be remembered, but I am not willing to imply that its defenders were more heroic than any other of the 6 million, or, what is even worse, to imply even a subliminal embarrassment for those Jews who did not fight back.

Moshe Feldman says that “there is no doubt that those who commemorate Yom Hasho’a are much more aware of the events of the Holocaust.” This is what is known as a truism: those who study the Holocaust are more aware of the Holocaust. But it is also irrelevant to the point against which he claimed to argue — namely, that attendance at Yom HaShoah commemorations is dropping even faster than attendance at Tisha B’Av Kinos is rising.

The Baltimore Jewish Times (second) Editorial reads:

The wheel of Jewish life works quite well, but the spokes might need some replacement and new luster… We’re referring to Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day), and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israel’s Independence Day). At the various organized community events, the general age of audience members is 50 or above… where are the teens? Where are the college students? Where are the young adults?

Yom HaShoah planners must find new ways to have a young person share with someone his or her senior. They are the ones we all know must carry on our traditions in the not-too-distant future. We need our younger community members…

Or this, from the Publisher’s Note:

I worry that terms like Nazi and Holocaust are losing their meaning.

We have enough challenges with the Holocaust as it is. Younger people aren’t as attached to it because it’s far removed from them. Survivors are dying off. The question: How can our culture and our religion make this part of our permanent memory without the Holocaust losing its powerful meaning over time?

Only the most wilfully blind would claim that their observations are inaccurate or unique to Baltimore. What I said before is obviously true. It is equally obvious that the average yeshiva-educated Jew knows far more about the Holocaust than the average graduate of Hebrew schools across America; I suspect that the average yeshiva bachur has read far more than one book about it. You can attempt to compare the yeshiva-educated with Professors of Holocaust Studies if you wish to pronounce yeshiva education about the Holocaust “deficient,” but a more honest standard reveals that it is the day schools, yeshivos and seminaries that are doing the best job educating the next generation about the Holocaust — and every other aspect of Judaism.

Dilbert refers to a “failure of concept of da’as Torah.” This is only apparent to one operating under the misconceptions that (a) Da’as Torah is somehow equivalent to nevu’ah, prophecy, and (b) The Rabbis were concerned only with physical safety. Both are wrong, and the speculation that the Shoah might be a “problem” for the “right wing” is incredibly offensive. The reality is that the majority of the martyrs in the Holocaust were observant, Orthodox Jews, and every major yeshiva and Chassidic group of the day was displaced or destroyed. There is no group that suffered more than the “right wing.”

Michael Feldstein writes: “my strong guess is that an equal percentage of Orthodox Jews and secular Jews rejected their belief in God after the Holocaust.” While he says that he doesn’t have statistics at hand to support this, I’m sure that there are no such statistics at all. It should be obvious that those with a stronger faith and stronger understanding of G-d’s Ways in the world would be more likely to maintain their belief through a disaster like this.

And there is a final point, perhaps the most important of all. Ner Bachur asserts that if “secular [or any] Jews connect their identity with the Holocaust it is a good thing.” I disagree; I think it is a terrible thing. “We’re Jews. We get butchered merely because we are Jews. Aren’t we proud to be Jews?” No, of course they aren’t proud, at all. They have nothing of which to be proud — only ancestors who believed in antiquated religious practices, and were then led like lambs to the slaughter. It is an unmitigated disaster in modern Jewish life that the Holocaust has become arguably the most readily-identifiable symbol of Jewish identity.

Go look at the surveys of Israeli (secular) high school students and see how many are proud to be Jewish. Go look at the accelerating assimilation rate of secular American Jewish families, who are fading into the American melting pot in order not to be recognized by the next Nazis. The use of the Holocaust to define Jewish identity is an ongoing tragedy, causing a Holocaust of its own. How is it a good thing?

And another thing that really bothers me. Why is it that we respect these “Charedi Rabbis” when it comes to piskei halacha in which we have no ulterior motives, but when we dont understand a psak (such as this), we will mock them and the system saying that its not halachic, its just politics, and the secualr leaders established it, so thats the reason the chareidim dont want to jump aboard? How insulting to the Chazon Ish! How insulting to Rav Elyashiv! How insulting to the Kalliver Rebbe who went thru the Holocaust and asked Rav Elyashiv this very shaila! Is there no limit to our arrogance and disrespect for talmidei chachamim?

One final note:
For those who are upset at those who walk during the siren in Israel:
Does it matter where these walkers and siren-ignorers are? What if its a Chareidi neighborhood where the majority of the people there are not interested in being told to stop what they are doing for a “moment of silence”

DB,
My grandfather (my grandmother too) , who survived the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, despite his strong disagreement with Mrs. Katz, told me that he must concede that he can as well bear witness to Victor Frankel’s testimony regarding the assimilated and educated elite.

“Were all the other Jews cowards and weaklings? Were the young men and women of the Warsaw Ghetto the only Jewish heroes?”

This is not about suggesting that only the people who partook in the Warsaw Uprising were the heroes. I don’t understand how you make so many assumptions as to what those who chose the timing intended. It’s about learning from our tragic past. The Jewish people will never allow themselves to be taken to the slaughter like sheep. This must be taught again and again as long as we live, and the timing of Yom Hashoa is one of the ways chosen to do so.

“BTW, do you know how many armed Japanese soldiers it took to guard 200 unarmed American POWs? It took one. Just one! To guard 200 trained soldiers!”

Not comparable! The fate of the men woman and children being marched to there deaths was die here or die there. The Nazis killed you whether you resisted or not. In my grandfather’s words: “most of marched to our death knowing our fate yet decided to do nothing. Like sheep to the slaughter.” (Hungarian Jews knew exactly what they were in for and had not planned one form of resistance planed.)

“In America, the Holocaust has become a substitute religion, an alternate source of Jewish identity to replace the original Torah. Instead of learning Torah, we have Holocaust Studies. Instead of identifying Jews as “those who keep the mitzvos” (or even “those born of a Jewish mother”) we identify Jews as “those who are killed and persecuted.”

If many secular Jews connect their identity with the Holocaust it is a good thing. To suggest that if not for the holocaust they would surely become shomrie torah umitsvos for “lack of other forms to identify themselves as Jews” is inaccurate. A secular Jew with his “substitute religion” is more likely to one day become a fully observant Jew or have a descendent become one. So if people find their Jewish identity with the holocaust let it be another reason to be optimistic.

If I recall correctly, there was once a specific fast day for Tach v’Tat. It petered out after a few hundred years or so, and the martyrs of that period are now remembered on Tisha B’Av.

I don’t think that’s a bad model for the Holocaust. Now, in our generation and presumably for at least a few more, the loss is so fresh that it requires its own commemoration. I personally prefer 10 b’Tevet to Yom HaShoah, though. The observances of Yom HaShoah often do reflect the unfortunate tendency to deify the Holocaust.

The most moving Holocaust commemoration I ever experienced took place on an ordinary weekday minyan at an Orthodox shul. One of the regulars, an older man, received an aliyah because he was observing yahrzeit. As the gabbai recited a prayer for the niftar, we realized that he was not reciting only one name, or only two – there must have been several dozen names! The day was the anniversary of the liquidation of the shtetl in which the man’s entire family had perished. I think I found it moving because the ordinary keilim we have for mourning are so clearly inadequate for the enormity of the loss of six million.

On the other hand, Holocaustism has the potential to create a framework that is actually too large even for a tragedy of this magnitude, by implying that the events of 39-45 somehow outweigh all the rest of Jewish History, Torah, etc.

I agree with the first comment, that, whatever one does privately, if one is in public in Israel for the siren, it is appropriate to stand (silently, or to say Tehillim).

“Ben”

Really? Just what percentage of the kinos in most shuls are devoted to the Holocaust? And is the recitation of kinos really enough—how much does the average yeshiva bochur really know about the Holocaust? How many have read even one book or seen a movie about the Holocaust? Perhaps the Yom Hashoa commemorations are getting smaller (certainly, most of the survivors have passed away and the memory of the Holocaust is getting dim), but there is no doubt that those who commemorate Yom Hasho’a are much more aware of the events of the Holocaust than those who do not.

How about accepting that people needed and probably still do need a day to mourn, or at least acknowledge the shoah. That some people in part maintain their Jewish identity by remembering the Shoah. obviously it is not the ideal way to celebrate Jewishness, but our history, all of it, is a part of us, and that bit is better than nothing. Maybe when they come for the Yom Hashoa you can get them to come for yom ha’atzmaut, lag ba’omer, shavuot. Why do you have to be so against Yom Hashoa? It serves a purpose, it provides a source of identification with the tribe, and we should have a set time to remember the massacre of so many of our ancestors and family. If we dont remember, the world wont.

Maybe for the right wing the Shoah is a problem because of the failure of concept of da’as Torah. That unfortunately many Torah leaders didn’t encourage their people to leave, or make Aliyah(let me make this absolutely clear, I am certainly not criticizing any one for decisions made in that climate). In fact, some biographies have been altered to conceal decisions made regarding leaving or staying in Europe.

The sad fact is that Jews, whatever their beliefs, whomever they followed, frum, not frum, assimilated, chassidim, misnagdim, all of them were murdered together, for being Jews. And we cant even get together and remember them in a unified fashion. That, to me, is unimaginably sad.

It is not true that Orthodox Jews do not mourn our dead. Just the opposite. We mourn more deeply and more painfully than anyone else, because we knew the victim. We know the life and blood and heart of our Jewish grandparents when they were still alive.
———————————–
I find this statement a bit distatsteful. While secular Jews may not have as strong an understanding of their history and their heritage, they are just as capable as Orthodox Jews to mourn as deeply for their fellow Jews. Who says mourning must be tied to levels of religious observance?