Yom Hashoa: A reflection on the status of the Jewish people

The United States has a long and proud history and yet it is engrained in American culture to go shopping on Memorial Day and have family barbecues on Labor Day. It's embarrassing how little thought we give to the sacrifices and hardships of the generations before us and even more significantly how emotionally removed we are from the wars our country is currently fighting.

This past Monday was Yom Hashoa. Back at home this day is commemorated by a memorial service at my shul that I have only accompanied my parents to once or twice. Here in Israel it's a national holiday and is treated as such.

There really is a somber atmosphere that descends upon the country. Radio channels are playing slow, melancholy songs and the TV is overloaded with news coverage of memorial services, interviews with Holocaust survivors and Holocaust movies.

However what really makes Israel stand out and what made me randomly exclaim throughout the day "Only in Israel" as I shook my head in wonderment is the siren that brings an entire country to a halt. At exactly 10am on the morning of Yom Hashoa a siren is blast throughout the country, commencing a moment of silence. No matter what you are doing, everyone stops. I was standing on a relatively quiet street. When the siren went off, the bus that had been pulling away from a station came to a stop, a car pulled up near me and the two women stepped out, a man crossing the street just stopped in the middle of the road. It's staggering to wrap your mind around: an entire country freezes in their daily life to remember a tragedy that took place 70 years ago and though it may not have effected them personally, as a nation it has hurt us all. It is a moment and a day of extreme pain and loss but also one of great national unity.

The day before, the Year Course staff had planned a few sadnaot (discussion/activities) for us. I chose to attend "Where was God in the Holocaust?" Though this is an issue I have tackled on numerous occasions in groups and personally, I hoped that perhaps this setting of being in Israel with a group of other Zionist teenagers would make the conversation different than those I've had in the past. Here are some of the more thought provoking issues brought to light during our discussion:
(a) Most obviously and fundamentally is whether or not we believe in God. More significantly though was how many different types of "believing in God" there was in the circle. It seemed that everyone had their own image of God and his influence in our world. We then took it a step farther and began (gently and politely of course) pointing out the hypocrises in each others theories adding to an already impossible issue another layer of complexity.
(b) An enduring question that continued to come up throughout the stages of discussion was the mystery of how those who experienced the Holocaust still maintained their faith? If someone who went through all that he did and still believes in God then surely I, who has had a most fortunate life, should be able to take that leap of faith as well. Do I have to survive something as terrible as the Holocaust before I can believe in a divine ruler?
(c) Then of course there was the ever popular question: How can God let this happen? I know I share the opinion of many others when I say that I don't know how I can believe in God when he can let something like the Holocaust happen to a nation that has been called the "Chosen People". And for me , it's not just the Holocaust. It's 2000 years of exile, inquisitions, pogroms and massacres. And now that we finally have the State of Israel, a Jewish state, we have been fighting continuously for its existence since the moment it was established.

In Ulpan the next day our class also had a discussion (of course in Hebrew) about the Holocaust and Israel.
(a) Would Israel exist without the Holocaust? Though most in my class disagreed I was adamant in my belief that YES there would be a State of Israel. I sincerely doubt it would have been established in 1948 but the waves of Aliyah and the Zionist movement were already underway long before the Holocaust and WWII began. I agree when my classmates said that the Holocaust was unfortunately that necessary catalyst that sped up the process. But even without the Holocaust I am confident that Israel would exist today in 2010.
(b) Can another Holocaust happen today? Can we prevent it? As I tried to explain to my teacher (though not nearly as eloquently), the Jewish nation is facing a new type of holocaust. Now that there is a State of Israel and also because of the ghosts of the past we are not threatened by a genocide perpetrated by an entire continent. Instead, we are facing a Holocaust that can be accomplished by a single man. A crazy dictator with enough hatred to be willing to launch a nuclear bomb at Israel. The threat of nuclear Iran is immensely serious and one that is frustratingly outside of our control. It is a danger that can only be eliminated by governments and militaries.
(c) Is the Jewish nation living or merely surviving? This question connects back to my issue of the "Chosen People" that was brought up the previous day in the sadna. Are we the "Chosen People" because we have managed to survive all these years while other nations have become extinct? "Managing to survive"- is that enough? Can we hope for more? I think that with the State of Israel came a growth and a "living" of the Jewish nation that has not been seen in centuries. There is a vibrant new Jewish culture created here in Israel that is a melting pot of Jewish traditions from around the world, brought over with each new wave of Olim. Unfortunately, while Judaism is very much alive here, I look back to my Jewish community at home and can't help but despair. I grew up hearing Rabbi's sermons and reading the Jewish newspaper articles lamenting the decline in American Jewry and the failing of the Conservative movement. I watched as my shul merged with two other synagogues in the area and as all the children and families started to leave so that it got to the point that many Saturdays my mom was the 4th youngest person in shul (right after me and my sisters). Synagogues used to be a place for community. When I couldn't really find that at my shul (our USY chapter just didn't cut it), I turned towards Young Judaea. YJ, which was the largest and oldest Zionist youth movement, I soon discovered was failing just as much if not more than the Conservative synagogues of Queens, New York. A movement that had tens of thousands of members and hundreds of clubs throughout the country where members would get together to discuss and learn about Israel had been reduced to an organization that ran very successful (and incredible)summer camps and Israel programs. As terrible as it is, as a Jew from New York, I would have to say that YES, the Jewish nation in the Diaspora is merely surviving.

In my most recent Ulpan class our lesson was about Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier kidnapped during the summer of 2006. After this discussion, I felt that Shalit epitomizes what I have come to call the "Israeli Paradox". Partly due to the size of the country, partly because everyone has been in the IDF/is a parent of someone who has been a soldier and partly because every decision the government or IDF makes is one that effects people personally, there is a deep sense of national loss and grief concerning the kidnapping of Shalit. You could just see it in the way my Ulpan teacher (who always tries to keep her beliefs or feelings out of a lesson) discussed it, that the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser was felt very personally by the entire country. Acting on these feelings, it is only natural that Israelis are demanding the return of Shalit at any price. Even if that means releasing hundreds of terrorists and prisoners it is worth it to get back this one soldier. But then the other half of the Israeli mind has to think about national security and what would be the repurcussions of setting free all these people capable of hurting and killing even more Israelis. The safety of the nation must out weigh the life of one soldier...doesn't it? And so we are left with the "Israeli Paradox". Which is more important for this family: stopping at nothing to bring back one of its sons or the family's survival as a whole?