Thoughts on the Holocaust
To many, the Holocaust was a conflagration which began and ended with the Second World War. Its specifically Jewish context is sometimes played down, or even denied.
Yet it was the culmination of a persecution aimed exclusively at the Jewish people which spanned millennia. Far from being an event circumscribed in time, it was the end-stage of a long-running antisemitic process which had its roots in antiquity, an episode rendered all the more horrifying by its emergence in a culture renowned for its enlightenment.
There is a tendency to remain fixated on the enormity of the event itself and to pay less attention to its antecedents. Naturally, we must keep alive the memory of those who perished. It is necessary to hold ceremonies, construct monuments, tell and retell narratives and organize visits to the desolate scenes of the crime. But unless we underpin the sentiments of shock, horror and grief evoked by memories of the Holocaust with a deeper attempt at understanding how it came about, we risk being stuck in the quicksands of emotion.
To keep focusing on the horrific nature of the Holocaust is about as futile as to keep gazing at the body of a patient who has died of a mysterious disease without investigating what caused the disease in the first place. It invites alienation from those who are more removed from the tragedy. Too much exposure to horror begins to feel like punishment.
Mass murder is endemic in the human race. From time to time it flares into epidemics and we need to understand how this comes about. Why have the Jews, a people who have contributed so much to the advance of civilization, been targeted? A single word provides the beginnings of an answer: envy.
In times of existential fear, envy and hatred are directed at those who are perceived as possessing attributes which others lack. These emotions have been welded into both religious and political ideologies which name the Jews as culprits.
This is our challenge: to ensure that we consolidate ourselves as a people while at the same time showing the world that we are part of the wider community, capable of helping others to overcome their envy, fear and hatred of us. There has to be a balance between remembering the Holocaust and reminding ourselves that we are like other peoples, who have also suffered.