Our local South Florida community made every accommodation to ensure that Holocaust Education week, which took place February 23-27, would be a time of learning and enlightenment. A far-reaching series of events was planned and executed at locations throughout the area, including lectures and films, panel discussions, eyewitness testimonies, programs, and gatherings.
This year’s Holocaust Education Week coincided with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Presenters all concurred: Holocaust deniers must be debunked. Education and information must be disseminated.
The chairman of the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial was quoted in a local newspaper emphasizing the importance of tolerance for different religions and cultures.
Survivors spoke of the necessity of documenting their story to affirm what happened and as a way to never forget. Surely, after witnessing a mass genocide of the epic proportions of the Shoah, the world would finally be shaken to its collective core. Surely after documenting the brutal massacre of millions of innocents, people would finally learn.
Unfortunately, this premise has proved to be flawed. Hatred and hostility are not necessarily caused by lack of information, and so classes and lectures will not necessarily solve the problem. Fanatic dogma does not respond to facts or figures.
The veneer of civility is quite fragile. The year is 2015 and yet a primitive form of savagery has reemerged. Radical Islamic terrorists perform barbaric acts. Heads are chopped off. People are burnt alive. The caliphate plows forward.
The memory of the Holocaust has faded. Anti-Semitism is on the rise. European Jewry reels from the new canards. Jews in France, England, and Belgium are targeted for violence and death. In America, many college campuses are hotbeds of hatred. Jewish students are threatened. They feel unsafe in their own schools.
The phrase “never again” has been misunderstood. It was not meant to indicate that Jews would never again be faced with a murderous rampage. It was an affirmation that they would never again go as innocent lambs to the slaughter. The machinations of the world, it seems, do not change. The only thing that can change is the reaction to events that ensue.
Jews, wake up! Stop educating the world and start educating yourselves. Open your eyes. Wrap your heads around reality. Stop trying to influence the world and take a hard look at what’s going on around you.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited the Jews of Europe to take refuge in the Jewish state. Who will avail themselves of this sanctuary? Who will need it next?