Is The Holocaust Over-Emphasized?

In the past year there has been both a book by a former speaker of the Knesset and a documentary arguing that Jewish identity is too obsessed with the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli parliament, writes it is time for the Jewish people to "rise from the ashes" in his The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes.

And now a new documentary has been made titled Defamation exploring the same theme:

This is a difficult and emotional debate to have. And as a non-Jew, I do think it is presumptuous for non-Jews to tell Jews how they should view and feel about their history. History, especially, tragedy whether of Jews, Armenians and Palestinians is for the people to build their own narrative around.

Having said that, and being cautious in drawing any conclusion, I do think that the Holocaust can sometimes be too much in the conscience of Jews so as to be a coarse effect on their life. I really thought about this when I read this post by famed American-Jewish journalist, who served in the IDF, Jeffrey Goldberg:

Further Proof that Washington Is Hostile to Jewish Life

No, not the Jane Harman mess (sorry I'm not blogging on it more, but I'm busy with other journalism, and anyway the whole ridiculous AIPAC case makes me ill, because it shouldn't even be a case).

This is why Washington is so un-Jewish. I meet David Ben-Gregory this morning for breakfast at Morty's, a deli in my neighborhood, and I overhear a woman in the booth behind me ask her companion, "What kind of bread is challah?" except that she pronounces the "ch" like she's saying "chapstick" (or "cholent," not to introduce another foreign concept here). I don't think she was Jewish, but it doesn't matter -- in New York, everyone knows how to pronounce challah. I'm sure by now that that 16-year-old Somali pirate in a New York jail cell knows how to pronounce challah.

Sometimes I feel like a stranger in a strange land. I want to move back to my true homeland, which is to say, 92nd St. and West End Avenue.

Goldberg is an influential journalist who appears on American television, and maintains a blog for The Atlantic. When I first read this piece I had to pause for a second and consider whether he was just joking. But, no, he is dead serious. He really considers Washington D.C., a city where all politicians praise Israel and where The Washington Post is seen as neo-con on Israel, to be hostile to Jews all because a non-Jewish woman cannot pronounce a Jewish delicacy! One should be somewhat sympathetic people like Goldberg, it has been a history of persecution that has breed that mindset. But not too sympathetic for two reasons: first, such obsession of the Holocaust often leads to not just indifference toward Palestinian suffering but justification of it because the Jews people suffered so now that need to do what they must to protect the Jewish state; second, it is not healthy for people like Goldberg to think like this. Re-read the piece. It is deranged. He sees an anti-Jewish conspiracy is something so trivial. Does he think this woman worked for the Gestapo? Would he consider it a sign of hostility to Muslims if someone mispronounced "falafel"? His angry is simply unfounded, self-destructive, and delusional.

But, again, this is a debate for Jews to have. Decent people may encourage them by making it clear that the tragedy of the Holocaust cannot give cover to Israel's crimes against the Palestinians. And in addition to the aforementioned book and documentary, many Israelis have noted that the Holocaust is sometimes an over-emphasized aspect in Jewish identity and that it distorts Jewish notions of justice by sanctioning injustice against the innocent Palestinians.

People do not have to accept the conclusions that Jews draw, but when deciding what role the Holocaust will play in Jewish identity this is a task solely for Jews.