Reflections on the Shoah and October 2023 Massacre

 Today is April 24^th, 2025,  and it is Yom Hashoah in Isael.  (Holocaust Memorial Day).  We had a ceremony to commemorate our survival and rebirth, and to remember the people who were murdered or succumbed.

We repeat this ritual every year.  It comes after Pesach, when we celebrate our escape from slavery in Egypt, and the beginnings of our lives as Jews and a free people.

Somewhat unfathomably, our escape from oppression was not a once-and-for-all experience.  It has been repeated through the centuries.  We meet each Pesach to reflect on this, to retell the story of our escape from Egypt, and to educate our children.  The re-telling is prefaced by the words, “In every generation,”… our resilience will be tested, and we will have to fight to safeguard our freedom to live according to our customs.  Sadly, this prophecy has proved to be true. Jews have been persecuted in every generation. 

This year, our commemoration comes against the background of the October 7^th massacre by the Hamas murderers.  These terrorists murdered thousands of innocent people doing nothing more than attending a musical happening, known as the Nova Festival.  The terrorists captured 249 people and took them hostage.  They raped, tortured, and imprisoned them in unimaginable torment for nearly two years (at the time of writing).  A few have been released in various ‘deals’ in exchange for Israel freeing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many with blood on their hands. Apparently, Hamas lives are more valuable than Israeli lives.

Over the 8 months since our hostages have been captive, Hamas has never released information about them, nor have they been visited by the Red Cross.  Their families have been left terrified, sick with worry, holding their breath. Hamas has even withheld the bodies of those killed, making it impossible for them to have a decent burial or for their loved ones to reach some kind of closure.

We know that the hostages have been cruelly treated.  They have been starved, denied access to medical treatment, and imprisoned deep underground in dark, airless tunnels. Some have even been kept in cages so small that they were unable to move. Although Gaza has received millions of tons of food (humanitarian aid), most has been stolen by Hamas operatives or sold to finance their rearmament and rebuild tunnels blown up in the war.  They have certainly not shared their food bounty with their hostages.

59 Hostages are still stuck somewhere in the Gaza hellhole. Most are dead or dying.  One can only imagine the physiological, psychological, and emotional damage they have suffered, and wonder whether it will be possible for them ever to recover. For every hostage, the lives of parents, siblings, grandparents, and other relatives and friends have been broken by anger, anxiety, helplessness, and grief.  The ripple effect of this tragedy has disrupted everyone and every sector of our country.

I do not want to go into the political storm ravaging my country because of this terrible situation. Nor can I discuss the wave of antisemitism that has flooded the world, though it is the stuff of nightmares.  It is apparent that the end of WW2 and the years since, have not made people more just, accepting, or moral.  Although everyone wants a more humane world, they make an exception when it comes to Jews.  Jews are regarded as monsters, deserving of hatred and all kinds of vituperation, a people that the world would prefer to live without.

Let’s have no illusions.  Hamas has stated clearly that its aim is to exterminate us.  Seven armies were arrayed against us, armed with the most sophisticated weaponry.  And at the head of the monster, was and continues to be Iran, conducting a hateful war on multiple fronts.  This includes the exploitation of proxies and social media to damage us.

We live in a world that is hostile to us for no good reason except that we exist.  This, despite the countless contributions that Jews have made in every field of human endeavor. We are the people who gave the world the Old Testament, elucidating basic concepts of how to live in a community and respect the common good.  We also gave birth to Jesus of Nazareth, who the world would do well to remember, was born and died a Jew and sired the new religion of Christianity.

When we retell the Exodus story about the escape of the Jews from bondage in Egypt, it resonates with our long history.  The words of the ‘Haggadah’ are as true today as they were back then.  They are as true as they were only 80 years ago, when the Nazis murdered 6 million of our people.  People's hatred and desire to be rid of us have not changed. Yesterday, it was the Christians.  There were blood libels and expulsions.  There were pogroms and the Chmielinski Massacres. In recent times, there has been a surge of Arab nationalism and religious fervor.  The Islamic geopolitical crusade has as its main goal the elimination of Jews from the earth.

We continue to live under a mushroom-shaped cloud.  The Iranians have made their intentions perfectly clear.  When we talk about what happened in Germany, we reflect on the signs of disaster that were there long before the Final Solution. Most of us did not see the writing on the wall until it was too late. In October 2023, we failed to read Iran's multifront preparation to encircle and eliminate us.  The writing was on the wall then, but we failed to read it.  I, like other Israelis, wonder: Is the writing on the wall again? 

Nothing in the world has really changed - but we have changed.  We are no longer prepared to see ourselves as victims.  Today we have our own State.  We have a dedicated, advanced, experienced, and capable army, with sophisticated weaponry that they know how to use.  We also have the support of the American President.  (However, we have to continually remind ourselves that though Trump is undeniably a friend, he too has his political problems and considerations and will do what he deems best for the United States, before Israel.)   

As it was in the case of the Nazis, we have to look to ourselves to take the necessary steps to make sure that what happened in Germany never happens to us again. 

The time is now.