Yom HaShoah Reflections

by Rabbi Shoshana Kaminsky

For me, this week has carried a sense of all-Holocaust all the time. I attended events related to Yom HaShoah on Tuesday, Wednesday and last night: on Tuesday, I visited the Hesburgh Library rare books collection for the first time to hear a spellbinding performance of the 1994 song cycle “I never saw another butterfly” written for soprano and clarinet. Unfortunately, the brief presentation of six songs was sandwiched between two lectures, and the second one, which ran for 45 minutes, veered so far off course that I waited impatiently for it to be over. But afterwards, I enjoyed the opportunity to speak with brand-new PhD and soprano Anne Slovin about the unusual fact that two of the six songs in the cycle are settings of poems written by children in Terezin that are cynically, bitingly funny—a rare use of humor in the Holocaust genre. Really, it was worth putting up with the lectures for those fifteen magical minutes.

On Wednesday, I was very privileged to be at the Mishawaka Public Library for the awarding of prizes by the Kurt and Tessye Simon Foundation for Holocaust Remembrance in its annual “The People Next Door” competition. This year, 71 high school students submitted artwork, poetry and prose as they reflected on the experience of South Bend survivors and on the enormity of the Shoah overall. I had the opportunity to address the students, parents and teachers present for a few minutes, and of course I felt that I had to speak about the rise in antisemitism and also the way that hate is being weaponized right here right now to vilify immigrants. I was deeply gratified to receive and email from one of the teachers in attendance who wrote, “I wanted to take a minute to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words.  My students who attended, in addition to their peers who also submitted and were in attendance, are among those who are struggling right now in our world.  I know in my heart that your message was a beacon of hope for all of them.  Please continue to be that light for all.” Really, it’s emails like that that make it all worthwhile.

Rabbi Shoshana Kaminsky shares remarks at “The People Next Door” Student Art & Creative Writing Awards Ceremony.

 And then last night was the Yom HaShoah observance at the South Bend Civic Theater and a performance of the short play “Remember: the story of Abe Price.” The play itself was superb, and special credit must go to Vic Caroli for his poignant, heartbreaking depiction of a well-beloved son of South Bend. There was a Q&A with the actors following the play, and I was fascinated with how each of them answered the question of which was their favorite line in the play. The play was written specifically to be performed for high school students, and each actor spoke of how they hoped the young people would find a way to relate the play to their own lives. This exchange really grabbed me, and a voice inside me called out, “But the purpose of the play isn’t to be relatable to young people. The purpose of the play is to tell the deeply compelling story of Abe Price’s experiences. And then I started asking myself the questions that float up from time to time: is the Holocaust something that is above all hugely significant to us Jews? Or is the expectation that all people will see the Holocaust as the worst atrocity that has ever happened and ever will take place? Does that mean that other genocides, against the Armenians, against the Cambodians, against the Tutsis, against the Rohingya are somehow lesser? I’ll just let that question hang for a moment.

Gulfshore Playhouse presents “Remember: The Story of Abe Price” at the South Bend Civic Theatre as part of the Jewish Federation’s annual Yom HaShoah commemoration.

 All of these feelings mix together in my mind along with a long-time dis-ease at the placement of Yom HaShoah in the Jewish calendar. The date was fixed by the Israeli Knesset in 1951 to correspond roughly with the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Yom HaShoah couldn’t be set on the exact date of that uprising, because it started on Pesach. So it was set for a few days after Pesach ends. But that date, the 25th of Nissan, happens to fall exactly one week before Yom Ha’atzma’ut, Israel Independence Day, which of course was established a few years before Yom HaShoah. This has connected the two days in our imagination: we experience the horrors of the Shoah, and then a week later we are rewarded with the gift of a Jewish state. Historically there is no question that the United Nations voted in favor of partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in 1947 because they could see the desperate need for a Jewish place of refuge. But it is theologically problematic to link Israel’s existence to the Shoah because it begs the question, was the price of 6 million Jewish lives worth it so that we could have a Jewish state? I’ll let that question hang too. And another question: what does it mean that the Knesset chose to observe Yom HaShoah in recognition of one of a few acts of overt resistance? And the fact that the official name of the day is Day of Remembrance of the Shoah and the Heroism? Is there a message here that only clear acts of heroism are worthy of note? As opposed to the hundreds of thousands of individual acts of quiet daily heroism in the lives of ordinary Jews like Abe Price that helped them get through?

It’s only been twenty years since the United Nations chose an entirely different day, January 27, as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We can quibble about how it could take the UN sixty years to get around to marking this dark period in human history. Nevertheless, I far prefer their choice of date over the 25th of Nissan. January 27 is the date that the allies liberated Auschwitz. On that day, hope began to dawn for those who had managed to survive a concerted six-year effort to exterminate them. On that day, the eyes of the world were finally opened to what human beings were capable of.

 I’m sure you know that it’s a rare sermon that provides more answers than questions. Tonight I’ve loaded you up with questions, and most of them have no answers at all. I believe that one of our sacred responsibilities is to continue to ask. That is one way we honor the memories of those murdered.

Shabbat shalom.

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