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| YomHaShoah, 2014 |
As part of Holocaust Remembrance Day or YomHaShoah, sirens go off all over Israel, and everyone stops whatever it is that they're doing to stand in respectful attention.
Videos show cars slowing down to a halt on highways. The drivers also get out and stand.
It is incredibly moving.
I don't think it would be as moving and important if it were merely "remembering." But, of course, it's not. It's symbolic of the unflagging determination of a nation that long ago collectively decided to robustly defend herself - always ready to fight back against those who wish to destroy her.
France could use a bit of that.
We could use a bit of that.
Is the Holocaust the greatest evil of the 20th century? I'm not sure it is.
Perhaps there should be a Gulag remembrance day across Russia.
The Chinese don't have a remembrance day. Instead they still have a giant picture of their very own mass murderer on their most prominent government building. They're too busy making money to take him down.
But if others, for whatever reason, don't wish to "remember", that's not Israel's fault. Rather, it's a comment on what makes Israel and it's citizens different - more (I'm struggling for the right word here) clear-eyed.
More honorable (at least in that one respect)?
We should do the same thing in New York, every September 11th.
Is there a 9/11 remembrance day? I suppose there probably is - people place flowers someplace or another, or whatever. Sixteen years ago, a sort of tragedy happened, and then many of us became Islamophobic. It's all so very sad. Hatred is wrong.
Let me amend what I earlier said. We should have a Cowardice Day. (And, yes, I mean the appellation to apply to us.) It wouldn't exactly be uplifting, but at least it would be accurate.
We Christians observe Holocaust day on Good Friday as that is the only Holocaust worthy of the name whereas the racial supremacists have supplanted the pluperfect self-sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary with their own (and their suffering alone) suffering during world war two which they consider the worst crime ever.
ReplyDeleteOf course the worst crime ever (than which none greater can even be imagined) is the crime of Deicide but in its attempt to curry political favor with the tribe that hates it, the Ecumenical Church of today has had prelates publicly aver that the war crimes of the nazi's against the jews is the worst crime ever.
C'est la vie.