A while back, I had an insight about Israelis and the Holocaust: most Israelis have a “Shoah moment” every day – a second in which they think about, mention, or refer to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
These might occur when confronted by the obvious triggers: the screech of trains, standing in line for food, waiting in tightly-packed corridors.<\/p>\n
Or, they may be more subtle: hair of different colors left on a barbershop floor, children’s shoes all in a pile at a kindergarten. If a baby is born fair, it’s common to hear in maternity wards here, “this one would have been saved.”<\/p>\n
I had my own moment recently while looking at an apartment. When the realtor showed me a nook next to the toilet for storing supplies, I thought first, “a child could hide in here.”<\/p>\n
Such references need not always be dark.<\/p>\n
Think about your spouse running to the supermarket for the second time that day. You say, “another twenty-five cans of tuna? What is this, the Holocaust?”<\/p>\n
What does it mean that Israelis think of the Shoah everyday? It means we live in a country in which the Holocaust is not at all a dead subject, but one which continues to shape our lives and most private, even subconscious, thoughts.<\/p>\n
But our memories of the Shoah, or our fleeting associations with the catastrophe, must transcend feelings of fear or thoughts of self-preservation. Our memory of the Holocaust should remind us to do good in the world – practice tolerance, show mercy, help the needy, open our hearts. So in honor of Yom HaShoah, here is a lesson in altruism – IRAC’s award-winning recipe on how to be a mensche (human being):<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Take one verse from the Bible:
\n“And God created human beings in God’s image, in the image of God they were created, male and female God created them” (Genesis 1.27).<\/p>\nAdd one “saying of our parents” (Pirkei Avot):
\n“Who is honored? One who honors others” (4.1).<\/p>\nGently ladle in one portion from the Talmud:
\n“Whoever saves one life, it is as if they have saved an entire world” (Tractate Sanhedrin 37).<\/p>\nTop with one modern voice:
\n“When human dignity is exiled, hope is exiled” (Proverbs of Benjamin).<\/p>\nPour the mix into your mind and soul: it is done when a stranger’s dignity is as precious as your own.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A while back, I had an insight about Israelis and the Holocaust: most Israelis have a “Shoah moment” every day – a second in which they think about, mention, or refer to the Holocaust. These might occur when confronted by the obvious triggers: the screech of trains, standing in line for food, waiting in tightly-packed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}