The Holocaust Remembrance in Israel refers to how the Holocaust is expressed in the country's social and cultural discourse. This encompasses commemoration as well as the various ways the Holocaust is situated within the Israeli ethos. Examining the place of the Holocaust in Israeli public memory involves historical, sociological, anthropological, and cultural discussions. Holocaust remembrance also significantly impacts theological issues, such as religious faith during and after the Holocaust.[1]
Holocaust remembrance reflects the way the Holocaust is perceived within the secular Zionist Israeli ethos, and to a large extent the national religious public. The ultra-Orthodox community and Israeli Arabs, however, have quite different perceptions of the Holocaust.
Over time, several changes have occurred in Holocaust remembrance in Israel. The most prominent is a shift from a collective to a personal-individual approach. Terms like "the Jewish people" and "six million" have given way to personal survivor narratives and the "Every Person Has a Name" project to commemorate victims' names. This humanization extends to the perpetrators as well, as the Nazis are no longer depicted as inhuman monsters, but as humanity in its most extreme form.
Another change is the transformation of victims into heroes. The image of the fighting, pioneer Israeli Sabra could not easily identify with Holocaust victims. In the early years, only ghetto rebels and partisan fighters were celebrated. However, over time, endurance and holding out to the last were also redefined as heroism. Consequently, the status of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has diminished compared to non-violent resistance, such as smuggling food and secretly studying Torah.
The approach prevalent in the state's early years is defined by researchers as "the state approach," identifying its origin in the study house of David Ben-Gurion. This approach was based on several principles:[2]
The Holocaust was perceived as the absolute opposite of the state approach, an approach of self-confidence, strength, and national pride; the state approach could not rely on a history of defeat and humiliation, nor on the heroism of the ghetto fighters due to their ultimate defeat. The state approach could not accept identification with the Holocaust in the process of shaping the new Israeli identity. Moreover, this approach argued that the Diaspora existence is inferior to the independent existence in a sovereign state, to the extent of characterizing the Diaspora as a disease.
These two factors led to the Holocaust not being able to be an essential part of the national memory that the state approach tried to build. Indeed, the Holocaust was mentioned in official ceremonies (ironically and symbolically, the burial of the ashes of Austrian Jews – the first Holocaust remembrance ceremony in Israel (June 1949) which had a state character, was initiated by Simon Wiesenthal, an Austrian Jew, then still unknown, from his place in Linz, Austria), but only as proof of the victory of the state approach, in the sense of see what happened to the Jewish people without a state. Hence, there was no place for the Holocaust as a central factor in shaping the Israeli identity. Beyond that, positioning the Holocaust as a central factor in the Israeli discourse could create feelings of xenophobia, isolationism, and a worldview of "a people that dwells alone" – the opposite of the state approach's goal.
The picture that emerges from this description is that there was a repressed and silenced Holocaust consciousness, and almost no public discussion on issues related to the Holocaust. Historian Anita Shapira emphasized that on one hand, this indeed was the situation in certain aspects; but on the other hand, the Holocaust was a central topic of public discussion during those years. Physically, the "Forest of the Martyrs" was planted, memorials were erected, remembrance days were established, and museums were founded, such as Yad Vashem and the Ghetto Fighters' House. In public buildings not directly intended for commemorating the Holocaust, commemoration was mainly evident in their names, some of which were vague, called "Memorial of the Martyrs," and some were more explicit, called "Holocaust Martyrs." Some were named after destroyed communities, for example, "Martyrs of Novoselits," and in a synagogue in Be'er Sheva, they even chose the name "Martyrs of Auschwitz." The characteristic of these synagogues is large memorial plaques with names of Holocaust victims and remembrance days for the destruction of this or that community that its members founded the synagogue. Many poets dealt with the Holocaust, historical documentation projects began in that decade, and more. Beyond that, the 1950s were characterized by a series of public uproars around issues directly related to the Holocaust. In two prominent cases, the public debate was stormy to the point of violence: the Reparations Agreement and the Kastner trial. In these cases, the Holocaust was highly politicized, as different factions and groups interpreted the memory of the Holocaust in the way that seemed right to them. This situation seemingly contradicts the state approach mentioned above. Anita Shapira proposes a division between "private memory" and "public memory." The Holocaust was central in the collective, public worldview of the State of Israel. The Holocaust served as a model for the existential threat to the State of Israel, from which its policy was derived; as a clear model for the Diaspora Jewry, which the State of Israel aspired to change; and as an extreme expression of antisemitism that the State of Israel could prevent. Therefore, the Holocaust was "owned" only by the State of Israel; the State of Israel demanded that the memory of the Holocaust be preserved exclusively in the State of Israel, as the sole heir of the memory of the millions. But in this way, the memory of the Holocaust became an anonymous, immense memory, and therefore not amenable to internalization and perception. The Holocaust was a terrible myth, part of history; the personal, individual story was pushed aside and disappeared, and did not find its place in this period within the collective memory. Several factors pushed the personal story aside:
The discourse culture of the 50s, in fact, involved ignoring the personal, private experience, and attributing everything to the giant myth of the Holocaust, the general-Jewish, national myth. Accordingly, there was no place for personal discourse; there was no desire, and no ability, to hear the personal experience, which deviated greatly from the general myth, as cultivated until then. On the fate of Holocaust survivors in this culture, the writer Aharon Appelfeld commented
This worldview began to erode over the years. There are several key moments in this process:
This is a long and complex process, and these are only the most acute and dramatic points in it. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which until then was perceived as a model for "appropriate" behavior during the Holocaust (as opposed to most victims who went "like sheep to the slaughter") in terms of the Zionist ethos, begins to be pushed aside, and identification with the victims increases. The memory of the Holocaust legitimizes "securitism" and the feeling of "the whole world against us". The existence of the State of Israel began to be understood more and more, and the threat of annihilation slowly disappeared; these facts allowed for an increasing engagement in the internal affairs of the State of Israel. The level of discussion begins to shift from the collective emphasis that characterized it until then, to the private, individual level.
The new approach that was formed expressed the following perceptions:
This is a clear and sharp contrast to the state-centric approach. The ways of expressing memory and its place in the Israeli discourse change significantly in light of this approach.
The new approach was identified with right-wing circles and the religious Zionist movement. This approach has received considerable criticism, the main points of which are:
The Book of Names in Hand According to Danny Gutwein, these two periods led to a third period of Holocaust remembrance, a period that should be called "the period of The Detailed Memory". This period is characterized by several points:
In fact, there are today three main types of reference to the memory of the Holocaust.
Changes have also occurred in the ways of teaching the Holocaust, accordingly. From the establishment of the state until the Eichmann trial, there was, in fact, no engagement in formal education with teaching the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a private and personal event. The main commemoration was around the rebels and partisans, and those who were not part of this legacy were pushed aside from the circle of commemoration and did not even try to integrate into it. However, this exclusion also caused that when there were events related to the Holocaust – and we have already mentioned several prominent and stirring examples, such as the Kasztner trial and the reparations from Germany – huge emotional storms erupted. Yet, these storms did not lead to a change in the education system, and after they subsided, they disappeared without impact. The presence of the Holocaust in schools was mainly in memorial ceremonies, etc., meaning at the emotional-experiential-social level. The establishment of "Yad Vashem" marked the beginning of organized academic work on the subject, but in its early years, "Yad Vashem" was far from being able to fulfill what was expected of it. The Eichmann trial initiated thought processes on the subject, despite all being under the shadow of the question "why did they go like sheep to the slaughter", and most of the programs were apologetic in nature. The shock that the Eichmann trial brought still did not change the education system's programs. Historical research was not yet cohesive enough to deal with the subject, and the education system was not yet mature enough to handle it. Close to the Six-Day War, "Yad Vashem" was established as an official institution representing the Israeli stance to foreign visitors, but the education system still saw the Holocaust as a subject to be dealt with only close to Holocaust Remembrance Day. The change only began in the seventies, as a result of general changes in the Israeli education system, the main ones being structural changes in schools and the implementation of integration. This change also led to renewed thinking about the curriculum, and the Holocaust was defined as one of 26 elective subjects, out of which the history teacher had to choose three (as opposed to the mandatory subjects, which were supposed to be studied in much greater depth). After this decision, a public debate developed, on two axes: one, a political debate, whose goal was to make the Holocaust one of the mandatory subjects; and the second, an educational debate, about the goals of teaching the Holocaust, its content, and its emphases – whether to teach the Holocaust as purely historical and research-based instruction, or also as a tool for conveying an educational message. The first debate ended in 1979, with the decision of the Pedagogical Secretariat in the Ministry of Education and the Supervision of History Studies to allocate a third of a study unit to teaching the Holocaust, beyond the studies of the 20th century and the teaching of the history of the Jewish people in recent generations. A year later, the Knesset's decision on an amendment to the State Education Law was accepted, according to which an additional goal was added to the goals of education in Israel – education for "Holocaust and Heroism awareness". Since the eighties, there have been two trends. The first trend, according to which the Holocaust is taught in the education system today, presents the Holocaust according to the Zionist narrative. This trend emphasizes the emotional, experiential aspect of the Holocaust, placing the Zionist and Jewish story at the center, and even disconnecting it from the history of the 20th century, and in fact from the historical and academic dimension. Szczekar calls this approach "existential". This approach appeals to the emotions through various means, including youth trips to Poland, with the goal of placing the Holocaust at the center of the discussion, and creating a deep identification of the students with its victims. The second trend is the academic trend, which has a universal perspective and is based and focused on academic research, even at the cost of clashing with the previous trend.
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, television broadcasts are aired in a different format that suits the atmosphere of the day, and news channels dedicate time to broadcast the stories of miracles and survivors in addition to airing the state ceremony through television.
In the Haredi society, similar to the secular society and in some aspects even more so, the memory of the Holocaust is a foundational narrative. However, unlike the 'Israeli' nature of memory, 'memorial ceremonies' and public commemoration are not accepted in the Haredi society. Instead, in the Haredi society, commemoration within the private domain is very common – when children are named after family members who were murdered in the Holocaust, and in the community dimension – when many Hasidic communities and many Lithuanian yeshivas (such as the famous Ponovezh Yeshiva) carry the names of communities that were almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust, and see themselves as continuing their path. Concurrently, in the Haredi consciousness, the significant victory over the Nazis is the establishment of large families on the personal level, and the strengthening of the world of Torah on the public aspect. One of the explanations given for the uniqueness in the nature of Holocaust memory in the Haredi society, shows that the way of the Haredi society to cope with the physical and theological rupture created by the Holocaust was to create an ethos of "continuity" between the Jewish existence that preceded the Holocaust and the Jewish life in the Land of Israel, while viewing the Holocaust as a terrible tragic event that joins the chain of tragedies that the people of Israel had to endure in the diaspora (contrary to the Israeli narrative that saw the Holocaust as an event that signifies the end of the 'diaspora' and the State of Israel as the absolute antithesis to the Jewish existence that preceded the Holocaust). In the 60s, Moshe Prager, a Holocaust researcher, founded "Gnazach Kidush Hashem" – the central museum and archive in the Haredi sector for Holocaust research, in Bnei Brak[3]
"Witnesses in Uniform" delegation in Auschwitz As a continuation of the education system, the centrality of the Holocaust in the modern history of the Jewish people is also emphasized to IDF soldiers, out of loyalty to the command "Never Again" and from learning the lesson that a strong stance, a powerful army, and the ability to act independently are vital for preventing the recurrence of the Holocaust. IDF soldiers routinely visit Yad Vashem, the Ghetto Fighters' House, the Massuah, and other Holocaust research centers. In addition, the IDF operates the "Witnesses in Uniform" program, within which IDF soldiers in uniform visit the extermination camps in Poland, accompanied by Holocaust survivor witnesses. Standing proudly with the Israeli flag and in uniform at the Jewish people's extermination sites is often described as a central experience in forging Jewish and Zionist identity. A special bond has been woven since 1995 between IDF soldiers and Holocaust survivors, within the framework of the "Flower for a Survivor" project. In September 2003, a flyover of three Air Force planes took place over Auschwitz, parallel to the "Witnesses in Uniform" ceremony of the corps on the ground. The photo of the flyover has since been hung in many senior offices in the military. In August 2020, a "Flyover of Remembrance to the Future" took place, a similar flyover of planes from the Israeli Air Force and the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) which passed over the Dachau concentration camp and over the Fürstenfeldbruck air base, the site where nine Israelis were murdered in the Munich massacre at the 1972 Olympics. 19 August 2020.