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Home-Grown Holocaust Denial

Editorial of Yated Ne'eman for Holocaust Remembrance Day

The State of Israel commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day this past Monday, the 28th of Nisan, with a series of ceremonies designed to preserve the remembrance of the heavy calamity which befell the Jewish people. The chareidi Jewish community has declined to recognize the establishment of this date on its calendar, partly because it falls in the month of Nisan which is not an appropriate time for memorial days like this, but mainly because of the character, import and purpose lent to it by the Israeli government. The founders of the state explicitly chose this date to designate that terrible calamity since it also designates the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which ended with the total destruction of the ghetto and the evacuation of all its residents to the death camps. At the very onset of statehood, the founders sought to distance themselves from the millions of Jews who were "led to their death like sheep to slaughter", preferred to highlight the small handful who chose to confront, almost with their bare hands, the Nazi army. The founders' purpose was to inculcate in the young generation their ideal of "taking our fate into our hands." In fact, in order to express this, they named the day, "The Day of Holocaust and Bravery," Yom Hashoah veHagevurah. They did not intend to highlight the bravery and stamina of those Jews who stood staunchly and firmly to defend their religious principles and preserve their Divine image in the face of extreme debasement and pressure, but rather to extol the actions of the handful of Warsaw fighters who went forth in a suicidal act to futilely challenge the Nazi war machine.