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‘Yizkor.’ Remember. Again.
A man stands still as a two-minute siren marking the annual Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day is heard in Ashkelon, Israel April 8, 2021. REUTERS/Amir Cohen
JNS.org – We have just concluded Passover. On the last day of the holiday, we recited Yizkor, the memorial prayer for our departed loved ones. In many synagogues around the world, in addition to our personal Yizkor prayers, we added memorial prayers for the Six Million and for Israel’s fallen heroes.
We are still fighting a war in Gaza. Hezbollah is increasing its attacks from the north. There is seemingly no end in sight. Now, on Sunday, we will be called upon to observe Yom Hashoah. Here we are, struggling in the aftermath of the massacres and atrocities of Oct. 7—a mini-Holocaust in its own right—and now we are expected to remember the Holocaust itself. I’m sure it will be a bit much for many of us.
It is now more than 80 years since the Holocaust. The number of survivors among us is diminishing all too quickly. The child survivors are today elderly men and women. Please God, may they be with us for many more years to come.
When we think of Israel, we are always remembering those who gave their lives in our defense, as we should. But I don’t think we give enough thought to the injured, the many seriously wounded and those who, tragically, have been maimed for life. Presumably, almost all these brave fighters have been traumatized to one degree or another and will, no doubt, require much therapy when this is all over, please God soon.
Similarly, I wonder if we ever gave enough attention to those who survived the Holocaust but were also traumatized for life.
My late father, Shimon Goldman, was the sole survivor of his family in Poland. By the miracles of God, he escaped Poland. He fled to Vilna and when his Lubavitch yeshivah there received life-saving visas from the legendary Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, he traveled with his fellow students to Moscow and then across Russia to Vladivostok. They took a boat to Kobe, Japan, where they spent a year. In 1941, when Japan joined Nazi Germany in World War II, they moved on to Shanghai, where they spent the rest of the war years until they received visas to go to the United States.
Though orphaned and alone in the world from his teenage years on, my father never lost his mind, his faith or his sense of humor. He rebuilt his family and, when he passed away at age 91, he left behind children, grandchildren and 80 great-grandchildren. Today, there are many more, thank God.
But does that mean he was not scarred? We don’t have an inkling of the inner trauma that he must have experienced in his life. In his 1950 wedding pictures, he, the bridegroom, isn’t smiling. Having had no parents to escort him to the chuppah, was it any wonder? In 1961, during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel, he woke up with nightmares screaming, “Eichmann araus!” Outwardly, he was fine, functional and a pillar of his community on many levels. Inwardly? We have no idea.
My friend’s father-in-law also survived Auschwitz and went on to rebuild his family in London, becoming a successful diamond merchant. But whenever he traveled, in his carry-on case together with his tallit and tefillin, there was always one more item he would never travel without: a loaf of bread. As successful as he was, the hunger pangs of Auschwitz remained with him for life.
I once read a story of a man in Talpiot, Israel, who lived in a big, beautiful villa but would collect the leftovers after the Kiddush in shul on Shabbat morning. One day, a little boy in his innocence asked the man directly: “Excuse me, sir; I don’t understand. You have a beautiful home. Why do you need to collect the leftovers?”
The man looked at the boy and replied: “How could you understand? Were you in Auschwitz?”
Can we understand this? Can we—born in freedom and privilege—grasp what they must have lived through for the rest of their lives?
Besides the Six Million who perished, a generation of survivors was scarred for life.
And the world would have us simply forgive and forget!
Today, we see clearly how the past informs the future. Who would have believed possible what is happening now in the United States at “enlightened” universities?
That’s why we dare not allow ourselves the luxury of national amnesia. We can never forget, and we can never tire of remembering the past.
And so, as difficult as it may be, even now, in the throes of another war against the new Nazis of today, we will still remember the Six Million martyrs of the Holocaust and honor their memories.
At the same time, we will pledge to stand strong against every enemy on any battlefield—whether in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Iran, or even against anti-Israel and anti-Jewish protesters on the Ivy League college campuses of America.
When we do, let us also spare a special thought for the traumatized survivors of then and now.
The post ‘Yizkor.’ Remember. Again. first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel’s Gantz Demands Gaza Day-After Plan By June 8, Threatens to Quit Cabinet
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz speaks at Reichman University on Nov. 23, 2021. Photo: Ariel Hermoni / IMoD
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz demanded on Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commit to an agreed vision for the Gaza conflict that would include stipulating who might rule the territory after the war with Hamas.
Gantz told a press conference he wanted the war cabinet to form a six-point plan by June 8. If his expectations are not met, he said, he will withdraw his centrist party from the conservative premier’s broadened emergency coalition.
Gantz, a retired top Israeli general who opinion polls show is Netanyahu’s most formidable political rival, gave no date for the prospective walkout but his challenge could increase strains on an increasingly unwieldy wartime government.
Netanyahu appears outflanked in his own inner war cabinet, where he, Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant alone have votes. On Wednesday, Gallant demanded clarity on post-war plans and for Netanyahu to forswear any military reoccupation of Gaza.
If the prime minister were to do that, he would risk angering ultra-nationalist coalition parties that have called for Gaza to be annexed and settled. Losing them could topple Netanyahu, who before the war failed to enlist more centrist partners, given his trial on corruption charges he denies.
“Personal and political considerations have begun to penetrate the Holy of Holies of Israel‘s national security,” Gantz said. “A small minority has seized the bridge of the Israeli ship and is piloting it toward the rocky shoal.”
Gantz said his proposed six-point plan would include bringing a temporary U.S.-European-Arab-Palestinian system of civil administration for Gaza while Israel retains security control.
It would also institute equitable national service for all Israelis, including ultra-Orthodox Jews, who are now exempted from the military draft and have two parties in Netanyahu’s coalition determined to preserve the waiver.
The post Israel’s Gantz Demands Gaza Day-After Plan By June 8, Threatens to Quit Cabinet first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Pushes Into New Parts of Northern Gaza, Recovers Another Slain Hostage
Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia refugee camp northern Gaza Strip, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
Israeli troops and tanks pushed on Saturday into parts of a congested northern Gaza Strip district that they had previously skirted in the more than seven-month-old war.
Israel’s forces also took over some ground in Rafah, a southern city next to the Egyptian border that is packed with displaced people and where the launch this month of a long-threatened incursion to crush hold-outs of Palestinian Islamist terror group Hamas has alarmed Cairo and Washington.
In what Israeli media said was the result of intelligence gleaned during the latest incursions, the military announced the recovery of the body of a man who was among more than 250 hostages seized by Hamas in a cross-border rampage on Oct. 7 that triggered the war.
Ron Binyamin’s remains were located along with those of three other slain hostages whose repatriation was announced on Friday, the military said without providing further details.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
Israel has conducted renewed military sweeps this month of parts of northern Gaza where it had declared the end of major operations in January. At the time, it also predicted its forces would return to prevent a regrouping by the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza.
One site has been Jabalia, the largest of Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps. On Saturday, troops and tanks edged into streets so far spared the ground offensive, residents said.
“Today is the most difficult in terms of the occupation bombardment, air strikes and tank shelling have going on almost non-stop,” said one resident in Jabalia, Ibrahim Khaled, via a chat app.
“We know of dozens of people, martyrs (killed) and wounded, but no ambulance vehicle can get into the area,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli military said its forces have continued to operate in areas across the Gaza Strip including Jabalia and Rafah, carrying out what it called “precise operations against terrorists and infrastructure.”
“The IAF (air force) continues to operate in the Gaza Strip, and struck over 70 terror targets during the past day, including weapons storage facilities, military infrastructure sites, terrorists who posed a threat to IDF troops, and military compounds,” the military said in a statement.
RISING DEATH TOLL
Armed wings of Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, and Fatah said fighters attacked Israeli forces in Jabalia and Rafah with anti-tank rockets, mortar bombs, and explosive devices already planted in some of the roads, killing and wounding many soldiers.
Israel’s military said 281 soldiers have been killed in fighting since the first ground incursions in Gaza on Oct 20.
In the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 1,200 people were killed. About 125 people are still being held in Gaza.
In Rafah, where Israeli tanks thrust into some of the eastern suburbs and clashed with Palestinian fighters there, residents said Israeli bombing from the air and ground persisted all night.
Israel says it must capture Rafah to destroy Hamas and ensure the country’s security.
The post Israel Pushes Into New Parts of Northern Gaza, Recovers Another Slain Hostage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Houthis Attack Another Oil Tanker in Red Sea
Illustrative. Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released Nov. 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – British naval security firm Ambrey said on Saturday it had received information that a Panama-flagged crude oil tanker was attacked in the Red Sea off Yemen’s Mokha.
Ambrey said a radio communication indicated the vessel was hit by a missile and that there was a fire onboard. It did not provide details of the communication.
Yemen’s Houthi jihadists, who controls the most populous parts of Yemen and are aligned with Iran, has staged attacks on ships in the waters off the country for months in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Months of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea have disrupted global shipping, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys around Southern Africa, and stoking fears that the Israel-Hamas war could spread to destabilize the wider Middle East.
The post Houthis Attack Another Oil Tanker in Red Sea first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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