Holocaust 2001

Tuesday morning, September 11th , 8:45 AM. I was at the computer reviewing my agenda for the day. I happened to flick on the TV to catch some morning news and what I saw gripped me with awesome horror. We immediately called our youngest daughter who lives in Manhattan; she was home alone with her two little girls, and beside herself with anguish. “Mike is OK”, the words trickled out between her tears; “He just called from a restaurant and he’s on his way home”. Michael, her husband,  works in a building about two doors away from the World Trade Center. For the remainder of the day, we couldn’t get phone connections to New York until late that afternoon, to learn that everyone we know was OK. We have a lot of friends and family there; we’re ex-New Yorkers,

As we sat in front of the TV all that afternoon, as my mind flashed through memories of prior tragedies I recalled during my lifetime.  I could clearly remember listening to the radio in 1941, as I did every evening. It was December 7th; I was seven years old at the time. My afternoon children’s program was interrupted by a news flash: “This morning the Japanese attacked our fleet at Pearl Harbor. This announcement was quickly followed by President Roosevelt’s memorable speech that concluded with the unforgettable phrase, “This is a day that will go down in infamy”.

I didn’t quite understand the implication of this communiqué, but a fear gripped me in the pit of my stomach signaling that something was desperately wrong. I remember that same feeling early in 1945—I was then 11 years old—when the real news broke out about Hitler’s death camps; prior to that we all thought it was a rumor and refused to believe it. Insidiously, that same feeling invaded my nighttime reveries with the guilt that so many millions of children died and if my grandparents hadn’t the foresight to come to America, I would have been engulfed in the flames too. So that Tuesday, September 11th, in the chaos of my turbulent mind, a curious thought arose: What should the Jewish response be toward such a calamity? Should we feel the same as all Americans given our history of tragedy? Should our response be uniquely Jewish?

We have a history of dire calamities; perhaps by now survival responses to such events are built in to our DNA. Let us never forget the Holocaust of World War II when six million of our brethren died in the fiery infernos of Hitler’s ovens. Do the Jews try to keep all the suffering for themselves? I don’t think so.  On the other hand, does the Holocaust have a particularly crucial and central Jewish element, even though millions of others died? Simply put, the answer is yes. The Holocaust, from its conception to its implementation had a distinctly Jewish aspect to it and, arguably without this Jewish aspect, there would have been no Holocaust. Now over fifty years later, we’re still perplexed by our response to such an unthinkable punishment, just because we were Jews.  We have a way of questioning ourselves in light of groundless destruction. How could God have allowed this to happen?  What wrong did we do that caused God to punish us? Are we conditioned to feeling guilty for our transgressions?  What is the lesson we’re supposed to learn from all of this?

The worst factory fire in the history of New York City. It occurred on March 25th 1911 in the Asch building at the northwest corner of Washington and Greene streets, where the Triangle Shirtwaist Company occupied the top three of ten floors; five hundred women were employed there, mostly Jewish immigrants between the ages of thirteen and twenty-three. A total of 146 women died in less than fifteen minutes. Although there was widespread revulsion and rage over the working conditions that had contributed to the fire, many defended the right of shop owners to resist government safety regulation, and some in government insisted that they were at any rate powerless to impose it.

In times of rebellion and war, hatred and jealousy were vented in severe persecutions and horrifying massacres. Such as the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648–49, when over 100,000 Jews were brutally killed and almost all the communities of the Ukraine were destroyed.
In any discussion of Spain's history, the dramatic massacre of the Seville juderia (Jewish Quarter) in 1391 cannot be omitted. The events took place as follows: In spring of 1391, the Archdeacon of Ecija, Don Fernando Martinez began to go around Seville, preaching and inciting Sevillians against the Jews. Men, women and children had their throats slit without mercy, in their own homes, and in their synagogues. The massacre lasted an entire day and took the lives of 4000 Jewish souls.

How should Jews respond to this horrific tragedy of September 11th? Should we follow the Biblical retaliatory measure, "an eye for and eye"? Or should we follow the propositions of the peace activists calling for no more war, no more loss of innocent lives? How do we deal with the sadness, the fear and the anger we, as Americans, all feel? Did our parents and parents before them have the resources, we have today, in dealing with such trauma? We need to deal with these questions from a unified Jewish perspective. We should discuss such questions in our communities and in our synagogues. But, in the meantime we have to heal the pain and for that we must simply feel our pain. Acknowledge that we are hurting. Understand that feeling this way under these conditions is perfectly normal. We need to be patient and remember the words of our High Holiday liturgy, “Zochreinu l’chaim melech chofetz b’chaim u’v’catveynu b’sefer ha’cahim”, “Remember us for life, O King Who desires life, and inscribe us in the Book of Life”.