There's no escape from asking how we will continue to remember in the future, and until when. There's no escape from asking how we will continue to remember in the future, and in what way. The annals of Jewish history are rich in tragedies. We don’t really count the small ones anymore. In fact, we don’t even count most of the big ones. The difficult events of the first crusade are not part of the national consciousness of the modern Israeli. The anniversary of the Expulsion of the Jews of Spain is not marked in our calendars. The mass extermination of Jews by the Cossacks in 1648 is not taught in our schools. The students don’t know who Bogdan Khmelnitsky is. The Jewish pogroms that started in Passover 1881 are taught because of their relation to the story of Zionism, but the Israeli flag is not lowered in their honour.
Israel does mark two other great disasters – which are bigger than all of the above – the Holocaust and Tisha B’Av. The memory of the latter belongs to a fairly small population. We could see this as an educational failure, but it could also be seen as an achievement: many years have passed since 70 AD, and people still remember. This makes one wonder: is this how Holocaust Day will be marked around two thousand years from now? And is it our role to try and make sure today that the world will mark Holocaust Day around two thousand years from now?
I'm not sure that it is our role. There are things that every generation needs to decide for itself. If it wants to, it will remember; if it wants to, it will forget. Oblivion has some pluses, but one of its minuses is its permanence. It’s very hard to return a forgotten event back into national consciousness. When the chain of memory is disconnected, when there’s a missing link, there’s no way forward. Therefore, the responsibility that lays on the shoulders of every generation, the responsibility of seriously contemplating what needs to be remembered, is grave.
How do we respond to this responsibility? The Jewish toolbox contains a number of tools that help us remember. Tisha B’Av has survived because a number of religious duties were attached to it: there is a day of fasting; a lament is read; one must sit on the ground; one must avoid pleasures. There are Jews who are genuinely sorry, who genuinely mourn the date, mainly for religious reasons. They want the Temple to be rebuilt. But I also know people for whom this day is mainly a way of connecting with the national history of the Jewish people, because it makes them stop and think about it. They have a sense of loss for the Temple, even if they do not necessarily want to rebuild that which was destructed.
Tisha B’Av is a relevant precedent as Israel – and the rest of the Jewish people – think about the memory of the Holocaust in the generations that will follow, in the years when there will no longer not be survivors among us, when recent events turn into remote history. It is relevant for whoever wants to think about the tools we have to keep the national memory in the long run. Is a siren enough? Are school ceremonies enough? Is restricting TV channels enough? Do take notice: these are all tools used by the state, compulsory measures used to make us remember. They leave the individual free from the duties of remembrance. The state sounds the siren, the state gathers the schoolchildren in their schools’ basketball courts, the state decides what can and cannot be aired on TV.
Tisha B’Av is relevant because it presents us with a picture of what happens to state sponsored remembrance, remembrance that the individual is free from. There is supposedly a law that requires Israel to mourn Tisha B’Av. But go outside and judge for yourselves – is Israel in mourning? In many places, cafes are open. You can hear normal, everyday music from many windows, and the TV schedule is almost as usual. Tisha B’Aav is only marked by those who took upon themselves the duty of remembrance. Those who fast, those who go to the synagogue, those who sit on the ground, those who read laments.
There's a lesson here, or at least the possibility of a lesson: The state doesn't remember – People remember. And in order to remember they need remembrance tools. The Passover Seder is a remembrance tool. The lighting of a Chanukah candle is a remembrance tool. What you do at home, or in your community, together or apart – sometimes willingly, and sometimes less willingly – is a remembrance tool. In order for Holocaust day to have meaning many years from now, we need more than a decision made by the state. We need more than sirens. We need more than school duties. In order for this day to have meaning, we must make it our responsibility. We need to find the tools.
This post is a translation of a Hebrew article I published today in Maariv.
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