In a Place of Shadows: Olmert’s Yad Vashem Speech

As the evening shadows fall upon Jerusalem, and Yom HaShoah (the memorial day for the Holocaust, according to the Hebrew date of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943/5703) is ushered in, the official ceremony at Yad Vashem is never free of an internal built-in tension. It is an official, orchestrated act of the State of Israel, with all that this entails — the central role accorded to political leaders, the presence of a military guard of honor, the presentations treading the path of a well-established ritual.

Many young people find themselves somewhat alienated by the formal and forbidding proceedings. And yet there are moments of heartbreaking humanity, as the stories of the six torch-lighters — one for every million murdered — are told in their own words; as young Israelis, singers and choirs, give words and music to the agony and loss; and sometimes, when the words spoken, even by officials, do reach beyond the worn phrases and remind us of our duty to commit to what those terrible years have taught us.

This year there were important new notes in two of the central speeches.

There has always been a debate (to my mind, somewhat artificial, as one does not exclude the other) as to whether the main “lesson” of the Holocaust is “particularistic” — the need for Jews never to be helpless again — or “universalistic,” referring to the global struggle against man’s inhumanity to man.

Perhaps not unnaturally, in these ceremonies, those speakers representing official positions of power in Israel have tended to address the former. They still do, and with some reason.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert used his address this year to decry those who abuse their academic stature to spread intolerance toward Israel and to question its right to survive and defend itself. The chairman of Yad Vashem, Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, a Holocaust survivor and former MK (member of the Knesset), asked the “enlightened world” by what right they call upon Israel to take risks: What will they do if our goodwill is again met by fire? Say dirges? Build orphanages for our children?

Yet, more clearly than ever (to my memory, at least) there were also significant references to universal values and issues.

> Lapid, while stressing the unique nature of the Holocaust — in which a modern industry of death was put at the service of an ancient, monstrous hatred — also spoke of the acts of genocide the world has seen before and since. And, bluntly, he denounced the horror in Darfur, which the rest of the world is trying to dismiss from its conscience by sending a few bags of flour. (Will his words help change Israel’s response to the needs of the Darfur refugees who come our way? We shall see.)

> Olmert, in an extraordinary element of his address, suggested that one of the proper lessons we must learn is to establish in Israel a society that will be in open opposition to everything the Nazis stood for – a society in which we banish from our hearts all forms of racism and hatred, in which fanaticism will not lead to the persecution of the other and intolerance of ethnic or religious groups. While these principles are enshrined in the Israeli Declaration of Independence of May 1948, which serves, in lieu of a written constitution, as an overall indication of the intent of Israel’s founding fathers (and mothers), it was unusual to hear them reiterated at Yad Vashem, with all the moral force that the occasion lends to his message.

Of course, it is fair and legitimate to ask whether this can undo overnight the problems we face in Arab-Jewish relations; in the field of religious intolerance (even within the Jewish fold); with our own often-prevalent ethnic prejudices; or in the manner foreign workers are treated by the law enforcement agencies. Israel is democratic, and in many ways an essentially tolerant country, but we have far to go before we can present to ourselves, and to the world, the ideal of a just society, rooted in utter rejection of all forms of bigotry.

Still, the very notion that a prime minister, amid great tensions at home and in the world, saw fit to challenge his fellow Israeli citizens in this manner — at this time and place of long shadows — is an important indicator that the meaning of the Holocaust can be, and must be, for us, inclusive of both universal and particularistic dimensions.

Eran Lerman is director of AJC’s Israel/Middle East Office.