The Struggle Over a Date for Yom ha Shoah
GREENBERG, IRVING
The Struggle Over a Date for Yom haShoah IRVINGGREENBERG The great question was; What date would be chosen? From the beginning, this involved one of the most difficult issues in dealing with the...
...Perhaps a period of the year should be set aside, but when...
...Indeed, for many of the dead there were no survivors of the immediate family to say kaddish...
...This was not a one-time incident...
...Under their leadership, the campaign for a memorial soon incorporated armed resistance as a central theme...
...In 1948, the Israeli rabbinate proposed a Yom Kaddish Klali, a general Day of Kaddish to be said for all those who had relatives to say the prayer but no known date of death, and for those who had no relative to say kaddish, in which case others would say it for them...
...Then the emphasis began to shift from memorializing the heroism of physical resistance to memorializing another kind of heroism—the heroism of mother love in the camps, the courage it takes to of educate children in the shadow of death, the humaneness of thousands of self-help tenant committees, and the quiet dignify of people even when standing naked before the gas chambers...
...As long as memory and faith exist they will continue to cast their shadow on each other and duel for dominance in the mind and heart of Jewry and of the world...
...For a review of THE JEWISH WAY, see p. 50...
...Was this event unique or only another tragedy in the long list of tribulations, expulsions and disasters that mark Jewish history...
...But if that was the understanding why not incorporate the remembrance of the Holocaust into the ninth of Av, the day of the Temple's destruction, as most medieval Jewish tragedies had been...
...The great biblical symbol that according to the prophets, would some day prove that the covenant had endured is the reestablishment and repopulation of the land of Israel...
...This decision affirmed that the destruction of the Temple remains the paradigm and acme of Jewish tragedy...
...Zionists in Israel insisted that the day be marked on the Hebrew, or lunar, calendar...
...As for the date, it can be said that no one really accepted it for Yom haShoah...
...Yom haShoah also occurs eight days before Yom haAtzma'ut Israel Independence Day, the fifth of lyar...
...When they decided, it was decisive...
...Interestingly enough, the struggle over Holocaust commemoration was fought not in theological terms, but over what day should be marked...
...The flaws in the reasoning behind the choice of the 27th of Nisan and the all-too-human admixtures in the motives of the contenders provide the necessary "cover" to enable the day to make a credible, persuasive statement about history, God, covenant, and meaning A more obviously "sacred" day would have sharply limited the credibility and unique significance of the day in the present cultural context A formal holy day would not be accepted by many Jews...
...In effect, Passover is wounded but not destroyed, which is the truth witnessed by Jewish life after the catastrophe...
...v'haGevurah, except the Jewish people...
...The day chosen reflects—I would even say proves—the emergence of a new cycle of Jewish history, one in which the human role in the covenant between God and the Jewish people becomes ever more responsible...
...The rabbinate's ruling fell flat The proposal never caught on...
...The day chosen by the rabbinate was Asarah bTevet, the tenth day of the tenth month of the Hebrew calendar...
...Clearly, the selection of the tenth of Tevet reflects the idea of incorporating the newest tragedy into the existing chain of tradition...
...it emerges as a totally "hidden" holy day, perceived as secular...
...Increasingly, the day was referred to as Yom haShoah—leaving off vhaGevurah...
...So massive was the scale of the Holocaust killing (nearly wiping out two major Jewish communities of the world: Poland, and western Russia and the Baltic states) and so reckless its speed that for most of the dead there was no firm knowledge of the yahrtzeii the actual date of death...
...That date, however, was unacceptable to the Orthodox because to impose Yom haShoah on Passover would have buried the joy of Passover under the ashes of Auschwitz and crippled the joyous holiday that was at the very heart of Judaism...
...it went on year-round for years...
...The state of Israel is not a reward or a product or an exchange for the Holocaust it is a response The Jewish people responded to the total assault of death by an incredible outpouring of life The survivors came and rebuilt their lives...
...Jewish life was made precious again...
...But what could be the anniversary of the Holocaust...
...Most of the rabbis—the established "sacred" authority—had failed to grasp the idea of a sacred mourning day that would articulate this epoch-making event The additional holy day was legislated by the Knesset a ''secular" institution acting under the cross purposes of different groups, many of them secular and subject to political argument and even manipulatioa The day thus came into being with few classic religious associations...
...Yom haAtzma'ut is neither recompense for nor resolution of the Holocaust The two events confront each other in unrelieved dialectical tension...
...This psychological breakthrough cleared the way for a new rise in consciousness and an enormous expansion of observance of Yom haShoah in Israel and America...
...But the overall pressures to create a memorial day could no longer be denied...
...On April 12,1951, the Knesset declared the 27th of Nisan as Yom haShoah u'Mered haGetaot (Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day...
...This effort sought to memorialize haShoah \/haGe-vurah, the Holocaust and the Heroism...
...Given the number of Holocaust victims in these categories, the rabbinate also proposed that this communal day for kaddish should also be the day of general Holocaust commemoration...
...Without asking permission from the halachists, halacha was being shaped and was growing within the bosom of the Jewish people Analysts have speculated that the triumphant resolution of the Six-Day War in 1967 overcame, in a way, the barrier erected by the tragic conclusion of the Holocaust People had not been able to confront the story of the Holocaust because the ending was always so devastating Now there was a "reenactment" that ended with miraculous deliverance...
...This is the fast day that marks the beginning of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem that ended with the destruction of the Solomonic Temple on Tisha b'Av (the ninth day of Av) in 586 B.C.E...
...Nothing could more profoundly capture the fundamental relationship of Holocaust and Israel...
...Apparently, the choice of the tenth of Tevet was designed to shore up the dwindling fortunes of an all-but-forgotten day of mourning This proposal of the rabbinate, however, failed to come to grips with the awesome emotional, historical, and theological weight of the Holocaust Far from confronting the Holocaust as a category-shattering event, the Israeli rabbis sought to incorporate this churban, this disaster, within an existing (minor) halachic pattern in order to strengthen that pattern...
...Nevertheless, a striking theological truth emerges from the result of the struggle...
...Classically, Jewish tradition commemorates events by choosing a date connected to the event, preferably an anniversary date such as Passover (the Exodus from Egypt), Chanukah (the defeat of the Seleucids and rededication of the Temple), or Tisha b'Av (the destruction of the First and Second Temples...
...the need for apologetics had declined sharply...
...Finally, after prolonged negotiations, a deal was struck: The compromise day closest to the Warsaw ghetto uprising (the partisan's goal) and the furthest from Passover (the Orthodox request) turned out to be the 27th day of Nisan, four days after the end of Passover...
...The two days are forever twinned, without lessening the tension between destruction and redemption and without betraying the uniqueness of either event It could not have been better orchestrated by Providence fhan it was...
...For the ghetto fighters, there was only one day worthy of being a memorial anniversary for the Holocaust—April 19, the first day of the Warsaw ghetto revolt the greatest revolt of all, the uprising that held the Nazis at bay for 28 days, longer than the resistance of the great French army...
...Adapted from THE JEWISH WAY by Irving Greenberg Copyright • 1988 by Irving Greenberg Reprinted by permission of Summit Books...
...The Orthodox, on the other hand, would be misled by the choice of a previously sacred day into assimilating this tragedy into the earlier ones as if nothing has been changed by the Holocaust As the commemoration day now stands, Passover joy is shadowed by Yom haShoah...
...A new holy day has been added to the Jewish calendar...
...the non-observant would feel excluded by the halachic-sacred dimension...
...From the beginning, this involved one of the most difficult issues in dealing with the Holocaust—that of continuity or discontinuity...
...April 19,1943 was the fifteenth of Nisan, the first night of Passover...
...The Orthodox were unhappy because they had been forced to accept an official day that violated a halachic tradition that prohibits disrupting the joy of the month of Nisan with public mourning The fighters were unhappy because the commemoration was not on the day the uprising began...
...Another critical push for commemoration came from a group of ex-ghetto fighters, partisans, members of the underground resistance to the Nazis...
...No one was satisfied with the outcome...
...The day was -soon referred to as Yom haShoah vTiaGe-vurah (Holocaust and Heroism Day...
Vol. 14 • June 1989 • No. 4
