Remembrance of the Holocaust in Israel

The Holocaust Remembrance in Israel refers to how the Holocaust is expressed in the country's social and cultural discourse. This encompasses commemoration as well as the various ways the Holocaust is situated within the Israeli ethos. Examining the place of the Holocaust in Israeli public memory involves historical, sociological, anthropological, and cultural discussions. Holocaust remembrance also significantly impacts theological issues, such as religious faith during and after the Holocaust.

Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett speaks in the Forest of the Martyrs at the Holocaust Day ceremony in 1954

Scroll of Fire

Holocaust remembrance reflects the way the Holocaust is perceived within the secular Zionist Israeli ethos, and to a large extent the national religious public. The ultra-Orthodox community and Israeli Arabs, however, have quite different perceptions of the Holocaust.

Over time, several changes have occurred in Holocaust remembrance in Israel. The most prominent is a shift from a collective to a personal-individual approach. Terms like "the Jewish people" and "six million" have given way to personal survivor narratives and the "Every Person Has a Name" project to commemorate victims' names. This humanization extends to the perpetrators as well, as the Nazis are no longer depicted as inhuman monsters, but as humanity in its most extreme form.

Another change is the transformation of victims into heroes. The image of the fighting, pioneer Israeli Sabra could not easily identify with Holocaust victims. In the early years, only ghetto rebels and partisan fighters were celebrated. However, over time, endurance and holding out to the last were also redefined as heroism. Consequently, the status of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has diminished compared to non-violent resistance, such as smuggling food and secretly studying Torah.

The state's place until the eichmann trial

The state approach

The approach prevalent in the state's early years is defined by researchers as "the state approach," identifying its origin in the study house of David Ben-Gurion. This approach was based on several principles:

• The State of Israel is the center of the Jewish people, a center for its loyalty and identification and a focus for the formation of its identity and the preservation of its existence.
• Negation of the Diaspora: The State of Israel symbolizes the opposite of the passive and subordinate existence of the Jews in the Diaspora; a citizen of the State of Israel is a proud, self-confident, and free Jew. The heritage of the Israeli Jew does not rely on the Diaspora, but rather on his earlier history, when he indeed was a free man.
• Integration into the family of nations: The proponents of the state approach aspire to integrate the State of Israel into the family of nations as an equal among equals. The victim consciousness of the Diaspora is invalid, as it prevents this integration, and therefore the Diaspora and its heritage must be negated. Antisemitism is but a consequence of the unnatural existence of the Jewish people in the Diaspora; when Jews have a normal existence, in a state like all other states, antisemitism will be eradicated.

Further reading

• Roni Stauber, The Lesson for the Generation, Holocaust and Heroism in the Public Thought in Israel, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2000
• Micha Balef, A Voice Not Silenced: Shaping the Memory of the Holocaust and its Commemoration in the Kibbutz Movement, The United Kibbutz Publishing House and Yad Tabenkin, 2008.
• Bella Guterman, Hanna Yablonka, Avner Shalev (Editors), 'We Are Here – Holocaust Survivors in the State of Israel, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2008.
• Boaz Cohen, The Coming Generations How Will They Know – The Birth and Development of Israeli Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem Publications, Jerusalem, 2010.
• Rivka Parciack, Here and There, Now and in Days to Come – The Holocaust Rift and its Expression in Cemeteries and Monuments in Poland and Israel, Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2007.
• Liat Steir-Livny, Two Faces in the Mirror: Representation of Holocaust Survivors in Israeli Cinema, Magnes Press, Jerusalem, 2009.
• Yair Auron, The Pain of Knowledge – Issues in Teaching the Holocaust and Genocide, The Open University Press, Tel Aviv, 2003.
• Dori, N. (2018). The Flag, The Broom and The Boots: Two Holocaust Stories for Young Children. Kiryat Shmuel, Haifa: Shanan – The Religious Academic College of Education.
• Liat Steir-Livny, The Mountain of Memory Will Remember in My Place: The New Memory of the Holocaust in Israeli Popular Culture, Tel Aviv: Resling, 2014.
• Liat Steir-Livny, Remaking Holocaust Memory: Documentary Cinema by Third-Generation Survivors in Israel, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2019.
• Michal Govrin, Dana Freibach-Heifetz, Eti Ben-Zaken (Editors), But There Was Love – Shaping the Memory of the Holocaust, Carmel Publishing, 2021.

External links

• Efrat Balberg, Historiography, Consciousness and Memory: Historical and Pedagogical Aspects, on the Yad Vashem website
• Teaching the Holocaust through Literature, on the Yad Vashem website
• Michal Shaul, Holocaust Memory in the Ultra-Orthodox Society- A Story of Continuity and Persistence, on the "Yad Vashem" website
• Anat Livneh, Shaping the Holocaust Memories of the Survivors Influenced by Their Encounter with the Land, a research based on memoirs about the Holocaust published in Israel between the years 1945–1961, 2006
• Liat Steir-Livni, One Trauma, Two Perspectives, Three Years: Aspects of Holocaust and Revival in the Land-of-Israel and Jewish-American Propaganda 1945–1948, Herzl Institute, University of Haifa, 2018.