It is no secret that our tiny country is very proud of the memory of the Holocaust and its commemoration. It is no secret that the Holocaust serves as a symbol and a central motif in the backbone of the Israeli ethos, and this is not an indecent thing either. Israeliism proudly engraves on its flag the wild, unbridled and boundless decadence of popular anti-Semitism. It remembers the Holocaust, places it on a pedestal, and waves it at will over and over again at the tragic fate of the Jewish people, in its painful agony, in its tireless exposure. It seeks to instill in its people the firm roots of the state, its justification, and its right to exist through this ordeal.
The Holocaust is indeed the pinnacle of evil and inhumanity, it is indeed incomparable to any other calamity that has befallen the Jewish people and humanity in general, but the big question is what we are supposed to do with this memory. What is a foundational memory?.
If we are talking about memory, then the Holocaust should bring to our minds the multitude of connotations it carries with it; the deception in the guise of human resilience, the inert decline of a nation, the blind captivity in the dragon's arms of heavenly ideals, the temptation within temptation, etc. The Holocaust cannot be presented as a mere persecution of the Jewish people, it cannot center the Jewish people under its wings as a backbone. The Holocaust externalizes with it a rich and loaded collection of angles.
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To forget this (literally), is to turn the memory of the Holocaust into a Holocaust cult. An idol. An object of worship. Holocaust cult becomes an excuse. There is no longer talk about the desire to defend oneself from the harmful arms of enemies and about an attempt to create independence, but rather about permits, patience, and possibility. The Holocaust becomes the symbol for every Jew who wants to do what he wants. The Holocaust obscures and glosses over the massive complexity that surrounds sensitive issues. It covers up the dialectics and whitewashes them. The Holocaust is the ease of actions. A Jew has a privilege, he experiences a Holocaust.
Such a Holocaust cult will drag us, sooner or later, into forgetting the Holocaust. Holocaust memory means the memory of human weakness, the memory of the unfolding of inertia, the memory of the consequences of the glorification of nationalism, the glorification of race, the uniqueness of identity. Holocaust memory echoes before us again and again the great weakness of the caressing image of human resilience. To what extent man is a flowing, inert, led, herd creature, to what extent the lack of refinement of the mechanisms of criticism, self-glorification, self-'rights', are symptoms of an overwhelming mentality of pathetic murder. To what extent there are no guarantors for morality.
The revival of Judaism through the memory of the Holocaust will therefore be the revival of the piercing critical tradition of the rich wisdom of the Talmud. The shekel is fresh. The revival of Judaism will therefore not occur in the warm, pink, and blushing mantle of the anointed tormentor, it will not occur in an impulsive expression of power and militarism, but quite the opposite. The revival of Judaism will seek to glorify the stubborn warfare against evil, it will sharpen excessive caution in relation to the actions of people, their habits and their opinions. It will seek to identify the hidden buds hiding behind every 'righteous' speech, which seeks to divert things through light inertia in one sweeping direction or another. The revival of Judaism will therefore be excessive caution towards reckless nationalism and respectful suspicion towards ideals that ooze the juice and spice of national beauty.
In contrast, the cult of the Holocaust will emphasize the opposite. It will seek to emphasize the plight of the Jews (and rightly so), and their helplessness. In doing so, it will lead to the denigration of the Holocaust, its transformation from an educational memory into a pathetic passion, into neurotic self-righteousness and self-searching, into the glorification of egoism and nationalism, carelessness, superficiality and shallowness. The cult of the Holocaust entails another Holocaust.
And here lies the crux of the matter: Does the 'sanctity' of the Holocaust as it is represented today on various stages contribute to the memory of the Holocaust or not? Does the stubbornness that seeks to isolate the Holocaust, to neutralize it from the image of any other evil, to make it more tragic than tragic, to make it sacred and sacral, contribute to the true memory of the Holocaust? To the lessons it was supposed to produce? Does the endless painting of the Holocaust in abnormal and unusual colors indeed remind us of the Holocaust, or does it actually make us forget it?
If the Holocaust is not normal, then we have a good excuse; they are not normal! If every time we mention the Holocaust as an image and as a metaphor for other atrocities it elicits angry responses and echoes; Don't touch me with the Holocaust---, then we will forget the Holocaust, thereby consigning it to the dusty archives of history. If we continue to claim that the Holocaust cannot be used, that the Holocaust is a one-time event, the most exceptional of all exceptions, then the Holocaust will add nothing to us.
Holocaust remembrance should highlight the 'humanity' of the Nazis, their 'humanity', their 'normality', people like everyone else. Holocaust remembrance signals warning signs. It signals to each and every one of us. The Holocaust got out from under the hands of the normals of the normals, the sane of the sane. That's precisely why it's dangerous, that's precisely why it's disturbing, that's precisely why it's present, remembered.
Every carelessness contains a small Holocaust. High-flown talk about 'justice' and 'rights', about nationalism and militarism, about utopian idealism, touches very nearly on the danger of the Holocaust. The Holocaust should be a model of caution, and therefore a warning against a mentality that is liable to deteriorate far, far beyond itself.
• Menachem Navet is the author of the book 'For Moments, Examine Yourself' about the answer.
