Trudy Gold
The Impact of the Shoah and the Establishment of Israel on Jewish Identity

Trudy Gold - The Impact of the Shoah and the Establishment of Israel on Jewish Identity

- So, alright, Trud, how are we doing for time?

• It’s time to start, I think. Yes.

• Perfect, perfect. So whenever you’re ready.

• Okay, Wendy.

• Thank you.

• Thank you very much. Bye.

• Bye. Welcome everybody, I just want to say welcome to our participants. Always lovely to have you with us. Oh, okay. Come here, come here.

• [Child] Guess what Benji did?

• That’s grandma–

• I’m sorry.

• [Child] Guess what Benji did? He locked himself out by himself.

• Okay, over to you. Bye bye.

• Okay, Judi, am I full screen?

• [Judi] Trudy, you are full screen,

• Over to you.

• Thank you. Well, good evening everyone and sometimes it’s important to have a little bit of light banter in this particularly dark time. And tonight or this evening, wherever you are, I’ve given myself quite a difficult topic, but I thought at least I could begin to put the issues on the table. I’m not necessarily going to be able to come up with any solutions. This is something that is so personal to all of us and of course, the title is, “The Impact of the Shoah and the Establishment of State Israel on Jewish Identity Today.” Because the first thing to say is that of course, the 20th century is one of the most appalling centuries the world has ever known. There’s a brilliant book by Barbara Tuchman called, “A Distant Mirror”.

In it she models, she takes the model of the 14th century, which was about war, the black death, famine, horror, and she actually mirrors the 20th century, where despite all the advances in technology, nevertheless, she identifies them of two of the worst centuries the world has ever experienced. So when we look at the impact on the Jewish people, let’s never forget that it’s against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous centuries that anyone could experience, where terrible wars, famine, the effects of colonisation, I can go on and on and on. It’s a very, very dark century. And yet in the 20th century, the emergence of the state of Israel after 2,000 years and of course, within three years, and I remember a colleague of mine, an Israeli colleague, when he taught the period ‘45 to '48, he would show footage of the liberation of Belsen, and then he would show footage of the Israeli army marching into Jerusalem.

And of course, the blowing of the shofar before the Western Wall, and these two images, 22 years, the image of the change of the Jew, and of course the important thing is how it was reflected in the diaspora. Now of course, I’ve often quoted to you that saying of Elias Canetti that, “There are in fact no people more difficult to understand than the Jews.” Because that word Jew, before we can look at Jewish identity, is it possible to clarify what we mean by the word Jew? Is it ethnic? For some of us it is, for others, it’s a religious affirmation, Be you reform orthodox, conservative Haredi, it is a religious affirmation. And within the religiosity, of course being Jewish, there are very many divisions, but it’s also a national definition. So the first point, there is no consensus even on what it means to be a Jew. Now, let’s look at statistics. In 1939, there were about 18 million Jews in the world. Europe was the heartland. There were 9 million Jews living in Europe. Nearly 2 million Jews living, Sephardi Jews living in the Arab world. Now obviously this has also completely changed and I want to look at the demographic changes with you 'cause I think it’s important. Israel now has the largest concentration of Jews anywhere in the world. 74% of the population of Israel are Jewish.

Whatever that identification means because for an Israeli, for a Jewish Israeli, there is a secular Israeli identity, a national identity. It’s followed by America, where the statistics put the figures around 6.7 million, which is about 2% of the population. And because I’m aware of where most of our students come from on lockdown, I made particular reference to the countries that we, where most of our students are residing, Canada, 375,000, 1.1%, France with half a million, 0.69, the United Kingdom with about 275,000. These are Jews who affiliate either by synagogue or burial, or affirm on the census. That’s in England, it’s point. In Britain, it’s 0.44 of a percent. In Australia, about 118,000, 0.48%. In Russia, about 300,000. It’s even more difficult to determine who is Jewish in Russia. So you are looking at a people with a world population now of about 14 and a quarter million. And we haven’t obviously made up those tragic numbers of the Shoah, but look how the difference is, before the Shoah, 9 million in Europe where Poland was the heartland, where you had cities like Warsaw that were 35%, crack of 25% lodge a third, and I can go on and on. Mince was 40%.

These were the heartlands of the Jewish world. And if anyone thinks there’s a renaissance of Jewish life in Britain, just remember that in Warsaw in 1939, there were 40 Jewish periodicals and daily newspapers of every spectrum of Jewish opinion. I think in England. Think, just think how many we have in England. And in many ways this is one of the problems that I want to address. So that is the population. And the other point, the first point I want to make, and I think we must emphasise that the Shoah had far more of an impact on the identity of Ashkenazi Jews than it had on the identity of Sephardi Jews. And this is something that Lynn Julius and I were talking about this morning. And I’m thinking that this is something we will probably go on to discuss in a panel for lockdown. Now in nine, in 2013, there was an important survey, the Pew Survey in America of American Jewry and their attitudes towards being Jewish. And the question that was posed, what makes you feel Jewish? And there were various categories. The highest related category was remembering the Holocaust.

73% of those who were questioned, and remember the issue being questioned on is what makes you feel Jewish. Remembering the Holocaust came way above other responses and the other responses, the second response was leading an ethical and moral life. Another response, number three was observing Jewish law. Number four, was caring about Israel, but the response to the Shoah was by far the strongest notion of Jewish identity. And of course, we live in a world today where there are over 80 Holocaust museums worldwide. The March of the Living has become an incredible phenomenon, from Europe there are day trips to Auschwitz. All of these things I think we have to discuss and question. Some are good, some are bad. And it depends entirely on your perspective. Jacob Neusner, he actually said, he’s very worried about it all. He said, “The emotional connection to the Holocaust” and he includes Israel, “has almost supplanted a positive sense of Judaism based on faith and learning.” Now this is another issue that we need to clarify. How much are we now taking our sense of identity through the Shoah? And what is the relationship also for Jews living in the diaspora who are now in the minority to Jews living in Israel? Right, now the other point to make is of course one that there is no real answer to. When you murder a third of a people, what on earth is the response of the other two thirds? Whether they are survivor families, and of course we all know of the acute issues of being the child or grandchild of survivors, but any Jew who affirms has this kind of sense of a continuity with that terrible past.

And how many writers have said, “Every Jewish birth is a defeat for Hitler.” I can remember when I was a student, I went to, you know, it was the swinging '60s, but I went to my first JSOC meeting, and there all us young girls in our thigh-high boots in the '60s gear. And we were told by these rabbis it was our duty to marry quickly and have as many children as possible to make up for the numbers. That was very much one of the issues after the Shoah. And also I remember in 1967, and many of you will also have this memory, that when Israel was, when the war, when the six day war broke out, no news came out of Israel, it was deliberate policy of the Israeli government. And there was this brief period where we thought Israel was going to go under, and the shock waves that went through the diaspora, and the rallying towards the state of Israel, and how much was it related to the liberation 22 years earlier when people had to finally realise the extent of the horror. So these events are entwined.

Now, so it’s also, I think there is a collective trauma about the Shoah. I want to now turn to some of our most influential thinkers and philosophers. Now this is Isaiah Berlin, and this is what he writes. Because don’t forget also we are the people of memory. Look, what are we talking about at Rosh Hashanah? We are the people of memory, our memories, our history, our religiosity. If you think about our methods of prayer, if you think about the home-based services, think about Passover, Pesach. When we sit down and commemorate the exodus from Egypt, we never forget. And I think that’s another point that makes Jewish identity so very important. When there is a collective trauma, it affects all of us. Whether we are practising Jews, cultural Jews, nationalist Jews. And I’m going to introduce another category here. The non-Jewish Jews of Isaac Deutscher. Now this is what Isaiah Berlin had to say. “All Jews who are at all conscious of their identity of Jews are skipped in history. They have longer memories, they are aware of a longer continuity than any other people which has survived.

The bonds that unite them, have proved stronger than the weapons of their persecutors and detractors, and stronger than the persuasion of their own brothers. Fellow Jews who argue these bonds are not strong, that the Jews are united by no more than a common religion or common suffering, that their differences are greater than their similarities, therefore, a more enlightened way of life, liberal, rational, socialist, communists, will cause them to dissolve into the social and national environment.” If this was true, Israel would never have come into being. And this was very much Isaiah Berlin’s very powerful argument, yes in the diaspora. And he himself said, this is what, he also said about his own identity, which gives you a notion of the split identity of so many Jews living in the diaspora. And as I’ve said before, I think for South African Jews it was very, very different because South African Jew, we didn’t have a community they wanted to be part of. But certainly for Jews in Britain, Jews in France, Jews in Germany, in America, that’s a very complex argument because for so long, we believed in hyphenated identity. How true is that today for discussion?

And this is what a Isaiah Berlin said, “When I go to Israel, I don’t feel I’m in a foreign country, in Israel, I don’t particularly feel a Jew, but in England I do. I remain totally loyal to Britain, to Oxford, to liberalism, and to Israel.” He’s saying the great liberal, the great historian of ideas, The Guardian about a year before he died, did a one page article and the banner was, “The greatest living Englishman.” And at the end, he was asked about his own identity, and he said, “But I’m a Jew.” But this also gives you a notion of the divided identity of a Jew. He loves Oxford. He was the first Jew to be a fellow of All Souls. And yet he feels most at home in Israel. The Great Yehuda Bauer. “It seems to me that there was no Jew in the world who was not in some degree socially uneasy. I don’t think that there is a country where Jews feel totally secure.” And then he go, he went on to say, and remember he is the great historian of the Holocaust. “The whole purpose of Zionism is normalisation, the creation of conditions in which the Jews could live as a nation.”

And then he said this, which some of you might find quite tough. “600,000 Jews in Romania were victims before the Nazis, 600 Jews in Poland, did leave because Ramel was at their door. That is the difference. They considered Palestine to be their country and if they had to, they would die for their country.” Now there is very much the Zionist option. Palestine will make us into inverted commas, men again. And he also said, “I don’t want to stop Jews living where they live if they do not mind being a minority. If you don’t want to belong to a minority and you want a normal life, you can only fully attain it in a country which is yours.” And I’m going to finish my little survey of historians and thinkers that I really admire. And of course there are so many of them that you yourself could quote. This is from a man called Abram Leon Sachar. He was president of Brandeis and he wrote an amazing book, “The history of the Jews in the thirties”. And of course he updated it. He lived a very long life and in the '60s, he updated it and in his updating, this is what he had to say, “Which of us could have conceived that Europe steeped in the tradition of the enlightenment renaissance of classical liberalism and public secular education was capable of methodologically destroying its entire Jewish community. In one terrifying convulsion, world Jewry was deprived of a third of its population.

The entire demographic structure of Jewish life was ordered traumatically and irretrievably more than at any time in its long and tragic history. Conversely, only a generation ago, the dream of a Jewish national home in Palestine was still equated with an autonomous enclave within the British imperial system. Today the garrison is gone, and Israeli army has taken it place and the star of David waves from flagpoles.” So the two events of course are entwined because another question you have to ask, and this is a huge division between Israeli and diaspora historians, would there have been an Israel without the greatest tragedy in Jewish history? Now I’m going to do something which I think is quite important, because in order to understand the impact of the Shoah, and in a way that’s a silly thing to say because will we ever really fully understand the impact of the Shoah? Not just on the Jewish world but also on the western world. But how did it happen? That is the big question. And of course I can give you the causation. Many great historians have now been able to list the certain events which made the Shoah happen.

Now, and the reason I’m doing this is because I want to look at the place of antisemitism. So the misery of World War I, a humiliating defeat of Germany, but no great battle in the East, a pandemic, the economic, political and social dislocation of Weimar Germany in the twenties, the decadence of Weimar inverted commas, it was a great modernist artistic centre. But, for many ordinary bourgeois, it was decadent. The strong charismatic leader who said, “Obey me and all will be well for you, just follow me and I will give you back your pride.” With huge charisma, their obsession with race and blood, that of the Nazi party, the obsession with race and blood. And then of course a total war which allowed the monstrosities, plus of course, a passive population from country to country who either collaborated or stood by, apart from a few amazing heroic people, 35,000 of them. That’s not very many out of a European wide population, is it who saved? And then the modern category, modern technology, and willing bureaucracy.

That’s what makes it such a ghastly, ghastly modern crime because it was factories of death that happened over four years. Now, I could spend a whole term discussing these categories with you, but I needed to give them to you because the other issue is where is the place of antisemitism? And now I want to turn to Hyam Maccoby. He’s a very controversial writer, a great scholar, unfortunately like so many of the great, he’s no longer with us, but this is what he had to say. And I, he’s not very fashionable at the moment with the young Turks, but I certainly want to give him a hearing in this presentation. He says this, “Explanations of antisemitism are legion, but the two main ideas, antisemitism as a unique and mysterious phenomenon for which no rational explanation could be advanced. So no explanation can provide real explanations. In particular, the extraordinary persistence of antisemitism, as a form of xenophobia and reaction to the other, are those considered not to be long.”

And then he goes on to say, “Since Jews have remained strangers in society for longer than anyone else, they have encountered more varieties than anyone else. But to put this forward on its own is superficial, because it does not explain why the Jew in Christian society always remain the stranger, however much they may attempt to assimilate even to the extent of becoming a Christian.” And this is the very controversial bit. “Christianity transferred to the Jews the role of enemy, but in an immeasurably enhanced form, since the enemy has become cosmic, aiding Satan in his opposition to the divine scheme of salvation, he turned the Jew into an a cursive people doomed by their history for the role of archetypal traitor, also a usurpation myth. Judaism is now superseded by Christianity as the true Israel.” Christians are now the true Israel. It saddles the Jew with artificial occupation patterns because it pushed the Jews out of the normal society. They become bankers, they become merchants. They are associated with money and trade, and eventually become so demonised to the point at which massacre after massacre becomes inevitable.

And this is what he says, “and that culminates in the Holocaust.” Now that was Maccoby’s view, that in the end the main factor that led to the Shoah was antisemitism and the Jews of Germany, the Jews of Britain, the Jews of France, all of them who believed in assimilation and acculturation, they took on board the Napoleonic idea, or if you like, that notion of be part of civil society, religion is a private affair, and it against these cosmic forces, it means nothing. Now, of course the Zionist took on these ideas very, very early. But within Zionism there are different strands. And that’s important. Of course there’s political Zionist. And if you go back to the arguments of the Zionists, after the pogroms of 1881, Leon Pinsker who had believed that Russia was going to emulate the West, he realised it, it won’t work in Russia, it can never work. And he writes a pamphlet called “Auto Emancipation” and he writes it in German as a Mahnruf, a warning to the Jews of Germany. And he says, “Anti-Semitism”, he calls it Judophobia, 'cause remember he’s a doctor, and this is the beginnings of the study of the psyche.

He said, “Judophobia is a psychic aberration, it is a 2000 year-old disease, it is incurable. Those of you, even those of you who are going to America are fooling yourselves because it’s going to follow you there.” Now within the Zionist movement, of course as it emerges, there are many strands says the political Zionism of Theodor Herzl and his colleagues. And what does Herzl say? “Give us a land”. Think about it. He wants land large enough to satisfy the requirements of a nation. The rest we will manage for ourselves. Political Zionism, putting pressure on the world. Then you have the socialist Zionism, the people who went out to Palestine, who created the Kibbutz movement, the young idealist, left wing idealist who wanted a society based on social justice. And then of course, you come to the Zionism of a Ahad Ha'am, and he said, “The only justification for a Jewish state is if it become the spiritual, moral, and cultural wellspring of the whole Jewish world that will spread light to the diaspora, which will fulfil the dream of Isaiah, and light up the whole world.” What a millstone to give a people. This is the Jewish dream, is it not? We are meant to be the light unto the nations. And Ahad Ha'am puts that on the Zionist movement. You must if you like, create the morally super state. And of course he was a very great influencer of high invites men. And there were many other kinds of Zionism.

There was no doubt with his muscular Zionism, Jabotinsky, “Man is a wolf to man.” And within the Zionist movement, this screaming out against the passivity of the diaspora, which is on one level I think very unfair because if it hadn’t been for the passivity, look what happened. When the sword of Bar Kokhba did rise up, we revolted against the Romans. Look, the zealots held out, but Bar Kokhba was defeated. It’s ben Zakkai and the tradition of study, you can make the case, which Jeremy and I will be arguing about tomorrow, that it’s study an education that kept the Jews together. But now the young Zionist very much influenced by other national movements. It is Bakok members’ rise again. And then of course the other words of Abba Kovner who became the national poet of Israel. We must never again go like sheep to the slaughter. We didn’t, and that is the point. If you actually look at Jewish resistance, it is extraordinary just how much resistance they were. There was physical resistance. Yes, think about the Sobibor uprising. Think about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, that became the signal for revolution throughout the, the Warsaw uprising itself. The mirror was the Warsaw Ghetto.

Think about what happened in Novogrudok. I can go from town to village, that it’s so much. But to young Abba Kovner who survived and joined the partisans, he saw the Jews as passive. Jews of muscle. We must become strong at all costs. as I said before, must rise again. The diaspora is demeaning. And I think it’s fair to say that up until 1967, the Jews of the diaspora walked tall because of Israel. If you think of all the, if you think of the way Israel was portrayed up until 1967, and even in the ‘60s and '70s in Hollywood, I mean, we’re going to have some fun later on in the term when I’m going to look at films like Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow and Judith, where Hollywood plays tribute to Zionism. But I want you to think about the psyche of the founding father of Israel and the other point, because think of the refugees that had to flood into Israel, the survivors, yes, but what about all the refugees from the Arab world? The rise of Zionism had toppled into anti-Zionism, had toppled into antisemitism. Lynn Julius has talked to us about what was actually going on in the Arab world.

We had, Jews had to get out and they became in the first three years of the state, they became the majority citizen. So you’ve got this extraordinary situation where the Jewish world, not only is it emotionally, and morally, and psychologically overturned, it’s physically overturned as well. And Tom Segev, in his brilliant book, “The seventh Million”, this is what he had to say. “And remember, the labour Zionist came to power. The most fateful decisions in Israeli history other than the founding of the state and the mass migrations of the '50s, the six day war and Israel’s nuclear project were all conceived in the shadow of the Holocaust.” If you think about it, tiny little Israel under a left wing government had to go nuclear, why? Why do you think the Americans helped in 73? Because the Israelis had primed their planes with nuclear warheads.

This is the shadow of the Shoah. And he says, “Just as the Holocaust imposed a posthumous collective identity on its 6 million victims so it too form the collective identity of this new country, not just for the survivors but for all Israelis.” And this came out at the, in many ways. But for example, at the time of the Eichmann trial, of course as you all know, Israel went in and captured that Adolf Eichmann in complete disregard of international law. And Nathan Goldman who was, he was president of the World Jewish Congress, he said, “I do not think that the victim should be judged as well.” And this is the response Ben Gurion had to reply to him. There were many articles in pro-Jewish Western press, and also philosophers like Martin Buber. And this is what Ben Gurion had to say, “The Holocaust has no equal. It was an attempt to destroy the Jewish people. It is the particular duty of the state of Israel, the Jewish people’s only sovereign entity, to recount this in its full magnitude and aura, the only crime that has no parallel in human history, antisemitism is caused by the existence of the Jews in exile.” Now remember, this is the prime minister of Israel speaking.

“When they are different, they awaken fear or derision, when they try to be like them, and as usual because more Catholic than the Pope, they are repulsed.” Let me repeat this. “Anti-Semitism is caused by the existence of the Jews in exile. When they are different, they awaken fear or derision, when they try to be like them, and as usual become more catholic than the Pope, they are repulsed.” Now this is the president of the American Jewish committee. He said, “Israel has no right to speak for world Jewry. What is Judaism? Who is a Jew? To what extent is the state of Israel, a Jewish state, is the life of a Jew in Israel more complete than a life of a Jew in any other country?” Now remember this is the '60s, this is the president of the American Jewish Committee. Very angry that Israel has taken on the mantle of the Shoah, that Israel itself is the heir to the Holocaust and has the right to try the war criminals, also with the Claims Conference. Yes, of course individual survivors are helped, but also the state of Israel must be helped. Ben Gurion, this is a response that he did not speak for Jews living in other countries. But he would not forego Israel’s claim to speak in the name of the Holocaust.

He described the victims as people lost to the state of Israel. “The Jewish state is the heir of the 6 million who were murdered. The only heir for these millions, if they had lived, the great majority would’ve come to Israel.” And he went on to describe himself as a Jew who had no concern for what the gentiles say. He says this, “I’m aware that there are differences of opinion amongst many American Jews, but it’s a question of 6 million Jews who were murdered in Europe. They belong to the Jewish people and there is such a thing as Jewish people in the world.” So basically what Ben Gurion is saying is, I don’t really care what the gentiles think. Israel is the Jewish state. And you hear this time and time coming out of Israel, particularly, I think coming out of the right wing of Israel. And please don’t forget also that the founding fathers of Israel be they to the left or be they to the right, the majority of them lost all their families in the Shoah. It’s personal. And remember Zionism had always said something appalling will happen. Now of course in Israel itself, Israel is a country, 74% of it is Jewish.

If we are the people of questioning, what are the proper lessons that we can learn from the Holocaust? And of course I’ve already mentioned Bar Kokhba. “We must be strong at any cost.” And quoting from Ben Gurion, “The failure of the world to save the Jewish people. In fact, many countries colluding disqualifies them of reminding Israel of moral imperatives. Israel’s very existence depends on strength. If a state had been created pre-war, the Jews could have been saved.” Now, but let’s not forget Emil Fackenheim, a theologian who survived the Shoah. He said this, “The 614th commandment now is do not give Hitler a posthumous victory.” And what on earth does that mean? Does it mean Israel must be strong at all costs? Or does it also mean that the Shoah dehumanised, attempted to dehumanise the Jew? We must never, we must almost keep, we must always keep the high moral ground. And this is a debate that rages both in Israel and through the diaspora. So the debate isn’t over. But I cannot really give proper justice to this argument, unless I’m going to talk about the impact of the Holocaust on the non-Jewish world. Up until, I remember 1967 very well, and I’m sure all of you do, they’re around my age, the Western press, there was an extraordinary article by Saul Bellow. He said, “If Israel had lost, the world would’ve sent 30,000 blankets to the surviving Jewish orphans.”

But 1967 was a complete turning point. We can look back now, and see it is a turning point in the way Israel was regarded because how come the state established by Zionism to provide a haven for Jews has now become, and I’m using my words advisedly in terms of the number of motions passed against Israel in the United Nations, the pariah of the world. How have we got there? Are we really saying that Israel is so low on the moral compass, that Israel has become the demon state as Jews have been accused of in the Christian world? Now of course I find that totally, totally unacceptable, inappropriate, and actually downright anti-Semitic. So where does it come from? And I want to say from the outset, I do believe that there is, that we must still feel sympathy for anyone who’s oppressed and that includes the Palestinians. But I’m not talking about that now. What I’m talking about is how the world sees the Jewish state. In many ways, I think we can sum it up with Howard Jacobson when he said, “They can’t forgive us, the Holocaust.” And what seems to be happening, if you think back historically, and I have given lectures of this, the demonization of Israel actually came out of the Soviet Russia and it creeps into the West in the '60s. And I think today, it’s become very much common currency in the liberal left society. Now let me be very careful here.

I am not saying that everything Israel does is right. I was a member of the ITF, which is now IHRA, and I think you all know the IHRA definition. The ITF was actually established in the year 2000. It was the first ever conference of the new millennium. It was established at the behest of the Swedish government, 60 presidents or foreign ministers attended. And the whole notion was, we are going to teach the Holocaust within the scenario of where it happened, it’s become actually worldwide, to fight racism and to fight antisemitism. So that was the ITF. And the IHRA definition, doesn’t say you can’t criticise Israel. Of course you can. You can criticise the government of Israel, you can criticise the settlements, you can criticise anything you want to. Just as you can criticise the, in Britain, the policy of the Tori government or of the labour government, of the labour opposition or whatever you want. That is freedom of speech in a democracy, which I’m sure we all passionately agree with.

However, the demonization of Israel is something else. And I think again, we have to turn to psychology. You see in 1967, Israel no longer was a victim. The Palestinians have now become the victims of the world. And something else has happened. The Shoah is becoming more and more universalized. There is a lot of attention now on post-war genocides. And let me say from the outset, anyone who is murdered or suffers or dies for any other reason than natural causes, it’s an appalling blocks on humanity. But to make the Holocaust, just another example of genocide is to completely miss the point. But by universalizing, it takes it away from the fact that the Jews were the prime victims of the Shoah. Let’s make no bones about it. Yes, of course it was disgusting in its treatment of the Roma. It was disgusting in its treatment of homosexuals, who have had a tragic history. I’m not demeaning it, but the Jews were the only people who were to be wiped off the face of the earth. If Roma, had not mixed their blood with others, they were okay at the beginning. It’s this pollution of the blood, birth was sentenced of death. You can look at the genocide, the Turkish genocide, that was appalling against the Armenians. It’s not even recognised much in the West. What was that about?

It was about power and land. Rwanda horrific, but it was tribal. So what I’m saying to you, by putting it all together in universality and also the way we teach the Holocaust, we’ve ripped it out of Jewish history. I’m going to give another example. My grandson who is 13, 14, he had a class on the Holocaust at school, they had four lessons. At the end of the lesson, the teacher asked any questions and evidently she was a good teacher. But how you can do it in four lessons, when you’ve given no background to who the Jews are, defeats me. But some students wanted to talk about Palestine, these 13, 14 years-olds, do we know how deep it is? This is the tip of the iceberg. That somehow the demonization of Israel, the demonization of the Jewish state, the only way you can justify the Shoah surely, because if you’re going to take my original premise, which is echoed by so many writers, the Nazis did it, with the complicity and active support of millions of people in Germany, in Austria, and in other countries. And in the main, the rest of the world stood by and let it happen. We can go from example to example, Evian, et cetera, et cetera, etcetera. So what I think has been happening, is that we’ve got the, that in order. If we’re going to take Howard Jacobson’s situation, what he says, if we’re going to take that phrase, “They can’t forgive us the Holocaust.” Can we now say that Israel, when Israel steps out of line, Israel’s just as bad as us. The treatment of of other people by Israel, is what the Nazis did. You’ve already seen, I mean from Soviet times onwards, the cartoons equating Israel with Nazism, it goes back to the '60s, as I said before. It is to quote my mother, .

But it’s there. And in the liberal world, it of course it’s not as nasty as that. But the point is, it, and the other issue you get from the from the liberal left, is of course we expect Israel to be better than everyone else because you have been the victims for so many centuries. So we expect you to be better. So basically, it’s hitting from two levels. Now let me be very, very careful here. The right, is just as nasty, the extreme right. But at least you know who they are, and they don’t think that, and they don’t worry about moral conscience. The fascists are just as nasty. The Holocaust deniers are just as nasty. But in terms of teaching the Holocaust, as a way of curing antisemitism and racism, we’ve got to admit that it’s failed dramatically.

Now I think there’s got to be a solution to this. And I’m not giving up on education. I just think we’ve got to be, stop being so pious and we’ve actually got to sit down and work out what’s gone wrong in Holocaust education. And also how can we, if you like, begin to correct the image. Because what is also happening, is that many young Jews, and not so young Jews who don’t have a deep knowledge of Jewish history, they see the image of Israel, and they buy into it. And they become embarrassed about their Jewishness. So another impact of the Shoah and the establishment of the state of Israel is actually embarrassment on the part of many Jews because they feel, I don’t want to be associated with this entity, which I do not agree with, because I don’t agree with the morality of that entity.

You know, it’s fascinating. What Zionism wanted was the normalisation of the Jew, and maybe the most abnormal people in history can never be normalised. But I do think that there are things that we can do in the diaspora. And I think there are things that we have to work on to try and improve the image of Israel. And also to try and help those of our young people who can’t answer questions about the Arab-Israeli conflict, who aren’t, who can’t answer questions about Israel. They awe about the Shoah. They might be incredibly well educated, but we’ve neglected to teach them their own history. It’s the balance, isn’t it? I’m actually going to conclude from an extract, from a brilliant new book by a woman called Dara Horn. It’s called “People Love Dead Jews.” It’s a very, very provocative book. It’s just come out, you really must get hold of it. And this is, her presumption. She’s using the example of the Anne Frank House. Now the Anne Frank House is one of the biggest memorials to inverted commas of the Shoah in the world, over a million visitors a year. It has an incredible reputation. And she tells a story of what happened when it, and I’m quoting from her book, “When a young employee, at the Anne Frank House tried to wear a yarmulke to work, his employees told him to hide it under a baseball hat.” So basically this young Jew is told he can’t wear his yarmulke to go to work. The museum’s goal was neutrality, it was explained. Then this, the Daily Mail.

The British newspaper actually wrote an article about it. And they, this is their explanation to the daily mail journalist. We must have neutrality and a lot. “And a Jew in a yarmulke might interfere with the museum’s neutral position.” This is what was said. It took the museum four months of deliberation before he was actually allowed to wear his yarmulke. And Dara Horn goes on to say, one could call this a simple mistake except another incident happened the previous year. Each audio guide represented by a national flag, except Hebrew, eventually it was corrected. Now Dara horn called this quote, “Concealed Jewish identity.” And she also talks about the diaries themselves. “It was an essential part of the Diaries original publication where several references to Jewish practises were edited away. They were also part of the psychological legacy of Anne Frank’s parents. The price of admission was a assimilation and ingratiating themselves to the culture that ultimately sought to destroy them, that price lies at the heart of Anne Frank’s appeal. She had to hide her identity so much that she was forced to spend two years in a closet. And that closet hiding place for a dead Jewish girl is what millions of visitors want to see.” And that’s how Dara Horn writes about in her brilliant book.

And I think this is, I suppose the question we also have to ask ourselves. And remember, we are living through very, very acute times. There’s a pandemic. There’s a lot of political, social, and economic unrest. And of course the level of antisemitism is going through the roof. Let’s be optimistic because as Jews we have to be, and it will get better, which means the level of antisemitism and the level of all sorts of prejudice is will go down. And also, please don’t forget that within the framework of all of this, I’m not for a minute suggesting that we should use, lose our universal concern for humanity. How can we not feel sick when we see pictures of those Afghani refugees? I’m not saying become so particularist that we forget that we are also members of the human race and we have a duty, a Jewish duty to give to the outside world. But at the same time, I think one of the biggest problems is the image of a lot of that young Jews, and not so young Jews have of their own people. I’m going to stop there. A lot of these ideas are still not completely formed. It’s something I’ve been working on for a long time, and I’m sure we’ve got a lot of questions. Let’s see what’s going on.

Q&A and Comments:

“Repeat Tuckman’s book title please.”

It’s called “A Distant Mirror.” It’s a brilliant book.

Sharon Hassan, oh, this is lovely. “The Jewish population of Gibraltar is a thousand plus out of a population of 30,000, probably the largest percentage in the diaspora.”

Thanks for that Sharon, that’s lovely.

“What makes me feel Jewish? I feel we’re part of the same family.”

This is from Michael. “One significant impact of the Shoah and the reestablishing of Israel is Jews have forgotten to know each other. When I visited Israel, a key takeaway for me was the diversity of faces.”

Yeah, it’s lovely, isn’t it?

Q: Romi, “How do you explain the resurgence of Jewish life in Europe after the Shoah until today.”

A: Romi, that is, I’m not going to give you a simple glib answer on that. That is another debate and another lecture. How do I feel about it? I’ve done a lot of work all over Eastern Europe. I’m not that easy, but it’s very important debate.

Anna, “Yes, we are the people of memory. We repeat next year in Jerusalem or many holidays no matter what our religious affiliation.” Very important point.

Arlene, “A statistic that frightens me is from a bad survey published in New York Times at least 30 years ago. It said if Jews were not religious, it would take two generations for them not to be Jews anymore. Sadly, that played out in my family. I am the only practising Jewish grandchild. My progeny are the only ones who have a Jewish mother. Have you, as you said, this means .” Yes, but I don’t believe that actually, Arlene, of course in our families, we’ve all got stories. If you live in the diaspora, it’s one of, unless you are going to completely cut yourself off, as so many of the Haredi have, because that’s something I haven’t talked about, the impact of the Shoah on the Haredi community, who lost more than any anybody else per capita, by the way. But I don’t believe it’s quite as simple as that. In every generation, look, don’t forget that when they were allowed back from Babylon, only a 10th went. As long as the thread remains. And the other point that I didn’t give enough attention to are the non-Jewish Jews. Never forget there is that incredible category, that Isaac Deutsche called the non-Jewish Jews, these are the people who think they’ve left the Jewish tradition behind. Spinoza, he was excommunicated. Freud who said, if I didn’t belong to the, I did what I did, because I didn’t belong to the compact majority, even Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein, you know, they changed the world too. That is very much part of the Jewish psyche.

This is Alan Morman, “For a South African interest. There’s a remarkable link to an excellent documentary of a 200 years of Jewish community. Here’s the link to Legends and Legacies.”

Alan, Wendy and I keep on promising, but we will be doing quite a long time on South Africa. Not quite sure when it’s going to be, but we’ll be talking about it.

And Michael is answering, “Does your family have a springs connection?” And gives his number.

Bernard Lewis, “A wonderful historian, said, Jewishness is a religion in the fullest sense, a system of belief and worship, a morality in a way of life. A complex of social and cultural values and habits.” Yes, he died at, I think he was 101, but what a great man, Richard Alexander,

Yes, I’ve repeated the name of Barbara’s book. It’s called A Distant, it’s called a “Distant Mirror.”

Q: “If not for the Shoah, would the Catholic church ever visited Nostra aetate?”

A: Oh duh, duh, duh, duh! Look, I’m not going to give a glib answer to that as well. Jewish Catholic relations. We will be going back to it, I promise.

Q: Did Jabotinsky become a full-time citizen of Palestine?

A: Jabotinsky wasn’t allowed back into Palestine after 19, after 1929 because the British wouldn’t allow him in. But you know, I have a hunch with Jabotinsky. He lived either in Bellside Park or in the 14th of Ron Desmond in Paris. I think Jabotinsky is one of these characters who walked the world in a way I think, he the most Zionist of Jews was happier in the cosmopolitan world of Paris and London. That’s my hunch, but that’s just me.

This is from Bev. “Prior to the Shoah in the state of Israel, what primary criteria do you think Jews might have used to identify as Jews? For century, a weaker desire to be identified as Jews…”

Bev, I’m, we’re going to be addressing this. In October, we’re going to be actually looking at, we’re going backwards into history. The Jews of the Renaissances and all sorts of other areas, look up until the modern period. Jews wouldn’t have been part of society unless they converted. And frankly, in mediaeval times, certainly in the Christian world, Jews would’ve believed their culture was superior. You only want to acculturate assimilate when the outside world’s got something you wanted. Do you really think a Jew living in England in the 1200s, would’ve wanted to be an Englishman?

And this is from Eleanor. “Antisemitism is the cause of the Holocaust. The teaching of the Holocaust in America in 12 states, I believe is missing this point. 31 states do not require to teach about the Holocaust. Holocaust museums still standing.”

Yes, I think we’ve got to admit that Holocaust education has not fulfilled its crime purpose. And what do we do about it? And I think also, you know, we are so attached to more and more museums. I would be, I would believe in them if I believe they made a huge difference. Look, let me say that I feel I’ve earned the right to say this because I’ve been involved in Holocaust education for 40 years. And I have to say, I think we got it wrong. I don’t think we got it completely wrong. And I know I’ve got so many colleagues who do the most incredible work against the odds. But I think, and it’s also a question of what can be taught in the various school systems. But you know, if you think about it, if the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli conflict are the only thing that Jews at schools in Britain ever in history know about Jews and in religious studies it’s another story altogether. You know, I mean, what are, where are we?

Now, Marilyn, “The world is round, the fact that a Jew joins another culture does not mean one has to lose Jewish identity and values.”

No, of course not. Marilyn, I think many of us like living like that. We like to live between two worlds. The question is, how easy is it and how easy is it to give that sort of background to one’s children? I think it’s what Moses Mendelssohn dreamt of. It’s what I call walking the tightrope. Can we do that? Because if you’re going to, and what if you’re not religious? Is Jewish culture outside of Israel worth transmitting? Or as Jonathan Sack said in his book, “We’ll we have Jewish grandchildren.” He believed the only way you could really transmit it was through religiosity.

On David Setton saying nice things, thank you. So many of you are.

This is Michael. “Don’t give Hitler a post-war victory. Judeans only marry within the true faith.”

Michael, that is, I know that is very much your view.

Anna, “Many of us who visit study work in Israel became and remain very concerned and devoted to Israel’s wellbeing.”

Yes, yes, of course we are devoted to Israel’s wellbeing. I think the connection with that land at the end of the Eastern Mediterranean is very important to Jews who feel any sense of Jewish consciousness. And remember when Isaiah Berlin said, I mean in on the surface, as I said The Guardian said he was the greatest living Englishman, and yet he said he really only felt comfortable, the man who was the fellow of All Souls. He really only felt comfortable when he was in Israel.

Oh David, Wendy, I hope you’re listening to this. I pressed the wrong button. David is saying, “We could be a light onto the nations. No other group of people have developed a lockdown university during the pandemic.”

Yes, David, I think that’s a lovely point because we are so passionate about knowledge and look about, look at all of you. I mean, I’ve got to know some of you, what a group we are now.

• And Trudy, you’ve got, you’ve got over a thousand devices, Trudy.

• Yeah, that’s, thank you, thank you.

Q: Romi, “Can we recommend a good tour guide of the Nazi history of Berlin? I’ll be going there soon.”

A: Romi, send me details to, send your details to Judy and I will answer you.

Q: Oh, and Jane has given you a . Joe, “Can you mention about the Friends of Israel initiative whose is by mandate ”.

A: Joe, I should have emphasised there are a lot of non-Jews who are very supportive of Israel. I was giving you a broad brush. This is, I knew when I was getting involved in this subject, I just felt I had to do it. I knew it would have problems. Of course there are many, many non-Jews who feel passionately about the existence of the state of Israel. Some because they believe Israel is right actually and has a right to exist, you know.

Q: Did the proponents of Zionism give any consideration to the suggestions of Jewish state in areas of the world other than Palestine?

A: Yes, Israel Zang will and the Jewish territorial trust. I have covered this in previous lectures that will be available once the website is up, but I will be referring to it again.

Q: Romaine, “What does the writer Howard Jacobson means when he says, 'They can’t forgive us the Holocaust’?”

A: He’s talking about the non-Jewish world. You see, it was such an appalling rendering of the world and the main victims were Jews. So what did it do to the non-Jewish world? It made them feel guilty. Look, if you read Gramico’s speech at the United Nations, even from Russians, okay, the cynical Russians, they said to the Assembly of Nations after the Shoah, the Jews deserve a state. One important element is the brilliant use of propaganda. Yes, and you know, then the question is, does Israel care? Durban, Miriam is part pointing to the Durban Conference and the BDS movement. Yeah, of course.

Q: What does ITF stand for?

A: It’s the International Task force, which is now is IHRA, I, H, R, A. The American government of ascribed to it, the British government, the majority of governments worldwide, and universities ascribed to it. Again, can you repeat the name of Hyam? H, Y, A, M, Maccoby. He’s wonderful, he’s written some amazing books.

I think we should stop here because we’ve got a very important lecture next at half past seven I think Wendy, do you I think that’s enough, isn’t it?

• I think so, we have Ali, Anna Field, and Rabbi Manis Friedman speaking about anxiety, social pressure, and Jewish continuity. How do we understand and connect to today’s youth? That is going to be very interesting.

• I think we should try and get our grandchildren to listen to that.

• Did you see my grandchildren?

• Yours are a bit young. With you, it’s your children.

• Good night everyone.

• Well what may I ask, what is the name of the babe, his name?

• Max.

• Max, lovely, lovely. Strong name, muzzle top.

• Yeah, Shmuel.

• Shmuel, Shmuel. Love it, love it.

• It’s Shmuel, yes. So they took, named after their grand, Theo’s grandmother and Justine’s grandmother, and Justin’s grandfather.

• Don’t you just love it? Jewish continuity?

• I do, absolutely, absolutely.

• All right, God bless everyone.

• Thank you Trudy, that’s another outstanding presentation. Thank you everybody for joining us. We look forward to seeing you in about an hour.

• God bless, bye.

• Excellent, thanks, bye-bye.