Remembrance

A small reflection while my son naps

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. For a Jewish person, every day is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every night is a Holocaust Remembrance Night. Every headline is a Holocaust Remembrance Headline. Every prescription is a Holocaust Remembrance Prescription. Every Volkswagon is a Holocaust Remembrance Car. Every violent DM is a Holocaust Remembrance DM.

But “remembrance” is distancing when it is enshrined in the past. When the Holocaust is a sepia-toned artifact to be regarded from some far-away future, it calls for reflection, not for action.

When we look at the world with an eye toward our own suffering, we miss everything around us. We miss the point.

As Jews, as urgently as we fight for Jewish safety, for Jewish pride, for Jewish-Arab unity in Israel, for Jewish joy, how could we possibly remember Jewish suffering without looking at even the most neutral reports coming from the incalculable hell wrought by a Jewish army.

What Hamas did on 10/7 was monstrous in a way that echoed the Holocaust for every living Jew. Hamas’s disinformation and dehumanization campaign has been hauntingly similar to the Nazi playbook.

I am watching in horror as the Israeli army becomes its own Hamas propaganda.

During the 2014 Gaza War, Joan Rivers, whom I adore, ranted at a paparazzo who asked her whether or not she stands for a free Palestine. The video went viral. “If New Jersey were shooting rockets at New York, we’d blow them off the map,” she said.

“Ha!” I thought, until I remembered how many cousins I had in New Jersey.

She really thought the logic held.

When the reporter asked her if she thought Israel’s military response was justified, she waved her hands in the air and shouted, “They. Started it. They started it!”

One question I have on this Holocaust Remembrance Day is: Who ends it?

May six million memories be a blessing, not a bloodbath. May we pray for the safe return of the living hostages, the resignation of Bibi and his cabinet, and a lasting ceasefire agreement. Never again, for anyone.

My baby is up and calling “mama” over the monitor. Time to go kiss my ancestors’ wildest dream.