Combating anti-Semitism

Reproduced with permission from ©Haaretzdaily
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/531963.html
Wed., January 26, 2005

On Monday, the UN held for the first time in its history a special memorial session to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. For the first time, the prayer El Maleh Rahamim and the Hatikva were heard at the UN at the opening of an exhibit in memory of the victims. Tomorrow there will be an official ceremony at the site of the concentration camp, with the participation of President Moshe Katsav and delegations from some 40 countries, to mark the liberation of the camp by the Red Army.

The main message of the memorial session at the UN was delivered by Secretary General Kofi Annan: "The evil that destroyed 6 million Jews and others in those camps is one that still threatens all of us today. ... Every generation must be on its guard to make sure that such a thing never happens again."

Yet despite the importance of the ceremonies, it is much easier to give speeches condemning anti-Semitism and its horrors than to take action to eliminate the phenomenon. The mission now facing the world's leaders is actually to fight anti-Semitism and other crimes against humanity. The spirit that imbued the UN session must be translated into action, meaning effective legislation against anti-Semitism and enforcement of that legislation.

The secretary general mentioned the other nations who fell victim to the Nazis, "but the tragedy of the Jewish people was unique," he said, noting that "two-thirds of European Jewry was destroyed, an entire culture lost forever."

Indeed, there is nothing in the history of humankind comparable to the murder of European Jewry. The world has experienced cases of genocide, of horrific deeds in the tempest of battle and world wars in which tens of millions died. But the murder of European Jewry was not done in the heat of battle, nor was it a spontaneous act of violence. It was premeditated, thought-out, well-planned - and it was meant to wipe the memory of the children of Israel from the face of the planet.

The systematic murder was the climax of a process that began with Jew-hatred in earliest times. Afterward, in the Middle Ages, Jews suffered from anti-Semitism: persecution, pogroms, expulsions. The next stage came in the modern era, when one of the most developed countries in the world constructed a supposedly scientific theory about the purity of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the Jewish race.

Therefore, when the latest report on the state of anti-Semitism in the world shows there was a sharp increase in the number of anti-Semitic incidents in the world in 2004, the data should not be taken lightly. In Britain, for example, the number of incidents doubled. In Russia this week a particularly virulent anti-Semitic statement was signed by hundreds of intellectuals calling for the motherland to be protected from the Jews - or as they referred to them, "reincarnations of the devil."

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at the UN assembly that "for the 6 million, the establishment of Israel came too late." He ended his speech with the Hebrew sentence, "In the name of Israel and the Jewish people, I stand before you and swear in the name of all the victims, never again."

We, who have won an independent state, must always remember that the 6 million who were murdered with unimaginable brutality played a part in the establishment of the state. Its very existence is a message to the world that despite the hatred, despite the anti-Semitism, despite the terrible machinery of murder - we are here.