Category Archives: Jewish History

    The fast of Tish’a B’Av commemorates the litany of suffering that has
befallen the Jewish people since the sin of the biblical spies, who renounced
Jewish destiny on the eve of our entry to the land of Israel. That night – the ninth of Av – became the day set aside for punishment, and for reckoning with the tribulations of Jewish history – the arrows, swords, gas chambers and bombs of our enemies, as well as the self-inflicted wounds that have scarred our service of G-d and the execution of our divine mission.

     Events as varied as the destruction of the two Holy Temples, the fall of
Betar, the Expulsion from Spain in 1492, and the start of World War I 97 years
ago all occurred on Tish’a B’Av. The most recent tragedy added to this
lamentable cycle occurred just six years ago – the Ninth of Av, in the year
2005, was the last day of legal Jewish residence in Gush Katif (in Gaza) and
the northern Shomron. That Expulsion, another example of a self-inflicted
wound, began on the following day, and the repercussions are still real and tangible.

       One way to relive this tragedy – which drove almost 9000 Jews out of their
homes and jobs, and saw the destruction of synagogues, Yeshivot and a thriving
Jewish life – is to visit the Gush Katif Museum in Yerushalayim (5 Shaarei Tzedek Street, about a five minute walk from Machaneh Yehudah). It is a haunting experience that easily evokes sadness, anger, frustration and compassion, sequentially and simultaneously. The museum depicts the history of Jewish settlement in that region – dating from the time of our patriarch Yitzchak – and throughout Jewish history. In its most recent incarnation, one settlement in Gush Katif – Kfar Darom – shares a history with Gush Etzion just south of Yerushalayim. Both blocs were settled by Jews on purchased land before 1948, both were evacuated after the residents were massacred during the War of Independence, and both were resettled after the Six Day War. (To a Foreign Ministry official who recently stated, while  with a group looking at the Etzion Bloc, that Gush Etzion would never be abandoned “because it was settled before 1948,” I asked: “what about Kfar Darom?” My question was met with a grim smile and then a stony silence.

    But the history of Gush Katif, through a timeline, does not begin to
convey the essence of the visiting experience, nor do the pictures of recent life
in Gush Katif – the flourishing of farms, businesses, and hothouses, the pious
life of those pioneers – lovers of Israel who deserved better – and the years
of struggle, against an Arab enemy bent on mayhem and finally a “right-wing” Israeli government that brutally bulldozed their homes and dreams. It was the distressing sound track; the background noise throughout the museum are the actual sounds of the Expulsion – filmed and recorded – soldiers breaking down doors, anguished cries of men and women, the bewilderment of children who do not understand why they are being forced from their homes by soldiers of their own army. It is chilling. There are screens throughout the several rooms that incessantly run the scenes of the expulsion, and a video screened separately that shows the destruction of the aftermath – the burning of the shuls by the Arabs, the devastation of the hothouses that could have provided an income to the “poor” of Gaza had they not demolished them in a demonic frenzy, and the fierce resolve and determination of these settlers that was only broken by a Jewish government, including black-shirted forces of the Israeli government who were trained to employ about a dozen stock phrases (all on display as well) repeated, and repeated, robotically, mechanically. The few soldiers who are shown crying were quickly spirited away, so as not to demoralize the expulsion forces.
There was no resistance that could actually be called resistance. One
family hung a sign on its door (now displayed in the museum, translation mine): “Dear soldier/police officer, Stop!! Here for 12 years dwells the Konki
family in happiness. If you knock on the door, you will be a direct partner in
the worst crime perpetrated in the annals of the nation of Israel. Don’t do
this! You are not obligated to execute this cruel order. We will not be
expelled from our home! We will never leave here!” They too were driven
out, with no place to go.

    If the expulsion were not horrific enough (it did bring great joy to the
Arabs, and electoral success to Hamas in the elections of 2006), the aftermath
was just as pitiless. The government essentially abandoned the settlers, left
them unemployed and unable to find permanent homes, with reparations that fell far short of the value of their homes and businesses, and in a spiteful twist, the obligation to continue to pay the mortgages on their ruined homes. Private
individuals stepped into the breach, in the grand tradition of a compassionate
people, and one in particular, Rav Yosef Rimon of Alon Shvut, stands out for
his self-sacrifice and tireless commitment to help every resident, with the
founding of JobKatif (see their ongoing work at www.Jobkatif.org)  that endeavored to build new lives in new communities. It has not been easy.

     The most recent figures show that after six years, 17% remain unemployed, only 28% of the farmers have even partially restored their farms, only 24% have found permanent housing, and 76% still live in temporary housing (often, caravans dubbed caravillas). About half the businesses have restarted, many in Yad Binyamin and Nitzan – and all these figures are a dramatic improvement from even two years ago. And a friendlier government just passed a new compensation package that is fairer without yet providing full compensation. Sad to say, there were suicides and divorces for those who could not bear the strain.

     Some will argue the great benefit of the Expulsion – the disengagement of Israeli forces from Gaza and the concomitant end to the need to defend the relatively few Jews who lived there. But territory lost is not easily regained, and the brief Gaza war that followed the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit is directly attributable to Israel’s more vulnerable position after the expulsion. Undoubtedly, the military infrastructure that existed in Gaza would have precluded the long-term captivity of Gilad Shalit, whose tragic plight is a direct consequence of the loss of Gush Katif. Of course, if Israel would withdraw from every place in which lives are jeopardized, it would even smaller than it is today, and Sderot and dozens of other communities whose residents’ lives became even more miserable in the aftermath of the expulsion – to the tune of more than 10,000 rockets – would no longer exist.

     Not that it matters, but polls in Israel showed almost immediate regret, and more recent polls indicate that 2/3 of the respondents who supported the expulsion now regret their decision. Yet, more than half do not favor current resettlement of Gush Katif, but even that figure is low considering that resettlement now would obviously require a victory in war.

    The other consequences are more personal but equally telling. All the major government figures involved in the expulsion have had their lives visibly destroyed. Ariel Sharon remains in his own personal exile, suspended between the living and the dead, between heaven and earth, for more than five years. Ehud Olmert left office in shame, compounded by the ignominy of the several criminal trials that he is currently litigating. Moshe Katzav, who as president was not an active supporter but did nothing to stop the expulsion, left office in disgrace, convicted of rape and sentenced to prison (appeal pending). Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is on the outside of politics looking in, and the IDF Chief Rabbi, who later regretted and apologized for his participation, suffered public rebuke and career turmoil. Dan Halutz, appointed as Chief of Staff when Boogie Yaalon was dismissed because Yaalon could not be trusted by Sharon to carry out his plans, soon presided over the 2006 Lebanon War fiasco and resigned in shame. Only Shimon Peres landed on his feet, elected President after Katzav was forced to resign – but even Peres was repudiated by his own party and lost the election to be Labor Party leader just three months after the expulsion. In a real sense, Binyamin Netanyahu salvaged his career by belatedly opposing the expulsion and resigning from the Sharon cabinet, and Ehud Barak was out of government altogether. All others have paid a steep price, as it turns out.

    Israel democracy also underwent a terrible crisis from which it has yet to recover. Sharon’s deceit, and manipulation of votes (firing members of the cabinet to provide himself an artificial majority, ignoring the results of the Likud referendum, etc.), has undermined many people’s faith – especially the young – in democracy, the authority of the Israeli government, police and military, and the wisdom and morality of its leaders.

    The Expulsion from Gush Katif was therefore a debacle in every respect, and the full price has yet to be paid. I own a book called “Encyclopedia Idiotica,” which depicts history’s worst decisions – Napoleon’s march on Russia, Custer’s last stand, Churchill at Gallipolli, Chernobyl and the like – which, unfortunately, was published before the Gush Katif disaster. Perhaps a future addition will include it – how a nation willfully wronged its own citizens in a misguided effort to promote its national security and better its international image.     We can only pray that its true benefit lies in the reluctance future governments will have to similar abuse its own people.
In the interim, it behooves all – especially those with short memories – to visit the Gush Katif Museum (admission discounted for the next week) in Yerushalayim and live through one of the saddest, self-destructive events in the history of the Jewish people, and pray for a better future.

The Nine Days of national mourning, leading up to the Ninth of Av, commemorate all the travails of Jewish history. It is a timely opportunity to re-visit the horrors of the Holocaust. One who thinks that there is nothing that possibly could be added to our knowledge of the Holocaust should read last year’s “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin,” by Yale professor Timothy Snyder. It is a book that is brutal, unsparing and, if it could be said, sheds new light on the Holocaust.

    The bloodlands were the areas of Eastern Europe between the Baltic and the Black Sea, primarily Western Russia and Ukraine, nearby provinces and especially Poland, situated between Hitler and Stalin, territory that was fought over and occupied by both Germany and the USSR – and the area in which most of the mass murder committed between 1933-1945 took place. A reviewer last year in the Wall Street Journal suggested that Jews might be disappointed in the book, which places the Holocaust in “perspective,” as a part of the massacres that took place in that locale that consumed more than fourteen million civilian lives during that period – through intentional policies of mass starvation, liquidation of elements potentially hostile to Hitler and Stalin and the Holocaust. I disagree, because the accounts of the genocide that we call the Holocaust are sufficiently distinct and horrific that the Holocaust remains unique, with a level of evil that is still truly unfathomable.

    The sordid tale begins with Stalin’s mass murder in the mid-30’s, the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians to reduce their population, and a story that is chilling to read. They were simply deprived of food – a tactic that Hitler later used to murder Soviet POWs (most died within a month, simply given nothing to it). Stalin then added to his resume with the Great Terror of the late 1930’s, the murder of hundreds of thousands of political opponents, perceived threats, peasants, minorities and undesirables – and this long before Hitler had begun his extermination programs. (In sum, although the numbers are not always precise, Stalin murdered more than Hitler, but, in a century infamous for killing – the worst in history – Mao Zedong murdered more than either Hitler or Stalin, estimated at seventy million Chinese civilians executed during his progressive reign.)

   Hitler and Stalin killed together, when they occupied Poland from 1939-1941, several hundred thousand members of the Polish elites and intelligentsia, and, of course, Poland became the killing fields of the Holocaust when Nazi Germany
built six death camps scattered about Poland – where, in addition to the
murders committed in the occupied USSR, Snyder estimates that Germans killed approximately 5.4 million Jews. (Interestingly, and sometimes maddeningly, Snyder refuses to use the “six million” figure for those victims of Germany – at one point writing that Germans murdered 5.2 million Jews, and at another point, 5.4 million Jews. Omitted in these calculations, but referenced
elsewhere in the book, are the hundreds of thousands of Jews murdered by
Romanians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians and occasionally Russians, which brings the total to the infamous 6,000,000 Jews murdered in the Nazi genocide.)

   Snyder contrasts and compares the Soviet and German styles of genocide, the various rationalizations and methods, and the systematic nature of both. While Hitler almost exclusively murdered non-Germans, Stalin primarily murdered his own citizens. Hitler, had he successfully advanced eastward and captured Moscow and much of the Soviet Union, would have simply starved the population – tens of millions to death. He did succeed in murdering three million Soviet POWs within a few months, through mass starvation. Incomprehensibly, they were doomed in any event, as Stalin ordered the execution of any Soviet prisoner who was freed, on the assumption that any survivor was a traitor. (This included Stalin’s own son, who was captured in battle and for whose freedom Stalin refused to negotiate; Stalin’s son committed suicide in German prison.)

    Among his findings, many of which are counterintuitive but meticulously researched, was that our impressions of Holocaust are skewed because they are shaped by accounts of the survivors of the concentration camps – but they were, to use an unfortunate term, the “fortunate” victims of the Holocaust. They had a chance of survival. The death camps – Treblinka, Birkenau, Chelmno,  Maidanek, Sobibor and Belzec – had few survivors (some death camps literally had none or a handful) to tell their tales. For all of Auschwitz’ notoriety – all deserved, and certainly it is not meant here to depreciate the horror – Jews were killed faster through the “shooting squads” and at Treblinka and Sobibor. By the time Auschwitz became the major death factory, most Jewish victims of the Holocaust had already been murdered; by the time Birkenau opened for its grisly business – in the spring of 1943 – ¾ of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were already dead. And most Jews never saw the inside of a concentration camp – they were either gunned down near their homes, died of malnutrition or starvation, or were gassed immediately upon arrival in one of the murder facilities. (For example, we are familiar with the gruesome tattoos that were given to Jews upon arrival at some concentration camps – but most Jews were not tattooed; they were simply murdered even before they were numbered and dehumanized. Or, we are too familiar with the dreadful, unspeakable treatment of Jews in Bergen Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, etc. But those were not killing centers – Jews (and others) were killed there, and died of disease there, but the purpose of the incarceration there was not to kill them but to exploit them. Most Jews suffered a more immediate fate – a quick death.)

     Interestingly, Allied forces never made it as far as the bloodlands, which were liberated by Soviet forces – still another reason why American and survivor accounts are centered on smaller concentration camps and not the major killing zones.

     Similarly, the Nazi extermination program was not random or haphazard, but painstaking in its organization. The pace of extermination of Jews varied from time to time. If labor was needed, then Jews were kept alive to serve the Nazi war machine. If food was needed more, even considering the meager amount of food provided to inmates, then those laborers were just murdered. Most Polish Jews were murdered before the end of 1942, when they were construed by the Nazis as “useless eaters.” But in 1943, Hans Frank (Nazi Governor-General of Poland) needed labor and kept Jews alive longer, working them to death rather than gassing them. This accounts for the survival of Jews in the concentration camps – as long as they could work – and the systematic massacre in the death camps of those who could not or were not given the opportunity. Jews imprisoned in the ghettoes could not figure out the logic of deportations, but there was a cruel and macabre logic behind it. Killing Jews was a Nazi war objective, but as the war raged and Nazi fortunes plummeted, it became the primary objective of the collapsing Reich.

       Part of the confusion lies in the dual “use” of Auschwitz, a concentration and labor camp to which was attached (for administrative purposes) the death camp at Birkenau about two miles away. The accounts of the methodical slaughter  are still unnerving, despite their familiarity – the enlistment of Jews in the machinery of death in the ghettoes and in some camps, the inhuman viciousness of Ukrainians, Lithuanians and others who served as guards, the Poles who would mock the deportation trains as they passed by moving a figure across their throats, and the “efficiency” of some death factories and the problems found in others. His account of the last minutes of life for thousands of Jews in Treblinka could serve as an elegy on Tish’a B’Av.

    Snyder concludes with an analysis of racial and Jew-hatred post-Holocaust, in Poland and especially in the Soviet Union in which Stalin resumed his mass killings and shortly before his death plotted the extermination of every Jew in his realm – even, sad to say, loyal Communists. Part of his paranoia was because of the establishment of the State of Israel, which indeed brought joy to many Soviet Jews. (One Politburo member’s wife exclaimed: “Now, we too have our own homeland!”) Stalin felt that no Jew could thenceforth be loyal to the USSR. Litvinov, the late 1930’s Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, had been fired because he was a Jew with whom Hitler refused to negotiate, and replaced by Molotov – whose Jewish wife was arrested in 1949 and charged with treason – at which point Molotov himself was fired (because his wife was Jewish). The irony, of course, is that Molotov was chosen because he wasn’t Jewish and Litvinov was, and then fired because his own wife was Jewish.

   Seventy years have passed since the start of the Holocaust, and it is still difficult to wrap our minds about the nature of the ruthlessness and inhumanity that perpetrated that evil. “Bloodlands” can’t explain it fully either, but places it in the context of two evil regimes who perceived the survival of their political and social philosophies as dependent on the systematic extermination of real and imagined enemies. It is not a book exclusively about Jewish suffering during World War II, but about the suffering inflicted on human beings – many of whom were Jews who were indeed singled out for special horrors. It is a sobering reminder that evil in the world remains, and we err in seeking it only in the forms and patterns to which we have become accustomed. We err as well in thinking that evil that targets one population will not eventually spread to others, as Westerners learned in the last two decades when it deemed Arab terror as just a “Jewish problem.”

    Not quite.