OPINION

Kosovo Holds Meaning For Jews

and military leadership if such atroci-
n his recent book Kaddish, Leon
ties are to be prevented.
Wieseltier writes: The reason
The moral imperative to act on
that one must hate certain facts
behalf of hundreds of thousands of
is that one must prepare oneself
innocent civilians is overwhelming.
for the possibility of their return. If
One does not have to
the past were really past, then
conclude that what is going
one might permit oneself an
on in Kosovo is the same as
attitude of acceptance, and
the Holocaust — it is not
come away from the study of
— to conclude that it has
history with a feeling of
enough in common with
serenity.
the Nazi treatment of the
"But the past is often only
Jews to require a full-
an earlier instantiation of the
blown commitment to
evil in our hearts. It is not
assist, protect and
precisely the case that history
bring a reversal for
repeats itself. We repeat his-
ABRAH AM H.
the hundreds of
tory or we do not repeat it, if
thousands of
FO XMAN
we choose to stand in the
refugees.
Specia
1
to
the
way of its repetition. For this
The trains for
Jewish News
reason, it is one of the pur-
transfer may not be the
poses of the study of history
death trains to
that we learn to oppose it."
Auschwitz, but they do
Today some believe that what is
involve the same intimidation,
happening in the Balkans is a repeat of
breaking up of families and uproot-
the past. Clearly, Kosovo speaks to the
edness of that time. Fortunately, the
fact that evil is alive. Yet, it is not the
West this time is not standing by
Holocaust, even though it has much
while such atrocities occur.
in common with that tragic period.
While Milosevic is not Hitler, nei-
Kosovo gives the West an opportu-
ther in the extent of his atrocities, nor
nity to make sure we do not repeat
in his threat to world freedom, failure
history, that we do not allow human
to stand up to him, like the early
degradation by a vicious ruler to go
appeasement of Hitler, could lead to
unchallenged. American Jews, I
far greater problems down the road.
believe, have a special obligation to
Whether it is Iraq, Iran, North Korea
support every effort to restore the
or other would-be aggressors, how this
refugees to their homes and to reverse
struggle ends will have critical impact
Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing.
on future behavior. In the post-Cold
Jewish tradition teaches us that if
War world, the dangers of a discredit-
we can save the life of one person, we
ed NATO at a time of proliferation of
save the world. Jewish history teaches
non-conventional forces would be a
us that democracies must take moral
particularly volatile mix.
As Jews we not only are touched
Abraham H. Foxman, a Holocaust
morally and emotionally, and are con-
survivor, is national director of the Anti-
cerned about future strategic implica-
Defamation League.

I

tions, but we also remember the role
of Albanians during the Holocaust. In
a story not sufficiently known, Alba-
nia, under Nazi occupation, protected
all their Jews, be they Albanian citi-
zens or those who arrived seeking
refuge. Their reasons — purely
humanitari-
an.

Albanian citizens took courageous
steps to hide Jews in their homes and
absorbed them in the countryside, dis-
guised as Muslims. In 1943, the Prime
Minister and the Parliament acted to
grant Albanian citizenship to Jews
who had managed to escape there.
As American Jews, we know the
value of American moral and strategic
leadership in the world and the conse-
quences for human rights, democracy,
minorities and Jewish rights for main-
taining the credibility of that leader-
ship. In the 1930s, when isolationism
characterized American policy, there
was no serious leadership to stop
Hitler, resulting in world war and the
Holocaust. Before and even during the

war, rationalizations abounded as to
why the U.S. would not help the
besieged Jews of Europe.
After the war, U.S. leadership
accomplished, among other things,
the triumph of the free world in the
Cold War, the triumph of
democracy throughout the
world and freedom for
oppressed Jews by the
hundreds of thou-
. sands in Russia,
Ethiopia and Syria.
It is reassuring that
NATO, under Ameri-
can leadership, is
acting in concert.
We can only hope that
the Western democra-
cies will pursue this
struggle to a suc- • K
cessful conclu-
sion.
As Jews who care deeply
about the State of Israel, it
should be clear on a moral and
security level that Israel's future well
being is connected to NATO's cam-
paign. Israel knows more than most,
both because it is the Holocaust succes-
sor state and because its very existence
has been under threat from its birth, the
meaning of the horror in Kosovo. Israel
gains morally, strategically and politically
from a victory by the U.S. and NATO,
which would make clear that dictatorial
extremists cannot have their way.
In sum, I believe what is happen-
ing in Kosovo is a great moral test
for us as Jews, as Americans, as
lovers of democracy and as support-
ers of human rights. We are heart-
ened and proud that America is
leading the way. ❑

OPINION

Holocaust Education And Jewish Continuity

F

or those of us who
were born before,
during, or in that
first decade after
the Second World War, the
State of Israel was central to
our identity as Jews.
Many reading this column
remember sitting by the
radio, listening to the broad-
cast of the U.N. vote. We
knew who we were, where
we came from and where

4/30
1999

40 Detroit Jewish News

DEBORAH
DWORK
Special to the
Jewish News

our future lay. We had been
born Jews, which meant that
each and every one of us was
a member of the people of
Israel. One-third of our peo-
ple had been killed in the
Shoah. And now we had a
homeland of our own.
My students, or to be more
precise, my Jewish students,
young people aged 17 to 22,
do not share those senti-
ments. They identify them-

selves as Jews, but they do not know
what that means to them or where it
will take them. They certainly do not
feel commitment to Israel.
As one young man put it, "Why
should I? How can I embrace a place
that does not embrace me? My father
is Jewish; my mother's conversion was
performed by a Conservative rabbi."
Or one of my women students:
"My right to pray at the Wall is my
issue. I may not even know how, but
my right to learn how to do so and to

do so are important to me."
These young Jews are expressing
two sentiments: disaffection with
Israel and affirmation of their identity.
They had made their way into my
courses on the history of the Holo-
caust. What were they doing there?
With minor variations, the answer I
got was the same from scores of
undergraduates, the grandchildren of
American-born Jews and the grand-
children of survivors from Europe. "I
took this course on the history of the