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The Real Lesson
Of The Holocaust
With characteristic directness and pas-
sion, Erna Gorman expressed the
painful feelings elicited by Rabbi Ova-
dia Yosef's comments about the Holo-
caust ("Luck, Flukes and Courage,"
Sept. 29, page 72).
To her and other survivors, his
apparent belief that the victims were
the "reincarnated souls of sinners" not
only offends but "desecrates" the
memory of those who perished.
Erna must have called up vast
reserves of courage to confront Rabbi
Yosef, a powerful figure in both religious
and political realms. Scholars of consid-
erable repute who have defended his
statements claim that he had his words
taken out of context, has been misrepre-
sented, mistranslated and generally
abused by an unsympathetic media.
I cannot speak to the theological
issue of Jewish faith in reincarnation, or
to media misrepresentation in Israel.
But I can speak to the underlying ques-
tion of how the Holocaust is taught and
remembered in Orthodox institutions.
In my view, where it is taught at all, the
history is taught badly, without proper
historical knowledge.
The few Orthodox educators with
whom I have spoken seem to know
little or nothing about German
bureaucracies, police units, industrial-
ists, entrepreneurs, the structure and
training of the SS, the Wehrmacht,
the civil service or the various Christ-
ian churches. Such stuff may be
tedious and boring in the details, but
those groups and subjects epitomize
the Holocaust. To study them is to
learn about the perpetrators.
And to learn about the victims is
not to become educated in Jewish sin
and the straying from the righteous
paths of pious ancestors. God may
have "turned His face" from the inno-
cents — some 1 1 /2 million children,
for example, about whom Erna Gor-
man wrote because she was not one
who died. But it was the perpetrators
who turned their bureaucratic and vio-
lent forces — different faces — toward
those children and their families.
If Rabbi Yosef does not know this,
and his Talmudic scholarship does not
yield some compassion and under-
standing of this phenomenon, then
perhaps the project of study, 2,000
years in the making, either needs to
be re-examined or abandoned.
Professor Sidney Bolkosky
University of Michigan-Dearborn
www.detroitjewishnews.com