Holocaust commemoration and Tish’a be-Av: The debate over “Yom Ha-Sho’a”

Abstract

I conclude with some personal observations that I consider disturbing and upsetting.52 It would appear from my presentation that we are left with two days on which it is appropriate to remember and mourn for the Holocaust, the ancient day of Tish’a be-Av and the modern day of Yom ha-Sho’a. But, to my mind, we are left, in fact, with no days on which to remember and mourn for the Holocaust in any meaningful way. My experience over the last three decades has demonstrated to me that to do so on Tish’a be-Av sidelines the Holocaust in the shadow of the pre-eminent focus of that day on the destruction of the Temples and the diminution of kevod Yisrael. The reality is that Tish’a be-Av privileges the destruction of the Temples and their aftermath and the result is that even those who do add a special kina for the Holocaust, or do think or speak about Vilna when reading about Mainz, do so only tangentially and almost as an afterthought. What will motivate anyone to recite the optional Holocaust kina or remember pre-war Warsaw in a mere fifty years from now, or even less? The third of the three objections to the Begin proposal just presented has, I fear, proven true. Yom ha-Sho’a has indeed been swallowed up by Tish’a be-Av. The ashes of Auschwitz have been buried under the overwhelming focus on the hurban. (from Conclusion)