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Udrsad h Hoocaus
RegRets oveR missed oppoRtunities
T
he protest o two weeks agoin Jerusalem’s Kikar Shabbos(Sabbath Square) against theincitement by Israeli secular-ists against the
charedi
com-
munity is still being debated. That some o the protesters were wearing concentration
camp uniorms and yellow Stars o David
with the word “Jude” on them has, or themost part, elicited a negative reaction.
To see Orthodox people abusing thememory o the Holocaust is, o course,painul. What would motivate otherwise
upstanding people to engage in such irre-
sponsible behavior? I think the answermight be that the Holocaust is simplyincomprehensible to them. It cannot be
understood by the human mind, and cer-
tainly not by those who, through the grace
o G-d, were spared rom experiencing
this unspeakable tragedy.
I don’t have anyone these days withwhom to discuss this dark episode in Jewish history. Reb Sender Deutsch, oneo the leading lay people in the Satmar
community and editor o
Der Yid
or manyyears, was someone with whom I was able
to share my queries. Reb Sender was a
very broad minded and intelligent person,a true
talmid chacham
and scholar, and hisopinion and perspective meant a lot to me.
One o my biggest regrets in lie, though,
is that I didn’t pose these questions to theRebbe.
The Rebbe amously linked the Holo-caust to the sin o Zionism. He cited theGemara (Kesubos 111a), that the Jewishpeople have been commanded by G-d
66
AMi MAgAzine
// january 18, 2012
// 23 teves, 5772
LAST WEEK we saw the Principal at the Satmar Rebbe’s side.THIS WEEK we see him regretting those times that he wasn’t.
P h o t o f r o m L u b v i t c h a r c h i v e s
Lubavitcher Rebbe at entranceof 770. Left, Rabbi Hodakov
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