What is the correct response to the Holocaust and the events of October 7? Rabbi Joseph Dweck addressed these questions last week in an article discussing his recent visits to Poland and Israel. He concluded that we must unite to acknowledge the existence of evil in the human soul, calling it out for what it is and excluding it from our midst.
These are noble goals and Britain is blessed to have a rabbi who speaks with such a powerful moral voice. But I think there is one more crucial lesson which needs to be added.
For me it’s personal. On October 7, my son was in Sderot. When I telephoned him after Simchat Torah, he did not answer. A few seconds later, he messaged me saying Hamas had taken control of his local police station and terrorists were standing outside his local supermarket. He was alone in his flat and he’d been warned not to speak on the phone, switch on a light or even use the toilet; nothing that might draw attention to his presence. Had he made any misstep, he would now be dead or languishing in a tunnel in Gaza. Fortunately, after three days in hiding, he was serving alongside his brother in the IDF reserves.
Like Rabbi Dweck, I was in Poland for the March of the Living. My group sat in the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto recounting the story of Shmuel Zygielbojm, a Polish Jew who was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto to rally support for his community who all faced a death sentence. He was tireless in his campaign. In May 1942, he even addressed the Labour Party Conference in London, pleading for help from the coalition government. But no amount of speeches, broadcasts or newspaper articles were enough to make a difference. On the contrary, even the Bermuda Conference, convened by Britain and America to discuss “the Jewish problem”, concluded that they could not offer a shred of help or hope to the beleaguered European Jews.
In the face of this inaction, Zygielbojm decided there was nothing more he could do. He and his people were powerless. He went to his flat near London’s Porchester Square. Expressing the hope that his final act would be “a resounding cry of protest against the indifference with which the world looks at the destruction of the Jewish world, looks on and does nothing to stop it”, he switched on the gas. His suicide made an impact. It was even featured in Time magazine, but that was not enough to halt the murder of Jews.
Zygielbojm’s narrative is one of despair, but next to the square in Warsaw named in his honour is another landmark, Mila 18, where heroic Jews assembled whatever primitive weapons they could and fought the German army, holding it off for three weeks. They knew that their group of untrained, poorly armed Jewish youth leaders stood no chance of defeating the most powerful army in the world. But they established a principle that inspired rebellions across concentration camps and inspires the Israelis to this day: never again will Jews go like lambs to the slaughter.
It’s an idea that unites Israelis. Amos Oz, one of Israel’s most celebrated authors and an icon of the peace movement, expressed it ten years ago, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge against Hamas. Oz explained that despite his left-leaning sympathies, he disagreed with the peace camp in Europe. They argued Israel should be passive in the face of Hamas’ attacks, Oz saw this turning of the other cheek as a Christian idea to be rejected. As a campaigner for peace, he still believed that Arab aggression had to be countered with force.
Explaining this position, Oz recounted the story of a relative who spent the Holocaust incarcerated in Theresienstadt concentration camp. When, the relative was eventually liberated, it was “not by peace demonstrators with placards and flowers, but by Soviet soldiers with submachine guns”.
The horror of October 7 lies not just in the crimes that took place on that day, nor in the ongoing suffering of the hostages and their families, but in Hamas’ declared ambition to repeat the murder, kidnap and rape at every opportunity until Israel is eliminated. Rabbi Dweck rightly reminds us that the role of the Jewish people is create a world that is peaceful, just, compassionate and spiritual. That is our mission. As part of that programme, Israel must defend its citizens and we must stand in solidarity with the Jewish state. As my teacher Rabbi Shlomo Riskin taught: “Power may corrupt and absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but powerlessness corrupts too, for it necessitates accommodation with and sometimes surrender to evil”.
Rabbi Gideon Sylvester is the United Synagogue’s Israel rabbi and an educator on March of the Living UK
