International Holocaust Remembrance Day shines light on atrocity
As the events of World War II and the Holocaust fall ever further into the past, local Jewish leaders offer a reminder to continue to heed the lessons of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany.
Friday, Jan. 27, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking 78 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The day was designated by the United Nations in 2005.
Israel has its own remembrance day, Yom HaShoah, that will take place this year on April 17 and 18. Many Jewish people worldwide also observe Yom HaShoah.
This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day comes amid a large spike in antisemitic incidents across the United States. According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), there were 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. The ADL says this represents a 34% increase over 2020, and the highest number on record since the organization began recording these incidents in 1979. The ADL has not yet published statistics for 2022.
The majority of the incidents are classified as harassment, but also include vandalism and assaults.
Aaron Meyer, the senior rabbi at Temple Emanuel of South Hills in Mt. Lebanon, said it is important to remember that we are not far removed from that time.
“Particularly in the day and age in which we live where we are bombarded by information, it can be overwhelming and distorting our time frame of history. If something is not immediately in front of us, we relegate it to the ancient past. And the Holocaust is part of the lived experience of many Jewish families in the world today. Everyone is but one or two generations removed from the events of the 1940s,” Meyer said.
For David Novitsky, rabbi of Washington’s Beth Israel congregation, the antisemitism itself is not as worrying as how others respond to it.
“Antisemitism has existed since the time of the Bible. It has existed in every generation in every time. It’s scary,” Novitsky said. “It’s how everyone reacts to the antisemitism. If people remain quiet, and remain silent, that’s how you can have a Holocaust. When good people remain silent and turn their eyes and ears from it. Recognize antisemitism, and call it for what it is.”
In 2021, Beth Israel’s synagogue on North Avenue went up for sale. There are only about three dozen members left, and they worship regularly over Zoom.
Meyer said that as the Jewish communities in Southwestern Pennsylvania have dwindled, some have come to worship in the South Hills.
“With the unfortunate closure and the changing geographical spread of Jews in the greater Pittsburgh area, all of the South Hills communities, whether its Chabad of South Hills, our partners at Beth El Congregation of the South Hills or Temple Emanuel, have absolutely welcomed those who are looking for a place to worship, and who don’t live too far down the road,” Meyer said.
However, communities losing their Jewish populations can open the door for misinformation.
“It is much easier for misunderstandings or erroneous information to spread when you don’t have a lived experience to challenge it,” Meyer said. “To be in a smaller community without a strong Jewish presence means that fewer and fewer people get to meet people of the Jewish community and recognize the shared values, and shared hopes and dreams that unite us.”
According to a 2020 survey conducted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany on Holocaust knowledge among Americans under 40, 63% of respondents did not know 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. There were 7% who said they weren’t sure whether it happened or not, and 3% who outright denied that the Holocaust had occurred.
In recent months, Holocaust denial was given a large platform by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. Ye began a weeks long campaign of antisemitism that began with an October tweet announcing his intent to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”
What followed was a series of media interviews with increasingly charged rhetoric, culminating with him telling conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, “I like Hitler,” and denying that the Holocaust happened.
Meyer admitted to being dismissive of Ye’s bigotry initially, but that a young congregant put the rapper’s influence into perspective.
“I was not particularly disturbed by one person’s rhetoric, as misguided as I believe it was, until one of our high school students pointed out that Kanye West has twice as many social media followers as there are Jews in the world. That really contextualized how much harm one person can do through their words” Meyer said.
Ye has since been banned from major social media platforms. Meyer pointed to both challenging these blatantly false ideas and education as important to stopping the spread of antisemitism.
“We can and should debate opinions. We should never be in a position where we have to defend or debate facts. It’s hard to imagine that we live in a time where people are able to distort information or propagate misinformation to serve their own causes,” Meyer said. “I keep coming back to education as they key. If something doesn’t sound right, check it with a more reliable source. If someone says something hurtful, explore where that stereotype came from, why it is hurtful to members of the community and the challenges of allowing hate to spread,” Meyer said.
Said Novitsky: “The best way to prevent something like that from happening in the future is to remember the past,” Novitsky said. “If people realize their actions could lead to something like this, maybe they’ll be more careful and more kind to one another.”