Shoah and corona
Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, ceremonies for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day were canceled in Israel and across the world. But Yad Vashem and other institutions have found powerful and innovative ways to enable these events to be recorded, livestreamed and Zoomed, to allow us all to be separate but together in our ongoing efforts to keep the memory of the Shoah alive and ensure that “Never Again” remains never again.
At the same time, the corona era appears to have spawned a new wave of global antisemitism, and we need to be vigilant against blood libels blaming Jews for the current plague, as well as to prevent attacks against Jewish institutions.
In one attack apparently motivated by online forums encouraging violence against Jews, US federal prosecutors said, a member of a white supremacist group planted a homemade bomb at a Jewish assisted-living home named Ruth’s House in Longmeadow, Massachusetts, last week.
There have also been a number of cases of what has been termed “Zoombombing,” in which extremists have interrupted Zoom confrerences with antisemitic hatred. In one case, reported by The Verge, a woman was watching her uncle’s funeral in the US on Zoom when the words “Die Jew” appeared on her screen. On March 27, a synagogue in Maryland reported that virtual Shabbat services were interrupted by someone yelling “Heil Hitler” and “Jewish scum.”
“Extremists never miss an opportunity to leverage a crisis for their hatred,” Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, was quoted as saying. “They’re now trying to bring it into our homes.”
That antisemitism has raised its ugly head again during this pandemic is particularly disturbing. Israel’s first fatality from COVID-19 was a Holocaust survivor from Hungary named Aryeh Even, 88, who died in Jerusalem on March 20. Since then, a number of Holocaust survivors have succumbed to corona, including Benjamin Levin, the last of the partisan Avengers in Poland and a former fighter in the Irgun, who died on April 13, two days after his 93rd birthday, at a Westchester nursing home.
It is even more tragic that survivors such as Even and Levin had to spend their last days alone, away from their families, and had to be buried after tiny funerals due to the virus.
As we honor the memories of six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust and salute the estimated 400,000 survivors still alive today, we should also pause to remember the dozens of survivors who have recently died from corona complications.
The opening ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day was broadcast via the Yad Vashem website, YouTube and Facebook Live on Monday night. Its theme was “Solidarity in a disintegrating world” and included the gripping stories of the six torchlighters and heartfelt prayers from the chief rabbis.
Thousands uploaded messages on virtual plaques on a special memorial site established by the March of the Living organization, which was forced to cancel its annual march from Auschwitz to Birkenau this year for the first time in 32 years, due to the virus.
“The combination of hatred and technology is the greatest danger threatening mankind,” Simon Wiesenthal once said. “Technology without hatred can be a blessing. Technology with hatred is always a disaster.”
As we grapple with the current pandemic, Wiesenthal’s words ring true. But so does the refrain of the “Partisan Song,” posted in English by The Jerusalem Post’s Greer Fay Cashman on Facebook: “Never say that you are walking on your final way. Though blue skies are hidden by days of gray, the hour for which we yearn will yet arrive; The earth will tremble with our tread; We are here!”
Despite the many tragedies experienced by the Jewish people, it has proven to be a resilient nation which today, thankfully, has a state of its own. Israel is a source of strength in fighting antisemitism and hate around the world.
That is why, even as we are separated due to the coronavirus, we stand together and declare “Never Again” for the entire world to hear.