| Rosh
Hashanah 2001 First Day
Genocide –"Never
Again!"
Yiddish is not only a Jewish language in terms of communication,
it is also a rich repository of Jewish attitudes and values. In
his marvelous book Treasury of Jewish Quotations , Leo Rosten captures
many traditional Jewish perspectives.
In discussing our fate in this world, Rosten has recorded the
following:
"Misfortune
seldom misses a Jew."
"When
trouble comes, Jews feel it first; when fortune smiles, Jews
feel it last."
"Gentiles
aren't used to Jewish troubles."
Obviously, the shtetl and the ghetto were not always the happiest
places for our ancestors. And as we come to the end of this century
and look back, we easily understand the feelings of earlier generations
of Jews. From a certain perspective, the century began with pogroms,
reached its nadir in the Holocaust and concluded with an attack
on Jewish children in a Jewish Community Center in California .
And if that is the perspective one has, no wonder so many Jews
in this country want little or nothing to do with Judaism and the
Jewish community. It surely must be safer to remain at a distance.
But perhaps we have been too self-absorbed in our own problems.
Perhaps our own suffering has caused us to loose sight of the total
picture.
There
are sermons I pursue because a topic is of interest or concern
to me, and I think it should be to you as well. And then there
are sermons that I feel pursue me, even if on some level I am uncomfortable
with them. This morning I want to discuss a topic that pursued
me during Yom HaShoah, the day we commemorate the horror and pain
of the Holocaust. Parts of this sermon will be "R" rated because
of their violence. This is a warning for children, not adults,
because I obviously feel that the adults need to hear it.
I
was sitting at the Yom HaShoah observance listening to teenagers
talk very movingly about their experiences in the March of the
Living. As so often in the past on similar occasions, I heard the
phrase, "Never Again." But at that very moment, our newspapers
were reporting almost daily atrocities in Kosovo. And yet, here
were Jewish children standing in front of the community, in some
sense avowing and in some sense pledging, that they would see to
it that "THE" Holocaust, or was it "A" Holocaust would occur "Never
Again!" And this phrase called out to me, virtually screamed at
me, what does "Never Again" mean? "Never Again" for the Jews? or "Never
Again" for anyone? But we already know from our folk tradition, "Gentiles
aren't used to Jewish troubles." Is that so, and what if it is
not?
I have no intention of reviewing all of human history, but as
we approach the twenty-first century, it should be worthwhile to
look back candidly at the past one hundred years, so that we might
learn something from history before we move on into a new millenium.
In
general, the expression "Never Again" is referenced to the
Holocaust. I could not find who first used it in that connection,
but certainly by the late 1960s, already thirty years ago, the
Jewish Defense League adopted this expression as its slogan in
protecting Jews in New York , and later in defense of Soviet Jewry,
Israel and Jews in Arab countries. There is absolutely no doubt
that "Never Again" applied to the Jewish people, but did it, or
should it, apply to other peoples as well?
The name Adolph Hitler should be cursed by every decent person
as long as a human being or extraterrestrial being draws a breath
anywhere in any galaxy. But when it comes to the topic of genocide,
Hitler learned and taught us all, Jews and gentiles alike, a very
significant lesson.
In reference to the West tolerating the destruction of European
Jewry, Hitler is reported to have said in the late 1930s or early
1940s:
"Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Who indeed? I am not sure that we know how many Armenians died
at the hands of the Turks, at least hundreds of thousands, probably
over a million. But if the precise number is not known, the nature
of how they were treated is only too well recorded. In the book
Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide , we find the
following report.
"One of the most terrible sights ever seen in Aleppo was the arrival
early in August, 1915, of some 5,000 terribly emaciated, dirty,
ragged and sick women and children,… These people were the only
survivors of the thrifty and well to do Armenian population of
the province of Sivas , carefully estimated to have originally
been over 300,000 souls! And what had become of the balance? From
the most intelligent of those that miraculously reached Aleppo
it was learned that in the early Spring the men and the boys over
14 years old had been called to the police stations in the province
on different mornings stretching over a period of several weeks,
and had been sent off in groups of 1,000 to 2,000 each, tied together
with ropes, and that nothing had ever been heard of them thereafter."
"Shortly after reports of the spring 1915 deportations began to
appear in the Western press, Viscount James Bryce, a member of
the British Parliament and former ambassador to the United States,
secured the services of a young historian, Arnold Toynbee, to collect
and organize eyewitness accounts… [of the Armenian genocide.]
Among
the 149 documents contained in the Bryce/Toynbee volume, it is
possible to find…graphic passages detailing the deportations.
Two…examples will suffice, both describing events in the city of
Moush :
The
leading Armenians of the town and the headmen of the villages
were subjected to revolting tortures. Their finger nails and then
their toenails were forcibly extracted; their teeth were knocked
out, and in some cases their noses were whittled down…The female
relatives of the victims who came to the rescue were outraged in
public before the very eyes of their mutilated husbands and brothers…
The
shortest method for disposing of the women and children concentrated
in the various camps was to burn them. Fire was set to large wooden
sheds…and these absolutely helpless women and children were roasted
to death."
The
SS and other Nazis clearly had teachers of inhuman viciousness
and torture. But the Armenian slaughter occurred a few decades
before the
Holocaust; before anyone uttered the phrase: "Never
Again!" Surely, humanity must have learned from the Holocaust that
such depravity would never be tolerated again! I will not torture
you with readings from all the possibilities since World War II,
but will limit myself to three specific events, all of which have
occurred during my rabbinate here in Bethlehem . Let us as Jews,
as the descendents of those who suffered in this century from pogroms,
the Holocaust and various forms of anti-Semitism, listen carefully
to what has happened to others in the past quarter of a century
since someone, or we collectively, said: "Never Again."
Listen carefully to the words of Bruce Sharp who has written several
articles about the events in Cambodia from 1975-1979.
"There is nothing unique about government-sponsored violence.
There is, in fact, nothing especially unusual about widespread
killing, or even genocide. The rallying cry heard in the wake of
World War II – "Never Again!" – is a noble sentiment, and not a
reflection of reality….
The
reign of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia ranks as one of the most
disastrous in modern history. It could be persuasively argued that
it was, in fact, the worst."
Needless to say, I disagree that it was worse than the Holocaust,
but Mr. Sharp's opinion does show that we Jews do not have a monopoly
on tragedy.
Mr.
Sharp continues writing in 1997. "It is important to understand
the Cambodian revolution in context. Scholars currently investigating
mass graves in Cambodia now estimate Pol Pot's three-and-a-half
year reign led to the deaths of approximately two million people.
There were no precise statistics on the population of the country
when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, but it is likely that
the number of deaths represented between fifteen and twenty percent
of the entire population."
The Holocaust destroyed a third of world Jewry, that is substantially
more than fifteen or twenty percent. But if we listen to the story
of Thida Mam, we surely should recognize the magnitude of the Cambodian
disaster.
"When the Khmer Rouge came to power, I was a fifteen year old
school girl who cared little about politics and blindly trusted
that Pol Pot and others wanted what was best for the people, … My
first encounter with the Khmer Rouge was one of hostility, deception
and violence. At gunpoint, the Khmer Rouge soldiers ordered all
of us to leave our homes and abandon the city – supposedly to escape
being bombed by the Americans. We were confused and intimidated,
and so, with no apparent compelling reason to resist their orders,
we became a nation of homeless refugees overnight. By the time
we realized that leaving the city had been a trick to strip us
of our homes and our possessions, it was too late to resist. …
When
people were told we could return to the countryside and help
produce food, my family chose to go to our ancestral village,… Every
year, the rice planting season was followed by the killing seasons.
The Khmer Rouge ordered the relocation of thousands of families.
[Ah yes, the Nazis were effective teachers.] Very few families
were truly relocated to clear new land. Most of the trucks and
ox carts containing these people were driven to mass graves in
jungle clearings and deep wells.
In
the killing season of 1978, a village leader rode his bike into
the cotton plantation where I worked next to his fifteen-year
old niece. He blandly told her that Angka Loeu ('The Organization')
needed to relocate her and her mother. As he peddled away with
her on his bike, I knew, she knew, and he knew that she and her
mother would be exterminated."
Of course, the 1970s is twenty years ago, a lifetime for even
my children. So let us jump quickly to 1994, a mere five years
ago, and listen again carefully to a question raised on a web page
by Amnesty International.
"In 1994, close to one million people were killed in a planned
and systematic genocide in the central African country of Rwanda
. How did this carnage occur when the world declared after World
War II that it would "never again" tolerate such violence?" [Ah,
that phrase: "Never Again!"]
"In early April, 1994, groups of ethnic Hutu, armed mostly with
machetes, began a campaign of terror and bloodshed …[in] Rwanda
. For about 100days, the Hutu militias, … followed what evidence
suggests was a clear and premeditated attempt to exterminate the
country's ethnic Tutsi population."
"In the first days of killing in Kigali , assailants sought out
and murdered targeted individuals and also went systematically
from house to house in certain neighborhoods, killing Tutsi and
Hutu opposed to… [the government.]
By
the middle of the first week of the genocide, organizers began
implementing a different strategy: driving Tutsi out of their homes
to government offices, churches, schools or other public sites,
where they would subsequently be massacred in large-scale operations. …
By
mid-May, the authorities ordered the final phase, [it sounds
frighteningly like a final solution] that of tracking down the
last surviving Tutsi. They sought to exterminate both those who
had hidden successfully and those who had been spared thus far – like
women and children – or protected by their status in the community,
like priests and medical workers. As … [rebel forces, fighting
the government] advanced through the country, assailants also hurried
to eliminate any survivors who might be able to testify about the
slaughter. [Here, too, the Nazis have proven to be successful teachers.]
Throughout
the genocide, Tutsi women were often raped, tortured and mutilated
before they were murdered."
The 1994 reports about Rwanda should resonate within us, and bring
to our collective consciousness and conscience the news stories
from this past year in Kosovo. I could read numerous descriptions
of events from the former Yugoslavia , including mass rapes and
tortures of all kinds, but I will limit myself to two brief stories.
"Investigators were trying … to
get the lone survivor of a mass shooting in Kosovo out of Serbia
to testify about the killings
at a war crimes tribunal.
The
witness, about 35 years old, was among 14 ethnic Albanian men
who were ordered to lie face-down against a fence and were
systematically shot by one or more Serbs, …
The
witness was shot in his left arm and leg and badly wounded, but
managed to survive by pretending to be dead,…" [how many Jews
survived mass shootings the same way?]
"The bodies of 15 women, children and elderly members of the Deliaj
clan lay slumped among the rocks and streams of the gorge below
their village in Kosovo province … shot in the head at close range
and in some cases mutilated as they tried to escape advancing Serbian
forces.
In village houses, three men, including Fazli Deliaj, the 95-year-old
patriarch, who was paralyzed, were burned to death by Serbs who
torched the buildings.
Down
the dirt track, a few miles …three more elderly people lay
dead on their backs in their gardens, shot in the head as they
apparently came out to plead for their lives. Ali Kolludra, 62,
still gripped his hooked walking stick … as he lay dead on the
ground."
Our
ancestors, early in this century and before, living in shtetls
and ghettos, did not know what was going on the world, certainly
not when it was happening, and perhaps never. They may have seen
themselves as the only victims in this world. But we know better
and we should not pretend otherwise. I have no idea what people
meant when they said "Never Again!" fifty years ago, but we should
certainly mean never again for anyone. Tomorrow morning, I will
address a different perspective on our relationship with non –Jews
and some of the ways in which we might work cooperatively with
them.
Life,
after all, is precious in our tradition. That is a central aspect
of the observance on Rosh Hashanah. When we wish each other
a shanah tovah , we wish for a year of health and life.
The Un'sahneh tokef prayer, in which we avow that on Rosh Hashanah
the decree is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed, who will
live and who will die, is atypically composed in the singular.
We worry about ourselves and each and every Jewish life. Most of
our High Holiday liturgy is composed in the plural, the normal
formulation, because we pray collectively for the future of the
Jewish community and the life of the Jewish people. But in the
prayer that we will soon recite, hayom harat olam , today the world
was created, it indicates that all "creatures of the universe" stand
before God as children or as servants. Not just Jews, but all of
humanity are God's children and God's servants. We would do well
to remember that, and teach our children that, before next Yom
HaShoah. "Never Again!" is the right value, let us pledge in the
year ahead to help make it more of a reality for all peoples.
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