Talmud Class: Is Talking About 1930s Germany as a Lens for Today Hysterical and Unhelpful?

From the Bimah: Jewish Lessons for Life

At Sisterhood's wonderful donor event this past Sunday, a woman shared with me that she had had a large extended family in Europe before the Shoah. The family members who said in the 1930s it will all blow over, don't be alarmist, all perished in the Shoah. She said her parents were paranoid. They said it won't blow over. The alarm is real. They got out before it was too late. She said I am only here because my parents were paranoid, and they were right. There is an edge in the air. There is anxiety in the air. There is a lot of talk about the 1930s in Germany as a lens for today. How do we think about that? In a recent Israel at War podcast, Donniel Hartman and Yossi Klein Halevi dismiss this lens as hysterical; that there is no basis for such a comparison; and that the Jewish community ought not to be talking this way as it amps up anxiety in a way that is unwarranted. Are they right? Consider the liturgy for this solemn day. I believe there is zero chance that there will ever be an Auschwitz in America. I have zero worry that there will ever be concentration camps here. That said, that is the wrong question, that is fighting the last war, the wrong war, and that does not help me sleep at night. We are fighting a new war, a different war, but it is war, and it consists of three questions. One, does Israel have a right to exist, or was its founding a historic mistake which must be rectified? Two, does Israel have a right to defend its citizens from attack, or is the IDF per se all war criminals? Three, is Hamas a terrorist organization that murders innocent men, women, children, and babies, or is it a liberation movement, and all of its violence is justified to free Palestine? The protesters at the college campuses, and the faculty defending their right to their hateful protests, answer the questions: Israel has no right to exist; the IDF are war criminals; Hamas are agents of liberation. Zionism is a dirty word. Zionists are beyond the pale morally. That is why even on October 7, and the days thereafter before Israel's war on Gaza began, they refused to condemn Hamas. They see Hamas as agents of liberation, conquering an Israel that must die so that Palestine can be free from the river to the sea. I do not know how numerous they are in the population. But they are loud. They are noisy. They punch way above their weight. And they vote. Might American politics change, in deference to this tectonic shift in thinking? If the Majority Leader of the Senate were AOC, instead of Charles Schumer, would Israel get the support it needs in times of war? If the Speaker of the House were Ayanna Pressley or Ilan Omer, instead of Mike Johnson, would Israel get the support it needs in times of war? The old war is Auschwitz. The new war is no Israel because the politics in America on Israel have changed so dangerously and so precipitously that America would not support Israel in its darkest hour. In the old war, the people who survived fled. In this new war, we have to stay and fight for Israel. We need to get active in local government. We need to join the library committee so that this atrocity now showing never happens again. We need to make sure that people who support Israel's right to exist and to defend itself are elected, and that those who support Hamas as freedom fighters are defeated at the ballot box. We have so much important work to do.