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Remembered Through Rejection: Yom Hashoah in the Ashkenazi

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Remembered Through Rejection: Yom Hashoah in the Ashkenazi 5HPHPEHUHG7KURXJK5HMHFWLRQ<RP+D6KRDKLQWKH $VKNHQD]L+DUHGL'DLO\3UHVV 5XWK(EHQVWHLQ Israel Studies, Volume 8, Number 3, Fall 2003, pp. 141-167 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\,QGLDQD8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/is.2004.0003 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/is/summary/v008/8.3ebenstein.html Access provided by New York University (1 Jul 2015 23:30 GMT) Ruth Ebenstein Remembered Th rough Rejection: Yom HaShoah in the Ashkenazi Haredi Daily Press, 1950–2000 In an historical account of the last sixty years, the question that should be asked as incisively as possible is who made the greater contribution to the rehabilita- tion of the Jewish people, one third of whom were destroyed—were they those who legislated a “memorial day” and arranged ceremonies, built museums and monuments; or those who simply restocked the ranks and, through amaz- ing personal sacrifi ce, with no selfi sh considerations [. .], did everything to improve the state of Israel’s demographic situation, in order to reinstate as far as possible, that which was lost.¹ —Yisrael Spiegel, Yated Ne’eman, 2000 In the weekend supplement of the Haredi² daily, Yated Ne’eman, shortly before Yom Hazikaron LaShoah uLagvura, Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, Yisrael Spiegel, the veteran Israeli Haredi journalist, rejects and even ridicules the trappings of Israel’s secular society’s memorializing as superfi cial and inferior. In doing so, he captures the central paradox in this essay. Ironically, his repeated denigration—which continued to appear on and around Yom HaShoah³ year after year in Israel’s daily Haredi press—reaffi rms the state-mandated memorial. Over four decades of rejection he remains in a dialogue that (religiously) commemo- rates the day—albeit through inversion, disdain, and competition. Th is remembrance through rejection is typical not just of Spiegel’s editorials but of the Haredi daily press in general. Th e so-called foreign mechanism for Yom HaShoah commemoration actually aff orded a psycho- logical and ritual context in which Haredim discussed their reactions to the Shoah and its implications for their community, allowing them a means 141 142 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 to commemorate the event in ways that are perhaps not available within the Orthodox framework. Th is essay explores the Haredi ambivalence to secular commemoration of the Shoah—and illuminates a stance that is commonly mediated by the often-troubled relations of this community with the secular state that contains it. I examine this relationship through an analysis of reactions to Yom HaShoah in the Israeli Haredi daily press from 1950 to 2000. Th ese fi ve decades span the transformation of the Shoah from a recently lived (or repressed) experience into a memory, a metaphor, and a more abstract kind of challenge to Haredi worldviews. Th is specifi c study must be placed within its larger context of the Haredi relationship to the Shoah. Over the last fi ve decades, the Haredi leadership has expended much energy trying to meet the existential chal- lenges posed by the Shoah to all God-fearing Jews and to their constituency in particular. Indeed, a review of the range of Haredi publications and popular writing in Israel on the Shoah reveals what sociologist Menachem Friedman has described as “an almost obsessive concern with the Holo- caust.”⁴ Upon inspection, much of that literature can be seen as desperate or valiant attempts to explain the disturbing deaths in and escapes from the Shoah within the context of the traditional Haredi belief system. To some extent, the Haredi press coverage of Yom HaShoah evokes some of this soul-searching inherent to the Haredi community that perme- ates other Haredi written sources. Th us, my survey fi nds the community grappling—in varying degrees of explicitness—with the Shoah as a chal- lenge to their faith in God and in rabbinic leadership. It also uncovers emotional expressions of loss and refl ections on their appropriateness within an Orthodox framework.⁵ Yet, in the press coverage I examine, the large majority of Haredi responses to the memorial day is mediated by, takes place within, and is responsive to its emerging relation to the Israeli society in which it was embedded. Yom HaShoah provides an eff ective prism for studying Haredi responses to the Shoah because this annual countrywide event practically compels Haredim (and hence, Haredi journalists) to address the nature and appropriateness of various Shoah commemoration rituals.⁶ As a result, it often invokes refl ection on the Shoah itself. Holocaust Remembrance Day also tends to elicit discussion of the Haredi community’s relationship to the secular state and society, since the initiative for Yom HaShoah stemmed from the Knesset, rather than rabbinic authority, and the day’s character is primarily secular (and, in Haredi eyes, Remembered Th rough Rejection • 143 deeply inappropriate).⁷ Even the memorial day’s timing, the 27t of Nissan, which was chosen to coincide with the period of the Warsaw Ghetto Rebel- lion, and its name, which appears to emphasize armed resistance at the expense of spiritual heroism,⁸ are an aff ront to Haredi sensibilities, falling as it does during the Jewish month of redemption in which mourning and eulogy are forbidden. In the following sections, I touch upon the characteristics of the Haredi press and in particular, the two dailies studied here; next I examine some of the primary themes emerging from the Yom HaShoah material; and I conclude with an attempt to synthesize some of the broader implications of these themes. THE HAREDI PRESS: AN UNDERSTUDIED WINDOW INTO HAREDI SOCIETY Th e daily Haredi Hebrew-language press off ers one of the few windows into this community—possibly the only consistent and daily record of events, reported by the journalists to the community, in the name of the community. I draw on a systematic review of all of the articles in the two daily Hebrew-language Haredi newspapers printed in Israel, Ha-mod’ia [Th e Harbinger] and Yated Ne’eman [A Faithful Foundation], published in the ten-day window around Yom HaShoah, over the fi rst fi ve decades of the state’s existence.⁹ Th e Haredi press off ers us an accessible, continuous and—despite overarching censorship—a relatively candid refl ection of Haredi world- views and sensibilities. Yet, few works have drawn on the Haredi press in a systematic way over an extended period.¹⁰ Th is under-representation of the press in scholarly study is particularly unfortunate given the weight of the written word in the Haredi world.¹¹ One might wonder about the degree of control and censorship in a Haredi daily newspaper, since both newspapers are scrutinized by an individual or committee to ensure that they remain congruous with the community’s religious codes.¹² However, the dynamism and deadline involved in newspaper publishing, especially daily papers, hinders fastidi- ous review of content, even when offi cial policy mandates tight editing. Th e resultant openness is especially important when exploring a charged topic like the Shoah in an inward-looking society; the raw footage, as it were, of how the society’s members talk to each other, leaves a valuable record of that 144 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 society’s changing perceptions and ideas. Th e daily nature of a newspaper also registers the kind of quotidian detail that might be abstracted out of a more carefully prepared publication or book. Because of their assured ideological purity, these newspapers are endorsed by rabbinical leaders and enjoy a loyal readership. Th e two pri- mary groups of Ashkenazi Haredi society in Israel, Hasidim (Hebrew for “pious ones, referring to the eighteenth century religious revival movement) and Mitnagdim (Hebrew for “opponents,” due to their acrimonious opposi- tion to Hasidism, and also referred to as Lithuanians, based on their region of origin)¹³ generally produce and subscribe to their respective dailies, the former reading Ha-mod’ia and the latter Yated Ne’eman.¹⁴ Th ese papers have a large readership in the Haredi world. A 1995 survey commissioned by the Advertisers Association in Israel suggests that 32 percent of Haredim read Ha-mod’ia, and 25 percent read Yated Ne’eman.¹⁵ A Gallup poll conducted for Yated Ne’eman in 1991 suggests that Haredim are quite loyal to the Haredi press: 95 percent of Haredi respondents read Haredi newspapers and 87 percent do not read secular newspapers.¹⁶ While the accuracy of these polls may be compromised, these fi gures seem to indicate a striking dominance of the Haredi newspapers within their communities.¹⁷ In fact, to get the “real news” in the Haredi world, readers turn to the very popular and well-read sections of each daily newspaper, Ha-mod’ia’s Miyom Leyom (From Day to Day) and Yated Ne’eman’s Al Haperek (On the Agenda).¹⁸ THE HAREDI DAILIES: HAMOD’IA AND YATED NE’EMAN HA-MOD’IA: FROM POLTAVA TO JERUSALEM Ha-mod’ia—the offi cial news organ of Agudat Israel—was established in September 1950, 19 Elul 5710. According to veteran Haredi journalist Yisrael Spiegel, its mandate was to support Agudat Israel and protect the Haredi community from the secular press by reporting news that fi ltered out gossip and lashon hara [slander] and by encouraging Torah principles and what the newspaper termed “the positive.”¹⁹ Strikingly, the very birth of the paper is posed in relation to the Shoah: the inaugural editorial declared it the continuation of its same-named predecessor in Poltava, Ukraine, and of numerous pre-war Agudat Israel newspapers.²⁰
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