Remembered Through Rejection: Yom Hashoah in the Ashkenazi

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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 challenges 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 challenge 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 worldviews 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 primary 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 opposition 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: HAMOD’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 Th e principal publication of most Haredi courts and communities for many years, Ha-mod’ia saw its primacy diluted with the political winds, when in 1982 the Lithuanian Remembered Th rough Rejection • 145 leader Rabbi Eliezer Shakh resigned from the Council of Torah Sages and established a second major daily Haredi newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, in 1985.²¹ Staid, conservative, and less fl ashy than Yated Ne’eman, Ha-mod’ia is reputed to be “a model of a classic Haredi newspaper” and remains an infl uential paper, respected for the quality of its reporting and authority of opinion.²² Currently, daily circulation of the Hebrew edition of Ha-mod’ia is reported to be anywhere between 17,000 and 30,000 on weekdays, and 20,000 to 35,000 on the weekend.²³ Yet, it is very diffi cult to determine the accuracy of these fi gures. Advertising revenues based on readership may be an incentive to infl ate these numbers, as well as the desire to appear very infl uential in the Haredi community. On the other hand, each newspaper is likely to be read by at least fi ve to eight people, and sometimes one copy will be passed through an entire yeshiva.²⁴

YATED NE’EMAN: A Lithuanian Alternative Yated Ne’eman,²⁵ the second daily Haredi newspaper, was launched on July 12, 1985, 23 Tammuz 5745, by Rav Eliezer Menachem Shakh, who was then the most prominent leader of the Mitnagdim. As a result of a dispute within Ashkenazi Haredi circles, the Lithuanian faction felt that Ha- mod’ia no longer adequately represented their voice and decided to launch Yated Neeman as a newspaper for their community.²⁶ Th e inaugural edition claimed that it would provide Haredi readers with a newspaper in “every sense of the word,” rather than just a political newsletter.²⁷ As a result of the close ties between Sephardi Haredim and the Lithuanian factions, fi nancial support for Yated Neeman was attained by Shas leaders in Israel and abroad (who joined the eff ort out of an interest to increase their own political power).²⁸ As with Ha-mod’ia, the newspaper’s stated aim was to ensure that Haredi readers would not be compelled to turn to the secular press for their news.²⁹ Th ough initially intended for the Lithuanians and Sephardi Hare- dim, its readership and popularity have extended to many segments of the Haredi world, namely those Hasidim and Haredim not affi liated with any particular circles. Where Ha-mod’ia is more reliable, Yated Neeman is more sensational. A marketing representative at Yated Ne’eman recently reported that the daily circulation ranges from 23,000 to 27,000 (depending on the sales of the children’s and weekend supplements), and Friday circulation numbers 30,000.³⁰ Here, too, the same skepticism regarding these fi gures, as well as the tendency of rereading common with Ha-mod’ia, applies.³¹ 146 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

METHODOLOGY

For my study of these two dailies, I collected all Shoah-related articles appearing in the two newspapers over the ten days straddling Yom HaShoah (the 27t of Nissan) from the dates of their respective establishment until the year 2000. For Ha-mod’ia, I reviewed every Yom HaShoah following the paper’s founding in September 1950, and in Yated Ne’eman those after the paper started publishing in July 1985.³² In all, more than 500 articles were chosen for analysis because of their Shoah-related content. About half discussed Yom HaShoah and the Shoah directly (including event-centered factual articles, news reports, thought pieces and editorials); the remain- der represent a broader circle of stories that shaped Jewish and Haredi consciousness toward the Shoah—on topics such as antisemitism, Nazis and Nazism, war-crime trials, destruction of Jewish property, and Shoah memoirs. A variety of recurring themes emerged from this analysis, and an important subset of these is discussed below.³³

REMEMBERED THROUGH REJECTION: HAREDI SHOAH COMMEMORATION IN THE SHADOW OF THE SECULAR STATE AND SOCIETY

A central fi nding emerging from this survey of Yom HaShoah in the Haredi daily press over the fi rst fi ve decades of the state is the entanglement of Haredi identity, Yom HaShoah and the Shoah with the secular state and society, which serve to mutually defi ne one another and shift over time with the evolvement of the Haredi relationship to the state. Here I will present two main arenas in which this triangular relationship (Haredim/Yom HaShoah and the Shoah/state and secular society) is evident: the evolving discourse on the various facets of the commemoration itself (including the paradoxical advertisements of government-sponsored events for the day and even the use of the term “Shoah”); and refl ections on the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion and the idioms of heroism it posed.

UNIVOCAL HAREDI REJECTION OF YOM HASHOAH: AN EVOLUTION

Th rough the fi rst decade of newspaper coverage around Yom HaShoah, we fi nd an array of Haredi reactions that track the day’s legislative formation Remembered Th rough Rejection • 147 by the Knesset. Over the course of the 1950s, the nature of the day evolved in fi ts and starts from parliamentary resolution into law. During this same period, the range of Haredi responses to the day in Ha-mod’ia was broad to the point of incoherence. Th us we fi nd self-criticism in the Haredi community for not establishing a religious memorial day of its own, followed by gratitude for the existence of an offi cial forum that validates memory and allows for emotional release, followed by another turnabout: criticism of the memorial day’s secular character, its failings and the political schem- ing around its establishment. Th is latter reaction gains strength after Yom HaShoah’s legal codifi cation in 1959, and the day is increasingly rejected in the Haredi press from 1960 to 2000. As we have said, however, the initial response to the day in 1951 was self-reproach. Nearly one month after the Knesset passed a resolution for a precursor to the current form of Yom HaShoah, Haredi writer Y. Ben Israel rebuked Haredi leadership for not gathering to initiate a proper Haredi memorial day.³⁴ Th eir inaction created a vacuum into which the secular Knesset stepped, with motley foreign ceremonies, which he described deprecatingly:

In one place, they impart a strange coloration to Yom HaShoah, erecting memorials, choirs sing, pianos play, drums are beaten, and trumpets are sounded, a military unit ﬁ res oﬀ a salute, wayward youths parade, the audi- ence sings some hymn or other, and, as an epilogue—an artistic program. And all this is bound together and entitled “Yom Zikaron LaShoah.” And for all this silliness—we ourselves are to blame. Because if we had designated a real memorial day, a day of fasting and prayer, of repentance and moral reckoning, we would have prevented the desecration of the memory of our martyrs through all these vapid ceremonies and vain rituals drawn from heathen idolatry. And we would have truly honored their memory by sanctifying and purifying for the exaltation of their souls. Th e great scholars should ponder this deeply, and discuss it in all serious- ness before it is too late.³⁵

Th e important point here is that while rejecting the Knesset’s ill-timed and ill-designed day, Y. Ben Israel directs the brunt of his disappointment at the rabbinical leaders for their inactivity, which is translated into a respectful call for action. By the end of the 1960s, however, when it is perhaps “too late” to greatly modify the day, the sense of Haredi accountability for the commemorative vacuum falls away; we are left only with the critique of the secular memorial—often at fever pitch. 148 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

Th us, from the 1960s, the Haredi daily press gives a stream of reasons for rejecting the day—most revolving around a critique of the commemorative formula adopted by the state. While these vary somewhat with the time period and contemporaneous news events, the following claims consistently recur in Ha-mod’ia and, later, in Yated Ne’eman:³⁶ • Nissan—the Jewish month of redemption during which eulogy and fasting are prohibited—is the wrong time for this memorial³⁷ • Th e secular Knesset is not authorized to establish a memorial day endowed with religious meaning. Th e pre-existing day initiated by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel as the memorial day for the Shoah, Yom Hakaddish Haklali, on the Tenth of Tevet, at least had the virtue of being a long-standing minor fast day within the Jewish calendar, marking the siege of Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e.³⁸ • It is wrong to juxtapose Shoah to heroism (gvurah) because it cham- pions physical heroism and armed uprising, like the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion, over the more profound spiritua l heroism, such as those who expressed their Jewish identity or observed mitzvot [commandments] in even the direst Shoah circumstances³⁹ • Secular ceremonies in principle are inappropriate and ineff ective⁴⁰ • A once-a-year memorial day is not needed by Haredim, who live the Shoah 24 hours a day, seven days a week⁴¹ Despite this detailed inventory of reasons to reject Yom HaShoah, we paradoxically fi nd a modicum of acceptance and endorsement of an event that served other Haredi communal needs. In the 1960s, for example, the day is often a springboard for editorials expressing the anguish, loss, loneli- ness, and orphanhood that resulted from the Shoah. In certain instances, these articles were shifted from their usual editorial section on page two to the front page. Th e editorials are peppered with images of how the community feels: “sleepwalkers,” “walking mummies,” “bereaved parents,” “orphans,” and “victims,”—often phrased in the fi rst person (“we are”).⁴² Over the course of four decades the turn from ambivalence to outright rejection was halting and digressive. Th is overall trend is mixed in with articles in which we fi nd Yom HaShoah serving as a launching point for general discussion of the Shoah, sometimes leading into commentary on current events—for example, relations with Germany,⁴³ the Austrian election of Kurt Waldheim to president,⁴⁴ the trial of John Ivan Demjanjuk,⁴⁵ and the “March of the Living” trips.⁴⁶ Articles often focused on Haredi superiority in Shoah commemoration and reminded readers of the vital signifi cance of the Haredi role in continuing the lifestyle and learning of Europe’s lost Jewish communities. In later years, editorials provided the background to and justifi cation of Haredi non-participation in Yom HaShoah. Remembered Th rough Rejection • 149

By the 1980s and 1990s, however, an ardent rejection of the day under- lay the treatment of the day. “Yom HaShoah,” claimed Y. Kraus in a 1995 Yated Ne’eman editorial, “in its offi cial national form is a direct insult to all the Shoah dead from that period, and thus we are surely prohibited to relate to this day, even in a moral-historical way.”⁴⁷ A few years later, in the late 1990s, we fi nd a striking twist to the Haredi rejection of the day. Both Ha-mod’ia and Yated Ne’eman usher in Yom HaShoah with trepidation. No longer was the day simply one they found off ensive, but in their experience it now marked the start of a week- long assault on Haredim for not observing the trilogy of secular Israel’s national “holy days”—Yom HaShoah, Yom Hazikaron Lehaleley Zahal (the Memorial Day for Israel’s war dead), and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day).⁴⁸ Sparked, perhaps, by media coverage of Haredim ignoring memorial sirens, Haredim now felt attacked, even hunted down, for their rejection of the day during a period described by both Haredi newspapers with the Talmudic term byimey edeyhem, referring to idolatrous holidays. A Yated Ne’eman editorial called it:

. . . the regular season of defense. Th e Jews in the exilic Diaspora in Europe would lock themselves in their homes byimey edeyhem [literally, the days of their (Gentile) holidays] . . . Th e Haredi public in the state of Israel knows that the memorial and commemorative days that fall between 27 Nissan and 5 Iyar are yemey poranut [literally, days of calamity]—usually verbal, it must be emphasized—against the Haredi public . . . Th ese days are distinguished for the concentrated and focused attacks against the impudent heresy of the religious community against the symbols and rituals that the leaders of the state of Israel have conjured from their minds, or copied from heathen cultures.⁴⁹

Barely a generation or two away from the European pogroms, Ha-mod’ia couched this sensation with these words:

. . . [F]or the person for whom “Yom HaShoah,” “Yom Hazikaron,” and “Yom Ha’atzmaut” are the pinnacle of incitement and unleashing [of dogs] in the classic cruel tradition of the Gentile nations byimey edeyhem cannot contain his terrible feelings, chilling and terriﬁ ed.⁵⁰

In such expressions, the rift between the Haredim and secular Israel is starkly and ironically highlighted: the day to commemorate the loss of Jews, religious and secular alike, and the day leading up to the other supreme memorials of Israeli nationalism has come to remind Haredim 150 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 of the darkest days of the persecution of stateless Jews by Gentiles. Th e ironic echoes are fascinating—the religious community is heretic toward a (secular) state commemoration that they feel has been borrowed from the heathens, and is being persecuted for this, like the Jews in pogroms, but this time by other Jews—and in the Jewish state. Th us, within a matter of few decades, the sense of shared fate and collective mourning palpable in the 1950s and 1960s, and Haredi mixed feelings towards Yom HaShoah, bordering on envy, have been replaced by unalloyed Haredi criticism of this secular creation, and a sense of persecution echoing the experiences at the hands of Gentiles.

ADVERTISING THE DISDAINED

A striking refl ection of Haredi ambivalence is found in the curious yet banal history of Yom HaShoah advertisements in Ha-mod’ia (the newspaper published continuously over the full fi fty years studied here). From the late 1950s and through the 1970s, during the period in which the initial con- ceptual dissent toward the day grew into visceral disdain, the newspaper regularly advertised state ceremonies—often alongside this very rejection. Sponsored primarily by Yad Vashem, with a handful from the state-mandated Religious Councils, these ads were frequently grouped in clusters of twos and three, or were featured on consecutive days in the period prior to Yom HaShoah.⁵¹ In the regular (secular) press, where there is less stringent review of the ideological rectitude of newspaper content and advertising, such odd juxtapositions might be humorous but nothing more. In the Haredi press, however, where there is explicit and unabashed censorship of inappropriate material (especially when the ads are drafted by non-Haredim), the continued inclusion of these ads testifi es to a more fundamental ambivalence.⁵² And this is not haphazard juxtaposition. In its Yom HaShoah coverage in 1965, Ha-mod’ia ran two ads on page four on the eve of Yom HaShoah, only to scorn them in a page two editorial a few days later, complaining that the professional organizers who took care of every last detail in preparing (and advertising) the event, somehow left out the essence: “. . . Th e soul is not included in the calendar that is published in the press.”⁵³ We may off er pragmatic reasons for the inclusion of these ads; advertising revenue, allegiance to the government of which the Haredi parties were now a part, and even the pragmatic necessity to inform their readership (who generally did not listen to the radio) about events and sirens, at least Remembered Th rough Rejection • 151 in the early years of the memorial day’s formation. But underlying and separate from these reasons is the simple fact that, despite their reservations, Haredim were part of the larger state. Haredi journalists I interviewed could not understand why I was puzzled by what I saw as the contradiction in advertising a day that is scorned by the newspaper’s editorials and by its readers. “After all,” said Yosef Druck of Ha-mod’ia, a vociferous critic of the day, “it still is Yom HaShoah!”⁵⁴ In other words, their criticism of the day is lodged from an implicit state of belonging. With a sense of shared fate still strong, it would have been strange to forego the national day—especially in the absence of a rabbinical substitute. Th us, while editorials castigate, the advertisement goes in, for it still is, after all, (everyone’s) Yom HaShoah.⁵⁵ In fact, when the day stops being advertised, as it was from the 1980s until 2000, it may have been a lapse instigated not by the Haredi community, but rather because the Haredi press was not approached by Yad Vashem.⁵⁶ In 1995, when tensions between the Haredi community and the state were marked and explicit, the paper was again approached to place an ad (full-page this time) to commemorate state events on the fi ftieth anniversary of World War Two. Th e papers did so. And, once again, scoff ed at the whole aff air.

“SHOAH”: CONTESTED YET USED

Just as Haredim could not quite reject the oﬃ cial memorial, though they certainly could not accept it, they had a similar conﬂ icted relationship to the term “Shoah.” Indeed, there was a series of profound theological reasons to negate the phrase. “Th e term Shoah in itself bespeaks heresy,” wrote Haim Zvi Polack in a 1983 Ha-mod’ia editorial. Despite the “cursed Nazi crematoria,” he continues,

. . . [T]his is not a Shoah. Th is is Divine retribution, in all its ferocity, a terrible rebuke. Th is is the word of God. It is a pain and scar that will never heal over, but it is God’s will. And God’s will is not destruction and not negation, and there is no place to call it—Shoah! . . . Only an apostate would say that all this was a “Shoah,” that is, ruin and destruction with no purpose and with no direction.”⁵⁷

Not only did the term contravene the Haredi sense of Divine agency and justice, it also contravened their sense of historical continuity and proportion. Yated Neeman cited Lithuanian leader Rav Yitchok Hutner’s oft-quoted remarks on the term “Holocaust”: 152 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

“Is the term Shoah acceptable?” Th e answer is CLEARLY NOT. Th e word Shoah in Hebrew, like “Holocaust” in English, implies an isolated catastrophe, unrelated to anything before or after it, such as an earthquake or tidal wave. As we have seen, this approach is far from the Torah view of Jewish history. Th e churban [Yiddish for catastrophe] of European Jewry is an integral part of our history and we dare not isolate and deprive it of the monumental signiﬁ cance it has for us. In truth, the isolation of one part of Jewish history from another, the separation of one part of the Torah from another, has caused much of the inability to deal with events such as Churban Europe.⁵⁸

Th e oblivion implied by “Shoah” also ran counter to the Jewish sense of afterlife. “. . . When there is life after death and there is continuity,” wrote Y. Kraus in a 1995 editorial, “the word Shoah does not express the Jewish approach. Death is not the period at the end of a sentence. On the contrary, a person that dies for his Judaism will be called holy . . . even if he was not connected to Torah and mitzvot [commandments].”⁵⁹ Despite these compelling arguments, and at the same time that they were being made, the term entered and remained in general Haredi usage. “Shoah” was commonplace in Ha-mod’ia of the 1950s and 1960s, initially mostly in a qualiﬁ ed form (such as Ha-Shoah ha’ayumah [terrible Shoah], Shoah nora’ah [awful Shoah] or Shoat Europa [Shoah of Europe]), but soon came to assume the standard generic form. Despite its clear-cut theological disqualiﬁ cation by a number of editorials, the authors of the huge majority of articles did not seem to distance themselves from the term.⁶⁰ Stylistic moves—such as quotation marks to connote rejection and scorn, or ellipses to quietly mock—were used to ridicule or disapprove other concepts disdained by Haredi journalists (including Yom HaShoah, heroism, rebellion, memorials, and memory). Yet, they were almost never applied to the word Shoah.⁶¹

HEROISM OF OUR OWN: HAREDI RESPONSES TO THE WARSAW GHETTO REBELLION

I introduced this essay by remarking that one of its main fi ndings is the triangular relationship between Haredim, Yom HaShoah and the Shoah, and the secular state and society. Th e Haredi relationship to the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion—and, more broadly, to the heroic (“gvurah”) aspect of Yom HaShoah as commemorated by the state—exemplifi es this. Expressed Remembered Th rough Rejection • 153 in almost forty newspaper articles over the decades, the Haredi response to armed resistance during the Shoah evolves in correspondence with the Haredi stance toward and location within Israeli society. Th is section explores the sometimes confusing twists of this evolution. Not only did Haredim take issue with the term “Shoah,” they bristled at the inclusion of the word “heroism” in the memorial day’s offi cial label, which canonized physical heroism and placed it on par with the Shoah.⁶² Yet, while this dissatisfaction with Yom HaShoah was widely shared, the Haredi stance on the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion is neither monolithic nor unambiguous. Over fi ve decades we fi nd a series of reactions in the Haredi press that span a wide spectrum, shifting together with the relations between Haredim and the secular state and society.⁶³ Th us, in the 1950s, Ha-mod’ia embraced the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion as its own and in fact criticized the political establishment for exclusively appropriating its fi ghters to their own political affi liation, ignoring the shared struggle, in which Haredim and others fought alike. “It was not party members but the youth of the ghetto who fought . . .” wrote Y. Bar Zeev in 1953. “Did they all carry party cards? Did all those who stood in battle belong to [political] parties, and in their name did they fi ght? Who- ever says this is distorting historical truth.”⁶⁴

Th e Warsaw gaon [genius], the Reb Menachem Zemba, a zadik [pious man] of blessed memory, urged yeshiva youths to the struggle, to war, to rebellion and to uprising. Th us he too belongs to the rebels against the Germans. Th e Admor of Radzin, a zadik of blessed memory, also preached leaving the ghettos and heading with weapons for the forests. Neither at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot nor at Yad Mordechai did any Mapam members, speaking at the memorial ceremonies, mention their names, pay tribute to them. In these places, in these assemblies, they mentioned friends whose perspective was close to their own.”⁶⁵

Th us, the emphasis here is not to downplay the importance of physical heroism, but to preserve their own part in this heroism from being stolen from them and from memory. Th eir point is not to demonstrate the inferiority of rebellion, but to reclaim it as a shared rather than partisan experience in collective memory—and in Haredi self-understanding.

. . . We ourselves degrade the value of our mortal struggle in the ghettos. Because of the distortion. Because of its removal from the public domain— which is all-Israeli—to the private domain, that of the [political] parties. 154 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

And we would do well to care for the honor of the dead, and while it is still possible return to Yom HaShoah its due character, the character of Israel as a whole.⁶⁶

Th is stance—of insistence on being part of the physical heroism— shifts somewhat in the 1960s and 1970s. Although there is still respect for physical action, this now becomes a preface to something else. “Undoubt- edly,” said a 1963 Ha-mod’ia editorial, “these manifestations [of physical bravery] cannot be ignored or put out of mind, proving as they did that even in the living hell inhabited by the tortured ones, they did not lose the image of God and human dignity.”⁶⁷ Th is deference given, the author continues: “But what is this heroism when compared to the spiritual heroism demonstrated by martyrs throughout the terrible days they endured, even in face of death, day after day, hour after hour?”⁶⁸ Th e negative phrasing (“cannot be ignored. . . .”) is indicative of the slide from embrace to perfunctory acceptance, and then, fi nally, to dis- missal. Two years later, we fi nd a similarly weak exhortation to not dismiss the memorial day (“Albeit, [the Ghetto uprising] should not be disparaged . . .”), followed immediately by the real point: “but it is absurd and paradoxical that this heroism is elevated to the pinnacle of Jewish epic of the Shoah while sublime spiritual heroism is completely silenced.”⁶⁹ Th is respectful genufl ection to the rebellion become increasingly less convincing in the 1970s and disappear in the 1980s, as other versions of history increasingly come to the fore. Th e rebellion, claims one article, was “. . . formed only in the wild imagination of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto who went to the massacre, helpless and having had no choice,”⁷⁰ another refers to it as “suicide mission . . . that expedited the ghetto’s liquidation” and prevented the escape and rescue of individuals who might otherwise have escaped.⁷¹ As the canonical physical bravery is unraveled, it is replaced by alternative Haredi heroes exhibiting a diff erent form of bravery. For example, Ha-mod’ia’s Yom HaShoah coverage in 1988 featured portraits of the pious Jews who were the “real heroes” of the Warsaw Ghetto,⁷² and the following year, it reported on a screening of photographs (shown at the Agudat Israel conference in the United States) that depicted the “real heroism,” namely, Jewish life and spiritual heroism in the ghetto.⁷³ By the 1990s, a harsh rejection of the rebellion had become the norm. In an extended editorial in Yated Ne’eman in 1995, Yisrael Friedman framed the uprising as nothing but an upstart eff ort of a few hot-blooded youngsters, who insisted on acting against the sober collective decision Remembered Th rough Rejection • 155 of the ghetto leadership. Th eirs was a suicidal escapade now elevated and cynically linked to Yom HaShoah by the secular state to bolster its own militaristic worldview.

Th ese youth decided to rebel, despite the opposition. Th ey wanted their blood to be spilled proudly. Th ey wanted to save “Jewish honor.” Th is was not bravery. Th e rebellion truncated, perhaps, the chances of others to be saved. It was [an act of] collective suicide, an attempt to cruelly reconstruct the heroism of Masada. Games of national pride cannot be played at the expense of the lives of others. As a result of the rebellion, the Germans, may their name be blotted out, toughened their position. Th e results are known. . . . But this distortion conforms well with the Israeli battle ethos. . . . Israeli secularism makes cynical use of the memory of the Shoah survivors. Th is secular trend, which is as far from the Jewish worldview as polar bears from the Sahara desert, dominates Yom HaShoah.⁷⁴

During this period, Ha’mod’ia similarly deprecated the rebellion. But three years later, a more moderate editorial stance is taken, and repeated verbatim (with altered paragraph sequencing), year after year, from 1998 to 2000. Th is posture again gives deference to physical heroism, but uses its mention as a springboard for celebrating the more profound forms of heroism: the spiritual perseverance that ensured Jewish continuity.

Th ere was much Jewish ‘heroism’ over the course of these ill-bidden years. Th ere was tremendous bravery of spirit, without which there could not have been a continuation of Jewish life. We do not dare to judge, forefend, the rebels of the ghettoes who out of despair attempted an armed rebellion, and who once they had decided to do so, executed it courageously on more than one occasion. But today it is entirely clear that they did not tip the balance, they did not win the war, and they were not the ones to lay the foundation for continued Jewish existence. Th ose who did lay this foundation were— precisely the “heroes of the spirit,” those who despite the circumstances of time and place preserved their Judaism: were meticulous in observing the commandments, despite all the diﬃ culties, and bequeathed to coming gen- erations and to the saved remnants the unequivocal and tangible message of the eternal nature of the Jewish people and their devotion to the Creator of Worlds.⁷⁵

Th ese shifting, even fl ip-fl opping, evaluations of armed rebellion must be seen, I think, against the larger background of the Haredi community’s 156 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 position in Israeli society. An attempt could be made to correlate the Haredi stance toward physical heroism to their stance toward what could be seen as its modern counterpart and continuation: the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, in which they generally did not participate. As non-participation in the military became an important aspect of Haredi self-defi nition, and defi nition by Israeli society at large, perhaps it became more important for them to stake out an alternative (and in their minds superior) form of pre- serving Jewish survival, in which they were at the forefront. And, perhaps, at a later stage, as the value of the army became more apparent not only as war-time defense but also in protecting citizens against terror and guard- ing Haredi settlements in the West Bank, they could not chastise Jewish armed forces with quite the same vigor? Interestingly, Haredim continued to complain about the linking of Yom HaShoah to the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion long after it had begun to fade in secular state and society, and after the gvurah eponym had dropped from the colloquial name of the memorial day. Th is strengthens the sense that the reaction was not (only) to some aspect of the day itself, but a way of working through other areas of unease they felt in relation to Israeli society.

ON REMEMBERING THROUGH REJECTION: A TRIANGULAR RELATIONSHIP

It is good to have at least one day in the year when it is possible to be released from the heavy woe that presses on the heart, and to tell of the great destruction [ khurban] experienced by our people during the terrible bloody period of Hitler.⁷⁶ —P. Plesker, Ha-mod’ia, 1953

Yes, we remember a shared period, drenched in blood. It happened in common, under the same sky, blackened from the smoke of the furnaces. We also sigh in the same language, about the same people. But that’s it. Th at’s where it ends. Th e memory is not collective. Because Jewish memory is not universal memory. Us and them, together—but separate. If they are there [celebrating Yom HaShoah ], then we are not there. We cannot be there.⁷⁷ —Yisrael Friedman, Yated Ne’eman, 1995

Th e relationship of Haredim to Yom HaShoah was certainly not simple, nor uniform over time. It ranged, as the two quotations above demonstrate, from a sense of shared experience and a gratitude for the occasion, even if Remembered Th rough Rejection • 157 state-ordained, to a rejection not only of the ill-timed and ill-named day, but more fundamentally, of the possibility of collective memorializing that could bridge the divide of commitment and experience between Haredi and secular society. Surveying the treatment of Yom HaShoah in the Haredi daily press over the fi rst fi ve decades of the state’s existence, we fi nd that the Haredi relationship to the Shoah is dynamically shaped by their shifting relationship to Israeli society. And, conversely, we fi nd the Shoah and the state- designated day of its commemoration as a foil and instrument through which Haredim tested and formed (at least part of) their stance toward and location within the Israeli state. Th us, the day served as a symbolic resource with which to defi ne themselves, and specifi cally, their location as an embattled enclave—oppositional yet embedded. Th is triangular relationship of Haredim to Yom HaShoah and the Shoah and to the state and society persists even during periods when Haredi rhetoric seems to consist of an unequivocal rejection of the day. Even as they refute the state and its values and demarcate an “us-and-them,” it was, as this essay’s title suggests, a “remembering through rejection”—the annual ritual of rejection served as a form of synchronized commemoration in its own way. Because much of this shift in the stance toward the mememorial day refl ected the travails of the Haredi relationship to the state, we might expect that Haredim living outside of Israel, who were not fi ghting the same wars of self-defi nition (at least with respect to the state of Israel), would have had a simpler relationship with the Shoah. Indeed, articles in their press— including several that were reprinted in Ha-mod’ia—diff er in marked ways that bear further study. Haredi journalists and writers outside Israel seemed less afraid to tackle, or at least address, the more complex issues directly related to the Shoah and its commemoration—the inexplicability of the Shoah, its inherent emotional trauma, the reasons Haredi leaders did not provide a day of commemoration, and (touching on) the sensitive story of rabbinical leaders who fl ed Europe, leaving their fl ock behind. Indeed, some of the more revealing articles in my study sample were translations of pieces printed in Agudat Israel’s publications based in the United States, namely, Th e Jewish Observer and Dos Yiddeshe Wort.⁷⁸ Th is essay reminds us not only of the traces of cohesion that still lie beneath this seeming gulf between Haredim and the state, but also of the distinct cohesion that preceded it in the fi rst decades after the Shoah. Th e newspaper coverage demonstrates the degree to which Haredim initially felt in concert with other Jews, even secular Israelis, many of whom had roots and memories in traditionally Jewish European homes like their 158 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 own. And with so many survivors still living, the sense of directly shared experience between the Haredi and secular survivors was, perhaps, broader. Close to the event, the need for an emotional outlet might have been very strong—strong enough, perhaps, to overide any more principled objection by the rabbinical leadership. Th e discussion thus far has hinted at the range and depth of identity and ideology issues invoked by Yom HaShoah. Something as simple as the appropriate time for a memorial day is also a struggle for control over the Jewish calendar and Jewish memory.⁷⁹ In the absence of a (home)land that served as a fi xed anchor in space, temporal anchors became more important; the Jewish calendar becomes central to Jewish life, and command over it critical. For a secular Knesset to establish an upstart memorial day outside the traditional canon challenged the monopoly of the Sanhedrin or Beit Din as the principal Jewish leadership and threatened to unravel the sacredness of the calendar.

For us, there is a Shulkhan Arukh [a legal code of Jewish law] that determines our halakha, when to hold memorial ceremonies—and the month of Nissan from beginning to end is not intended for this, and it is no secret, we reject the Knesset’s authority to establish things and mourning customs or to add new dates to the Jewish calendar that were not mandated by the Great Assembly [supreme council during the Second Temple].⁸⁰

And yet, despite the Haredi rejection of Yom HaShoah, the feelings surrounding the Shoah generated a need to mark it in some way, and the absence of a response from within the halakhic canon (be it prayers, memorial, or a bona ﬁ de museum) made some ambivalence toward the incorrect yet existing secular solution inevitable.⁸¹ Remembered through rejection, Yom HaShoah captures in microcosm not only the complex relations of Haredim to the Shoah as a whole, but to the secular state and society in which they lived.

Notes

Th is paper is based upon my master’s thesis, “Marking through Rejection: Yom HaShoah as seen through the Ashkenazi Haredi Daily Press, 1950–2000,” Th e Avraham Harman Institute for Contemporary Jewry, Th e Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002, under the supervision of Professor Yehuda Bauer. For this research I enjoyed the support of the Hebrew University’s Institute of Contem- Remembered Th rough Rejection • 159 porary Jewry, Yad Vashem, and the Alisha Fund for research on the History of the State of Israel, affi liated with the Hebrew University’s Cherrick Center for the Study of Zionism, the Yishuv and the State of Israel. An earlier version was presented to the Graduate Colloquium of the Center for Research on the His- tory and Culture of Polish Jews at the Hebrew University. I have benefi ted from the comments of Professor Bauer, Yael Ebenstein, Menachem Feder, Dr. Yaakov Garb, and Scott Ury. 1. Yisrael Spiegel, “And they have sought out many devices. . . ,” Holy Sab- bath Supplement [a special weekend section that contains no advertisements for purity of reading], Yated Ne’eman, 23 Nissan 5760, 28 April 2000, 5. Th e headline quotes Ecclesiastes 7:29. Here and throughout this essay, the translations from Hebrew of quotations from the Haredi daily newspapers, names of articles, and other sources are mine. 2. “Haredi” (Hebrew for “God-fearing”) is the collective, generic term for a particular grouping of ultra-Orthodox Jews. On the terminology, see pp. 198–99 in Samuel C. Heilman and Menachem Friedman, “Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Jews: Th e Case of the Haredim,” in M. E. Marty and R.S. Appleby (eds), Fundamentalisms Observed, vol. 1 (Chicago and London, 1991) 197–264. Although Haredim of various factions and circles do share common threads of lifestyle and convictions, they also span across a spectrum in their attitudes to modernity, Zion- ism, the non-Haredi world, and way of life. I use the general shorthand “Haredi” to refer to the projected audiences of the two Haredi Hebrew-language dailies in Israel, Ha-mod’ia and Yated Ne’eman. For a central work on Haredim in Israeli society, and on Haredim in general, see Menachem Friedman, Th e Haredi (Ultra- Orthodox) Society: Sources, Trends and Processes ( Jerusalem, 1991) [Hebrew]. 3. Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day is commonly known in Israel as Yom HaShoah and I refer to it as such throughout this essay. On the evolution of this day, including the variations of its name, see Roni Stauber, Lessons for this generation: Holocaust and Heroism in Israeli Public Discourse in the 1950s ( Jerusalem, 2000) [Hebrew]. 4. Menachem Friedman, “Th e Haredim and the Holocaust,” Th e Jerusalem Quarterly, 53 (Winter 1990) 86. Friedman’s observation of more than a decade ago remains relevant, as refl ected in a review of contemporary Haredi materials and literature. Shelves in Haredi bookstores are lined with ever-growing selections on the Shoah, including Haredi memoirs, popular literature, and educational texts. On these materials, see Kimmy Caplan, “Have ‘Many Lies Accumulated in History Books’?: Th e Holocaust in Ashkenazi Haredi Historical Conscious- ness,” Yad Vashem Studies, 29 (2001) 321–375; Kimmy Caplan, “Th e Holocaust in Contemporary Israeli Haredi Popular Religion,” Modern Judaism, 22 (2) (2002) 142–168. 5. Challenges to faith are commonly addressed through allegorical framing of the events of the Shoah via traditional motifs and narratives. See Ruth Eben- stein, “Marking through Rejection: Yom HaShoah as seen through the Ashkenazi 160 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

Haredi Daily Press, 1950–2000” (master’s thesis, Th e Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Th e Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002) 122–143. Yet, the implicit theological response achieved through this framework appears to be not entirely emotionally satisfying. Residual emotional expressions smack of incongruity with the stance of acceptance appropriate to a God-fearing Jew. 6. On the fi rst decade of Holocaust commemoration in Israel, see Stauber, Lessons for this generation. On Holocaust memorials in general and commemoration in Israel in specifi c, see James E. Young, Th e Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning (New Haven and London, 1993). 7. In some ways, the Knesset-ordained day could not win: if its form was secular, it would be dismissed as borrowing from heathen practices, whereas graft- ing religious Jewish customs for marking a commemorative or “holy day” onto the event (such as its start at sunset) would seem a heretical usurping (or empty mimicking) of rabbinic authority. Notably, Haredim are not alone in their criticism. See Isiah A. Steinberger, “Th e Tenth of Tevet, Yom HaShoah that became Yom Hakaddish Haklali,” Shana b’Shana, (1991) 378–385 [Hebrew] and its second installment, Steinberger, “Tenth of Tevet as Yom HaShoah,” Shana b’Shana, (1992) 311–320 [Hebrew]. On Menachem Begin’s proposal of an alternative, see Young, Th e Texture of Memory, 271. 8. Th e rebellion started on April 19, 1943, Passover Eve, 14 Nissan 5703. Th e Knesset chose this date due to its proximity to the rebellion, but so that it would not fall during the Passover festival. Contrary to common perception, although the coupling of Shoah with heroism was deliberate, the reference to heroism was intended to encompass armed responses and spiritual and unarmed rebellion, Stauber, Lessons for this generation, 135–153. 9. Ha-mod’ia was the defi nitive newspaper for the Haredi population from its founding in September 1950 until the early 1980s. Despite a subsequent prolifera- tion of Haredi newspapers, this daily remains an institution. Yated Ne’eman was established in July 1985 as a result of a political split in the Haredi community, discussed below. Consequently, much of this review focuses on Ha-mod’ia. 10. Although a systematic analysis of this material is yet to be done, some inroads have been made. On the Haredi media, see Simeon D. Baumel, “Com- munication and change: Newspapers, periodicals, and acculturation among Israeli Haredim,” Jewish History, 16 (2) (2002) 161–186; Kimmy Caplan, “Th e Media in Haredi Society in Israel,” Kesher, 30 (November 2001) 18–30 [Hebrew]; Neri Horowitz, “Haredim and the Internet,” Kivunum Hadashim, 3 (2001) 7–30 [Hebrew]; and Orly Tsarfaty and Dotan Blais, “Haredi Society and the Digital Media,” Kesher, 32 (November 2002) 47–55 [Hebrew]. Scholars who have used newspapers (among other sources) to glean Haredi reactions to the Shoah include Menachem Friedman, “Th e Haredim and the Holocaust”; Amos Goldberg, “Th e Holocaust in the Ultra-Orthodox Press: Between Memory and Rejection,” Yahadut Zemanenu, 11–12 (1998) 155–206 [Hebrew]; and Dina Porat, “‘Amalek’s Accomplices’ Blaming Zionism for the Holocaust: Anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodoxy in Israel during the 1980s,” Journal of Contemporary History, 27 (1992) 695–729. Remembered Th rough Rejection • 161

11. Th e Haredi emphasis on the written word has increased in recent decades due to changes following the Shoah. See Menachem Friedman, “Life Tradition and Book Tradition in the Development of Ultraorthodox Judaism,” in H.E. Goldberg (ed), Judaism Viewed From Within and From Without: Anthropological Studies (Albany, NY, 1987) 235–255; see pp. 65–69 in Haym Solveitchik, “Rupture and Reconstruction: Th e Transformation of Contemporary Orthodoxy,” Tradi- tion, 28 (4) (1994) 64–130. We can imagine that the amplifi ed weight of the written word in the realms of religious matters and writings shapes Haredi absorption of nearly all printed matter. 12. Th is control might lead one to question the effi cacy of the press in refl ecting the views of the masses. I would suggest that impulses from the general public do infl uence the content of the newspapers. In any case, it is unclear how great the discrepancy is between the leadership and grassroots opinion in a community so dependent on the helm—and their inaccessibility to polling techniques makes it diffi cult to examine these questions. 13. For a history, see Mordecai Wilensky, Hasidim and Mitnagdim: A study of the controversy between them in the years 1772–1815 ( Jerusalem, 1970) vols one and two [Hebrew]. 14. According to a 1995 survey on Haredi exposure to the media, 65 percent of the respondents identifying themselves as Hasidim read Ha-mod’ia whereas 64 percent of those identifying themselves as Lithuanians read Yated Ne’eman. See Yehoshua Liebman, A Survey of Exposure to Mass Media 1995: Haredim (Israel, 1995) 27 [Hebrew]. 15. Th ese statistics are in response to a question asking what daily newspaper was read the day before. Respondents were allowed to mention more than one newspaper. See Liebman, A Survey of Exposure to Mass Media, 8–9. 16. B. Tau, ed., “A special survey of the Haredi public reveals: 87 percent do not read the secular press,” Otot 91–the Monthly of Advertising, Marketing, and Mass Communications, 127 ( January 1991) 67 [Hebrew]. 17. Th e verity of these fi gures is unclear because Haredi communal pressure and distrust of data collection may prompt respondents to lie. See Liebman, A Survey of Exposure to Mass Media, 5. For a general mapping of the Haredi media in Israel, see Caplan, “Th e Media in Haredi Society in Israel,” 18–30. 18. Amnon Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox ( Jerusalem, 1989) 248 [Hebrew]. One might question the extent to which these editorials, as well as the newspapers at large, are in dialogue with non-Haredi readers and with other streams and circles in the Haredi world. Caplan has explored these questions: “Th e Media in Haredi Society in Israel,” 21–24. 19. Yisrael Spiegel, On the King’s Path: Chapters of Inquiry and History in the Tractate of Agudat Israel ( Jerusalem, 1982) 331–339 [Hebrew]. On Ha-mod’ia’s self perception of its mission, see the inaugural editorial: “In awe,” Ha-mod’ia, 9 Elul 5710, September 1, 1950, 2. 20. “In awe,” Ha-mod’ia, 9 Elul 5710, September 1, 1950, 2. Th e precursor to the Israeli Ha-mod’ia was the Hebrew-language Agudat Israel newspaper, founded 162 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3 in 1910 by Rabbi Akiva Eliyahu Rabinowitz, rabbi of Poltava and the paper’s fi rst editor. On Agudat Israel publications as told from the Haredi perspective, see A. Sapir, “Under Fire: A Survey of a Century of the Haredi Press,” Yated Ne’eman, 3 Iyar 5757, May 9, 1997, 10–13. 21. Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox, 243–4. 22. Ibid: 242–3. 23. Dan Caspi and Yehiel Limor, Th e In/Outsiders: Th e Media in Israel (New Jersey, 1999), 65. Ha-mod’ia marketing manager Eliyahu Hendler provided the fi gures of 30,000 and 35,000. Eliyahu Hendler, interview by author, Jerusalem, Israel, March 9, 2003. Th e English-language weeklies of Ha-mod’ia and Yated Ne’eman merit their own study. 24. Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox, 242; Yisrael Spiegel, interview by author, Jeru- salem, Israel, March 14, 2001. 25. “Yated,” Hebrew for anchor or stake, is also an acronym for Yomon [daily], Torah, Da’at [knowledge]). 26. Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox, 244. 27. “On a newspaper’s path,” Yated Ne’eman, 23 Tammuz 5745, July 12, 1985, 5. 28. Zrahiya, “Th e New Haredi Journalism,” (master’s thesis, Department of Communications, Th e Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989) 29 [Hebrew]. For initial remarks on the connection between Sephardi Haredim and the Lithu- anians, see Friedman, Th e Haredi Society, 175–185. Th e same feeling that Yated Ne’eman was no longer suiting the needs of Shas would cause its leaders to break away in 1992 and establish their own newspaper, Yom Leyom [Day to Day]. 29. Zrahiya, “Th e New Haredi Journalism,” 42. 30. Pnina Ginzburg, telephone conversation with author, Jerusalem, Israel, May 1, 2003. 31. Laya Weissman, telephone conversation with author, Jerusalem, Israel, May 1, 2003. 32. While the collection I studied is exhaustive, it is not complete. A very small number of old newspapers could not be located in the libraries in Israel. 33. For a more extensive discussion of these themes, see Ebenstein, “Marking through Rejection,” 51–143. 34. Th e Knesset passed the resolution for a memorial day on April 12, 1951. Stauber, Lessons for this generation, 59–60, 283, n. 70. 35. Y. Ben Israel, “On Commemorating the memory of the Shoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 2 Iyar 5711, May 8, 1951, 2. 36. One or more of these themes can be found annually in one or both of the Haredi dailies. 37. Th e prohibitions regarding the month of Nissan are mentioned in Orakh Hayyim Laws of Passover 429 [Hebrew]: “One does not fall on the face [in prayer] during the entire month of Nissan, and [the prayer] ‘Your justice’ is not said in the Sabbath Minha [afternoon prayer], and one does not eulogize, nor suff er [fast] Remembered Th rough Rejection • 163 in public memory but the fi rstborns do fast on the eve of Passover.” For examples of references to Nissan in the press, see “Shoah and Heroism in a new prism,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5735, April 8, 1975, 2; “Th eir memory will not fade,” Ha- mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5748, April 14, 1988, 2; A. Bustenai, “‘Shoah’ or ‘Heroism’,” Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5749, May 3, 1989, 5; “Remembrance of the Shoah, not just one day a year,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5752, April 30, 1992, 2; “Remembering every day, immortalizing through a way of life,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5759, April 13, 1999, 2. 38. “Th e Testament of the Martyrs in the perspective of our time,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5736, April 27, 1976, 2; “Th e memory of the Shoah is preserved forever,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5742, April 21, 1982, 2; “‘Memorial Day’—How to remember?” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5747, April 26, 1987, 3; Y. Kraus, “In anticipation of ‘Yom HaShoah Vehagvurah’,” Yated Ne’eman, 25 Nissan 5755, April 25, 1995, 9; Israel Spiegel, “A foreign fi re,” Holy Sabbath supplement, Yated Ne’eman, 23 Nissan 5759, April 9, 1999, 2–3. Th e two Yated Ne’eman articles refer to the prohibition against adding dates to the Jewish calendar of Rabbi Abraham Isaiah Karelitz. Known as the Hazon Ish, Karelitz was an important Haredi rabbi in Palestine from the 1930s until his death in 1953. 39. “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5727, May 7, 1967, 2; Y. Spiegel, “A forgetful nation– How will it remember?” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5738, May 5, 1978, 2; “Th e essence is lacking from the story,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5743, April 11, 1983, 2; Y.N., “‘March of the Living’,” Yated Ne’eman, 27 Nissan 5750, April 22, 1990, 2; A. Yitzhaki, “Lessons of the Shoah,” Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5750, May 5, 1997, 9. 40. “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5727, May 7, 1967, 2; “Memorial day—how?” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5733, April 29, 1973, 2; Simha Elberg, “Remem- bering the Martyrs in the manner of Israel Saba,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5734, April 19, 1974, 3, 5; “‘Memorial Day’—How to remember?” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5747, April 26, 1987, 3; “‘Day of Heroism’—5751,” Yated Ne’eman, 27 Nissan 5751, April 11, 1991, 5; A. Yitzhaki, “We want no part in it,” Yated Ne’eman, 29 Nissan 5757, May 6, 1997, 5. In 1974, Simha Elberg regarded “celebrating Yom HaShoah” in a secular fashion as a spiritual annihilation possibly greater than the physical annihilation. 41. Th is rhetoric is common in the 1990s. For example, see “Shoah Conscious- ness, Not once a Year,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5754, April 7, 1994, 2; M. Shalom, “Th e memory of the Shoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5755, April 27, 1995, 3; Yisrael Friedman, “Living memory, Dead memory,” Yated Hashavua weekend supplement, Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5758, April 28, 1995, 4; M. Eliraz, “Th e Praises of the Holy Ones are shining as the stars!” Ha-mod’ia supplement 2, Ha-mod’ia, 30 Nissan 5760, May 5, 2000, 10. Th e headline from the last example is taken from the memorial prayer for the dead. 42. “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 25 Nissan 5720, April 22, 1960, 2, 5; Y.L., “Yom 164 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

HaShoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5721, April 14, 1961, 2; “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5722, May 1, 1962, 2; “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5724, April 9, 1964, 1; “Hed Hayom,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5728, April 25, 1968, 1. 43. A. Weiss, “Th e memory of the Shoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5725, 30 April 1965, 2; S. Friedman, “Meditations for Yom HaShoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 30 Nissan 5725, May 2, 1965, 2. 44. Y. N., “Between Shoah and Antisemitism,” Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5746, May 7, 1986, 2. 45. N. Yehieli, “Heroes of the Shoah,” Yated Ne’eman, 25 Nissan 5747, April 24, 1987, 3. 46. Y.N., “‘March of the Living’,” Yated Ne’eman, 27 Nissan 5750, April 22, 1990, 2; “To remember and never to forget,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5750, 2. On these trips, see Jackie Feldman, “Marking Th e Boundaries of the Enclave: Defi ning the Israeli Collective Th rough the Poland ‘Experience’,” Israel Studies, 7(2) (2002) 84–114. 47. Y. Kraus, “In anticipation of ‘Yom HaShoah Vehagvurah’,” Yated Ne’eman, 25 Nissan 5755, April 25, 1995, 9. 48. On the national observance of these days, see Don Handelman, “State ceremonies of Israel—Remembrance Day and Independence Day,” Models and mirrors: towards an anthropology of public events (Cambridge and New York, 1990) 191–233. 49. A. Yitzhaki, “In anticipation of the days of incitement,” Yated Ne’eman, 26 Nissan 5760, May 1, 2000, 9. 50. M. Shalom, “Th e joy of incitement,” Ha-mod’ia, 1 Iyar 5758, April 27, 1998, 3. A similar message is found in “Days of Incitement against the Haredim in the media,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5758, April 23, 1998, 2. 51. Th e fi rst advertisements I found appeared in Ha-mod’ia, 25 Nissan 5717, April 26, 1957, 4, and ran very frequently throughout the 1960s and 1970s. For an example of the format of the Yad Vashem advertisements (which vary somewhat), see Ha-mod’ia, 25 Nissan 5731, April 20, 1971, 4. For an example of the Religious Council (Moetza Datit) ads, see Ha-mod’ia, 26 Nissan 5731, April 21, 1971, 1. During this period, Ha-mod’ia also ran advertisements publicizing Yom Hazi- karon Lehaleley Zahal (Memorial Day for Israel’s war dead) and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Independence Day), underscoring the connection between their community and the state and society. 52. On censorship, see Amnon Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox, 240–2. Yossi Elituv, political editor of the Haredi Hebrew-language weekly, Mishpaha, confi rmed these points. Yossi Elituv, interview by author, February 25, 2001, Jerusalem. 53. S. Friedman, “Meditations for Yom HaShoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 30 Nissan 5725, May 2, 1965, 2. 54. Yosef Druck, interview by author, Jerusalem, Israel, February 27, 2001. 55. In 1999, Ha-mod’ia ran a full-page advertisement in its weekend supplement for the Yad Vashem’s “Unto Every Person Th ere is a Name” Holocaust memorial Remembered Th rough Rejection • 165 project. Th is inclusion does not refl ect the same ambivalence, as an eff ort to record the names of all of the Shoah victims it is interpreted as apolitical and religiously inoff ensive. See Ha-mod’ia supplement, Ha-mod’ia, 23 Nissan 5759, April 9, 1999, 9. 56. According to Rachel Barkai, director of the Public Relations and Com- memoration Division of Yad Vashem, “It may be that we stopped approaching the Haredi newspapers, and thus they stopped running our ads.” Rachel Barkai, telephone conversation with author, Jerusalem, Israel, June 17, 2002. 57. Haim Zvi Polack, “Shoah and its meaning,” Ha-mod’ia, 25 Nissan 5743, April 8, 1983, 5. 58. Yosef Ben-Hen, “‘Shoah’ or ‘Toheha’ [rebuke]?” Yated Ne’eman, 30 Nissan 5746, May 9, 1986, 7. Th e paragraphs were translated into Hebrew for Yated Ne’eman. I cite directly from the original authorized English translation: Yit- chok Hutner, “‘Holocaust’—A Study of the Term, and the Epoch it is Meant to Describe,” Th e Jewish Observer, Cheshvan 5738, October 1977, Volume XII (8), 8. One and a half pages of the six-page article deal directly with the term. 59. Y. Kraus, “In anticipation of ‘Yom HaShoah Vehagvurah’,” Yated Ne’eman, 25 Nissan 5755, April 25, 1995, 9. 60. In contrast, Haredi scholar Esther Farbstein clarifi ed her usage of both “Shoah” and “Holocaust” in the very fi rst pages of her tome. See Esther Farbstein, Hidden in Th under: Perspectives on Faith, Th eology and Leadership during the Holo- caust (Jerusalem, 2002), 9, V [Hebrew]. Haredi writers Yoel Schwartz and Yitzchak Goldstein attempted to do the same in their book, but contradict themselves in the text. See Yoel Schwartz and Yitzchak Goldstein, Shoah: A Jewish perspective on tragedy in the context of the Holocaust, trans. Shlomo Fox-Ashrei (Brooklyn, 1990) 15–17. 61. Th e journalist Levy explains, “Th e commentators use set methods in their writing. For example, quotation marks. Th is is a private way for the Haredi papers to slightly fl irt with their readers and to together mock some matter.” Levy, Th e Ultra-Orthodox, 252; Zrahiya, “Th e New Haredi Journalism,” 94. 62. Th e Haredi championing of responses other than armed heroism—namely, embracing any form of ensuring Jewish continuity, physical and spiritual, as expressions of heroism—preceded most of the Israeli public, who later adopted this approach. On defi ning Jewish resistance and amidah, see Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven and London, 2001) 119–121. 63. Schwartz and Goldstein found a similar lack of “unequivocal consen- sus” regarding the topic of resistance during the Shoah, and armed uprising in particular. See Schwartz and Goldstein, Shoah: A Jewish perspective on tragedy, 202–203. 64. Y. Bar Zeev, “For Yom HaShoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 29 Nissan 5713, April 14, 1953, 3. 65. Idem. Zadik can also mean Hasidic rabbi. Yated Ne’eman noted Zemba’s support for the Warsaw Ghetto Rebellion as well. See A. Bustenai, “Shoah’ or 166 • israel studies, volume 8, number 3

‘Heroism’,” Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5749, May 3, 1989, 5. A full discussion of the various Haredi opinions regarding Zemba’s contemporaneous attitude to the uprising is beyond the scope of this article. Briefl y, however, Haredi author Hillel Seidman quotes Zemba as supporting the armed resistance in his chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto: Hillel Seidman, Th e Warsaw Ghetto Diaries, transl. Yosef Israel (Michigan, 1997) 236. Other Haredim have questioned the verity of this claim. Schwartz and Goldstein present this dispute briefl y and cite Haredi rabbis who opposed the uprising: Schwartz and Goldstein, Shoah: A Jewish perspective on tragedy, 202–203. For an even more radical attribution to Zemba on survival during the Shoah, see Nathan Eck, “Peculiarities, interpretations and conjecture on the terms ‘Kiddush Hashem’ and ‘Kiddush Hahayim’,” Yalkut Moreshet, 27 (1979) 201–204 [Hebrew]. 66. Y. Bar Zeev, “For Yom HaShoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 29 Nissan 5713, April 14, 1953, 3. 67. “Immortalizing heroism-of-the-spirit,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5723, April 22, 1963, 2. 68. Idem. 69. A. Weiss, “Th e Memory of the Shoah,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5725, April 30, 1965, 2. 70. “What is this ‘worship’ to you?” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5741, May 1, 1981, 2. Th e headline echoes a passage familiar from the Passover Haggada. Yom HaShoah falls six days after the end of Passover. 71. T. Lahav, “‘Heroism’ and heroism,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5746, May 6, 1986, 2. Lahav cites unnamed historical research as proof. 72. Yosef Friedenson, “With my father’s friends, from among the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto. . . ,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5748, April 15, 1988, 9. Translated from Agudat Israel’s Yiddish newspaper, Dos Yiddishe Wort, this article quotes verbatim from Hillel Seidman’s Th e Warsaw Ghetto Diaries. Seidman’s book was fi rst published in installments in the Tel Aviv Hebrew daily Haboker, and released in book form in Hebrew in 1946 and in Yiddish in 1947. See Hillel Seidman, Th e Warsaw Ghetto Diaries, 255–280. 73. Yehezkel Besser, “Untold Shoah stories: the Haredi heroism of determined Jews in ghettos and camps,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5749, May 2, 1989, 3. Both of these articles originated in the United States, where Judith Baumel has demonstrated that Haredim continued to view the armed rebellions favorably, diff ering from the Israeli Haredi stance. See pp. 304–306 in Judith Baumel, “Reactions to the rebellion in the Haredi world,” Dapim Leheker Tkufat HaShoah, 12 (1995) 289–308 [Hebrew]. 74. Yisrael Friedman, “Living memory, Dead memory,” Yated Hashavua supplement, Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5755, April 28, 1995, 4. 75. “True remembrance and true heroism,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5760, May 2, 2000, 2. Th e same basic text appeared in: “To remember every day, never to forget,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5758, April 23, 1998, 2; “Remembering every Remembered Th rough Rejection • 167 day, immortalizing through a way of life,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5759, April 13, 1999, 2. 76. P. Plesker, “Lessons of destruction and the Shoah: for the Remembrance Day of the armed rebellions,” Ha-mod’ia, 28 Nissan 5713, April 13, 1953, 2. 77. Yisrael Friedman, “Living memory, Dead memory,” Yated Hashavua weekend supplement, Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5755, April 28, 1995, 4. 78. For example, see Simha Elberg, “Remembering the Martyrs in the manner of Israel Saba,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5734, April 19, 1974, 3; Moshe Sharer, “Respects for the Martyrs!” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5737, April 15, 1977, 2. 79. Young, Th e Texture of Memory, 263–281. 80. “Th e Shoah to memory not just one day a year,” Ha-mod’ia, 27 Nissan 5751, April 11, 1991, 2. 81. Goldberg, “Th e Holocaust in the Ultra Orthodox Press,” 158; Judith T. Baumel, “Kol-Bikhiot” (A Voice of Lament): Th e Holocaust and Prayer (Israel, 1992) 78–79 [Hebrew]. Ginzach Kiddush Hashem in Bnei Brak, established by Moshe Prager, off ers an alternative, but it is not a bona fi de museum. For a call to establish a Haredi museum, see S. Fried, “To Remember,” Yated Hashavua supplement, Yated Ne’eman, 28 Nissan 5755, April 28, 1995, 7.