In the shadow of the Corona plague and at the end of a fourth election campaign, the people of Israel are divided and divided • Among us are Holocaust survivors living in conditions • We have not yet learned the lesson • Rabbi Israel Meir Lau in a special column for Holocaust Martyrs 'and Heroes' Remembrance Day
This year we are marking Holocaust Remembrance Day in the shadow of two events: the Corona and the election.
The common denominator for both is the division and hatred that is assimilated into society and the people.
We saw the attacks on Bnei Brak and the ultra-Orthodox, and abysses opened up between us during the election period.
The Nazi enemy did not notice whether the man was observant or not, not whether he came from Thessaloniki or Sofia, Tunisia or Libya, nor whether rich he is like a Rothschild or a beggar who has no piece of bread.
Ashkenazi or Sephardi, old or young, rich or poor - they all had one unifying label: a Jew, and as one you were the enemy of humanity, a subhuman.
Unfortunately, we have not yet learned the lesson.
The rifts and tributaries float anew every time, and come up with trivial things.
We are always looking for a rift.
This time, the ethnic interest did not float during the corona period and the election, but the religious interest returned to the center of the stage.
We learned an interesting thing from the Holocaust and came to the conclusion: to die together we are champions, to live together - hardly privateers.
I also sometimes ask what will happen when there are no people left to tell in the first person, and there are great and dramatic events that have been almost forgotten from Jewish history: the Crusades, the riots of 1918 and 1919, which today most of the public does not know.
But I'm still optimistic.
Oblivion will not prevail here.
I look at the story of the Exodus from Egypt: if a 3,400-year-old story is unforgettable from the memory of the Jewish people all over the world, there is no reason why anything that happened 80 years ago should fall into oblivion.
And that comforts me.
The anti-Semites did not die, they just changed, in every generation.
When former Iranian President Ahmadinejad delivered a speech on state television claiming there was no Holocaust - in his denial he only mentioned it.
Because the young Iranian generation began to take an interest and ask: What is a Holocaust?
when was that?
A third reason why I am optimistic is an institution like Yad Vashem.
The archive, the computer, the books and the hundreds of small museums scattered around the world - they will not let the subject be forgotten.
Fourth reason: The books, encyclopedias, community books and personal diaries left behind by the survivors remained with us forever.
Among us are Holocaust survivors who live in substandard conditions, and unfortunately the state fails to allow them to live with dignity.
This is a terrible tragedy, and it is a blow to a collective sin if after 80 years there are more hungry survivors of turnips and especially medicines.
I hope the government that is formed soon will put this at the top of its priorities.
