Once a week, a headline is published about another demonstration in the world in which the demonstrators used Holocaust symbols to express their disgust with the corona vaccines or the instructions imposed on them.
Just last month, at a congressional hearing in Kansas, opponents of corona vaccines appeared with yellow badges.
In Australia, vaccine opponents wore prisoners' clothes and drew numbers on them as if they were from the concentration camps, and last week protesters in Poland waved a sign in the shape of the entrance gate to Auschwitz that read "Immunization releases."
When such an event happens in the world - the heart shrinks, Israel protests that it is anti-Semitism, and we hurt the contempt.
But when such an event takes place in Israel, and in Habima Square they stand with a yellow badge, or when the government tweets about the possibility of wearing bracelets at the entrances to malls and some are quick to compare it to a number on the arm, it seems that in the name of freedom of expression anything is possible.
One thing in the State of Israel is undisputed - the Holocaust was one of the defining events in the history of the Jewish people, and it can not be denied.
As early as 1986, a law banning Holocaust denial was enacted, prohibiting identification with the Nazi regime, but how absurd is the fact that, in contrast, there has never been a consensus that memory should not be harmed.
Recently, fines and arrests have been imposed in European countries on some demonstrators who used external Holocaust symbols such as yellow badges.
In contrast, Israel has been trying for more than a decade to pass a bill banning the use of symbols identified with the Nazi regime - such as yellow badges, striped pajamas, swastikas and more - but a draft of this legislation has never reached a second and third reading.
True, this is not classic anti-Semitism as we know it.
This is not graffiti on the walls of a synagogue or a swastika painting on gravestones in Jewish cemeteries.
But the very use of the yellow badge or other Holocaust symbols, minimizes the dimensions and historical significance of the Holocaust.
The meaning of these acts is the possibility of comparing the Holocaust to anything that does not seem fair or does not "come in handy" out of the corner of the eye, and we want to prevent this.
Although the Israeli legislature did not want to deal with the issue, at the High Court hearing on the eve of Yom Kippur regarding the outline of the green mark, Judge Solberg commented in the verdict regarding a man sitting in a courtroom and wearing a yellow badge: "The obvious is: In the heart of the Jewish people, and there is nothing that compares or resembles it.
The use of Holocaust symbols can severely hurt the feelings of many.
Even if Man Dhao does not 'connect' to these feelings, and he believes that this is a legitimate act of protest, it is better for him to stay away and retire from it, so as not to cause sorrow for another.
Even in the heat of the debate and the storm of protest, there are things that should be left out of the realm. "
The debate on the obligation to provide vaccines should be held, also in the name of freedom of expression, but it must not harm the memory of the Holocaust and give legitimacy to Holocaust deniers and far-right organizations to use these tools for antisemitic purposes and to harm Jews around the world.
That is why we must decide and read - do not touch us in the Holocaust, leave it out of the political game.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us
