Following the Holocaust, Never Again was a cry heard around the world. At Treblinka, a former Nazi death camp, a powerful monument stands which declares Never Again in various languages, including Hebrew, French, Russian, and English. It stands as a promise set in literal stone that never again will Jews be murdered for being Jews.
However, on October 7, Hamas brutally murdered over 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped some 240 others. Of course, non-Jews were victims of both the horrific murders and the subsequent kidnapping, but they were – without sounding callous – collateral damage. Though each life lost is a tragedy and as significant as any other, they were not the principal targets. Per Hamas’ own charter and their repeated pronouncements, their plan was – and is – to murder as many Jews as possible. But despite these utterances, the world continued to mollycoddle and allow them to receive funding all the time that they trained to murder Jews. Their genocidal promises were completely ignored.
But their intentions became apparent on October 7. Not in scale, of course, but in brutality, their crimes echoed the worst crimes of the Nazis. They beheaded Jewish babies. They burned them alive in ovens. Israeli women – and men – were raped en masse. Their genitals were brutalized, and they were sexually tortured and degraded. Holocaust survivors were murdered. Entire families were wiped out in cold blood.
And what, we have to ask, was the response of the world? True, most governments – indeed some important governments – were quick to condemn Hamas and assert Israel’s right to defend itself. Although whether this had more to do with the looming threat of the Iranian regime than horror at the massacre of Jews remains to be seen. To an extent, Israel has been supported in its fight to free its remaining hostages and to eliminate Hamas. Although, maddeningly they were told to “murder” fewer civilians, as if that was their true intention. But that was not the only response.
Unsurprisingly, given the poisonous spread of Jew hate, the “human rights” world has demonized Israel. Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations, has argued that Israel was in some way responsible for the crimes committed against them. Hundreds of thousands of people took (and are still taking) to the streets of the world’s capitals to demonize Jews and Israel and to spread their anti-Jewish bile. In Melbourne they screamed “Gas the Jews!”. In London, they shout “Globalize the Intifada!” In Toronto they cry “From the River to the Sea!” Jews are the only people in the world to experience genocide and then be demonized, accused of committing genocide themselves, and put on trial at the ICJ for defending itself.
But that wasn’t the only response we saw. Alongside the despicable victim blaming blame, we also witnessed something almost worse. The complete erasure of the Jewish experience. This is no more clear than in the silence of the world’s feminist organizations who were mute at the horrendous crimes committed mostly against Israeli women. As a response, Me Too Unless You’re a Jew became a common hashtag and a leading call at Zionist rallies.
The UN agency for women was declared to have betrayed Israeli women through its silence. At a rally in London on December 3 participants carried placards bearing the words “UN Women your silence is loud.” It was a stark reminder that Jews do not count. UN Women finally tweeted a condemnation of the sex-based crimes two months after October 7. But that was too little, too late.
Failure to remember the primary lesson of the Holocaust: Stop Jew-hatred
Yet, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, on January 27, all over the world people stop to ‘remember’ the Holocaust (and other genocides). They will pretend to mourn the six million. They will speak of the lessons of the Holocaust. But what of the primary lesson? To stop Jew-hatred and stand up for Jews. No, since October 7, it is clear that the lesson has been taken off the curriculum. They cared not when Hamas threatened to murder Jews. And many cared not when Hamas did murder Jews.
This should be intolerable to the Jewish community. We do not want, we should not want, empty words of sympathy, of sadness. In the days after October 7, “Never Again is Now” was trending on social media and at pro-Jewish and Zionist rallies. And for the Jews, Never Again is now.
We have witnessed the single worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust in real-time. We have seen images that we never thought possible. Even those of us who have devoted our lives to exploring and understanding Jew hate in all its forms have been shocked to our core at what transpired in the South of Israel on that infamous October morning.
When Jews say Never Again, we mean it. But when some in the non-Jewish world say the words, they become an empty platitude. Meaningless. Marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we have to ask what is the point? Why stand there with your grim faces as we utter the names of the death camps or hear the stories of survivors, when you couldn’t care less about Jews?
With Hamas, the world had an opportunity to demonstrate that they have learned the lessons of the past. That they have overcome their hatred of or indifference to Jews. That they understand Never Again and their role in ensuring it. And so many of them have failed. And not just in the aftermath of October 7.
They failed in stopping it in the first place.
Personally, I would rather those who demonized us or erased us – such as Jeremy Corbyn, the UN et al – keep their mouths shut on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Keep your empty statements de-Jewifying the most awful of all awful Jewish experiences in recent history. Keep your false sympathy and your shallow wishes for a better tomorrow. We know your vision of a utopia does not include Jews.
You are liars. And we will never trust you again.
The writer is the founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, an educator, and the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People. His new book is Reclaiming Our Story: The Pursuit of Jewish Pride.