Israel remembers Holocaust amid surging anti-Semitism

Israel held ceremonies marking national Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday evening, kicking off over 24 hours of events honoring the six million Jews murdered by during World War II and survivors of the Nazi atrocity.

The annual remembrance is one of the most solemn days on Israel’s national calendar, with much of the country all but shutting down to honor those who suffered under the Nazi killing machine.

Ceremonies were held throughout the country, with solemn songs, candle lightings and remembrances from survivors and their descendants. TV channels and radio stations switched to exclusive programming about the Holocaust and stores and restaurants shuttered early in deference to the commemorations.

At Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum, an official state event featured six torch lightings from those who lived through the genocide.

The torchlighters’ brutal trials in concentration camps and narratives of endurance reflected this year’s theme at Yad Vashem, “The War Within the War: The Struggle of the Jews to Survive During the Holocaust.”

This year’s theme urges the public to keep alive memories of extraordinary Jewish courage and resilience during World War II — those who risked their lives in acts of solidarity for fellow Jews, smuggled food, organized rescue missions, published underground newspapers, played Jewish music on contraband instruments and documented their suffering for posterity.

The Yad Vashem event was attended President Reuven Rivlin, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other dignitaries.

Also Wednesday evening singers and actors performed texts at Jerusalem’s Gerard Bachar Cultural Centre at a free event open to the public. Ceremonies were also held at the Cameri Theater and Tzavta Theater in Tel Aviv.

On Thursday, a two-minute siren will be heard throughout the country at 10 a.m., and Israelis will stop and stand in silence to honor those who perished.

This will be followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem’s memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the Knesset’s annual recitation of victims’ names. The March of the Living at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland will begin at 1 p.m.

Events will officially come to a close in ceremonies at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghetto Fighters) and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, named after those who resisted the Nazis in Warsaw and the leader of the uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz.

Surging anti-Semitism

This year’s remembrance day came amid a sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents, attacks and rhetoric worldwide and particularly in Western Europe, a theme that featured prominently in Israeli officials’ speeches at Yad Vashem.

Rivlin touched on the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, which he said “is once again rearing its head, fueled by waves of immigration, economic crises and disillusionment with the political establishment.”

In veiled criticism of Netanyahu, he urged the government to rethink its cultivation of alliances with nationalist parties in Europe.

“Not every right-wing party in Europe that believes in controlling immigration or in protecting its unique character is anti-Semitic or xenophobic,” Rivlin said. “But political forces where anti-Semitism and racism are part of their language, their legacy or their ideology can never be our allies.”

In his remarks, Netanyahu also stressed the continued threat of anti-Semitic extremism. He said that the extreme right, extreme left and radical Islam agree on “one thing: their hatred of Jews.”

Netanyahu noted the deadly synagogue shootings in San Diego last weekend and Pittsburgh last October, as well as recurring vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. He also castigated a recent political cartoon in The New York Times’ international edition that drew ire for playing on anti-Semitic tropes, saying that hatred of Jews has even worked its way into “respected newspapers” and mainstream views.

“We’re not talking about legitimate criticism of Israel,” he said, “but of systematic, poisonous and shallow hatred.”

Hours before the ceremony, researchers at Tel Aviv University said that 2018-2019 saw “an increase in almost all forms of anti-Semitic manifestations, in the public space as well as in the private one.”

Many Jews in the Diaspora feel increasingly insecure and are questioning their place in society, they said.

Capped by the deadly shooting that killed 11 worshipers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue on October 27, assaults targeting Jews rose 13 percent in 2018, according to the study.

A separate study by the Anti-Defamation League released this week showed a decrease in overall anti-Semitic incidents but an increase in violence against Jews in the United States.

“Unfortunately, the horrific tragedy in San Diego county reminds us that anti-Semitism is virulently strong,” ADL head Jonathan Greenblatt said.

The Tel Aviv University report also found that anti-Semitism was being promoted actively by government officials in countries on three continents, singling out officials in Venezuela, Turkey, Poland and Ukraine as promoters of hatred of Jews.

Jewish community figures have raised alarms of resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe, where far-right political groups have made gains in elections

The researchers also noted, however, that governments are more and more recognizing the severity of the problem and are taking a wide range of steps to address it.

March of the Living

In addition to those in Israel, commemorations will also take place among Jewish communities throughout the world.

In Poland, where the Nazis located much of their killing machine, more than 10,000 Jewish and non-Jewish youth from 40 countries will walk from Auschwitz to the Birkenau death camp Thursday as part of the 31st annual International March of the Living

This year’s march includes Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, a Poland-born survivor, who used to be Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi.

Several American diplomats, including the ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, also will attend, along with the head of the Jewish Agency, Isaac Herzog.