Yom Hashoah 2014 Part 2

I went to bed after my bumbling post last night wondering what I'd really wanted to say. I said some, I suppose, but there is more.

I think there are essentially two ways to remember the Shoah.

1. To name and learn about specific people who were lost, especially if they were family. 

2. To learn about what happened them -- the horrors, the stories of triumph, the lessons.

The event that I missed last night mostly would have been about the first of those. There are always survivors and survivor families at this event and I appreciate the chance to be witness to them. At the same time, I feel a certain disconnect as my family's particular relationship to what happened in Poland and Germany is a little different. My grandfather was lucky to get out of Germany early, so my family doesn't have the typical Holocaust stories to share about camps or resistance. 

I've had plenty of the second type of learning in my life. It unsettles me considerably and I don't know what to do with it. What is there to be done with the reality that some people were cruel and others suffered in ways beyond our imagination? The feeling and knowledge sits there uncomfortably on the table with no appropriate action. No amount of empathy, guilt, regret or even strength can undo the past. 

For many, the importance of the Holocaust is very much wrapped up in Jewish identity. It should be. It's part of our past. That's why I learned as much as I could about it when I was a teenager and why I know that I have a responsibility to care about it. However, all I can act on, is what I can do today for this world.

One way to do this is to follow mitzvoth and to be a strong Jew. Another is specifically to support and celebrate Israel. 

For me personally, I think I feel my strength most when I try to be an activist in the ways I discussed in the previous few posts because today too there are people who are cruel and there are others who suffer  in ways beyond our imagination.

You don't have to be Jewish to be an activist, and the areas I care about the most are not even specific to the Jewish community, and yet I feel that they do from expectations the Torah has from us as Jews to make a positive difference in the world.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that I hope the things I try to do now to help the world do not exist in a vacuum. Already I question how much impact they have, but what I hope instead is that my actions can be a Kiddush Hashem, and that by living a life of Kiddush Hashem, I can in my own way help smooth over some of the pain from the past too.

Yom Hashoah 2014

Tonight is Yom Hashoah.

There was a community wide event as always, but I couldn't attend this year as I'm needed at home.

I didn't know for awhile, though, whether I'd be going or not. Toyed with whether or not I wanted to, whether or not I had a responsibility to. I really do believe in showing up for things, and any reason that I would give for not wanting to go would be an excuse.

I feel sorry for not having gone, because numbers of people matter. I also know there are other ways to recognize the day.

There was an article in The Jewish Week this weekend about alternative and controversial ways to remember the Shoah. For example, one man talked about his plan to tattoo his grandmother's camp number on his arm. Like most, I suppose, my instant reaction to that was to be horrified, but as I read his thought process, it made sense and his grandmother apparently told him she supported the idea.

Another example in the article was a viral video of a family -- including a survivor -- dancing to "I will Survive" in Auschwitz among other places. If you read the comments below, people's reactions are generally strong to either extreme. Either they say how much they love the video, or how wrong it is for this family to have made it.

I don't know yet how I feel when I watch it. I wanted to feel some triumph, but I feel haunted and sad instead. I also am rattled by the images in the side bar of other videos. I don't feel tonight like I can open myself up to those and let me feel that pain. On Tisha B'Av I can and will, and then will rise up again. I don't feel I have the space to do that on a Sunday night before I have to enter into a workday.

But both then and now, I'm still baffled. How do I appropriately commemorate? I don't know now, I don't know on Tisha B'Av and I didn't know when I was a teenager on March of the Living either. What internal messages must I listen to in order to know if I find the answer?

Regarding the video once more, and also regarding anyone's idea of how to appropriately commemorate… I think there is a danger to being too reverent. Even in the camps themselves they had to laugh and there are books to that effect. To really show respect to those that were lost, don't we have to show respect too to the multitude of reactions each of them would have had?

I wish I'd gone to the ceremony tonight, but I couldn't. If I had gone, I would still feel incomplete.

I could have read or watched things about the Shoah, but as I said, I do better with that on Tisha B'Av.

The best I can do is to try to create a world as antithetical to that of the Nazis as I can. It's just one reason that I try often, not just today, to make the world a better place. It's today's justification for my fundraising for Tread on Trafficking to combat child sexual slavery. Even without the Shoah in the past, I would hope I'd be trying to do good things like that. If I do it with the memory of the Shoah in mind, does that bring some kind of light to the darkness of that time? Or am I disregarding the distinctness of our history?

I feel this blog post is a way of making profound excuses for not attending a community function, and maybe it is, but it's also a recognition of the sheer feeling of floundering. The Shoah is this horrific part of our past and we still don't know quite what to do with it, where to put it or how to shine the light bright enough on what we want to remember but want to forget.

Manic Activism Continued

Last night I wrote a little about how I want to change the world,

and also about my fear of annoying other people in my effort to do that.

This morning I have some new thoughts on the subject.

First an anecdote:

A friend of mine was telling me about teaching high school in a very rough school. One of her students actually pushed or hit her. When the teacher protested, the girl aggressively said,

"Miss, you're making me FEEL bad."

It occurs to me that the reason people don't like to become aware of nasty, inhumane and cruel aspects of our world for that very reason. I don't want to go around making people FEEL bad, but I also would like to minimize the rather greater suffering of people and animals who are actually being mistreated in the world in a way that goes well beyond making them FEEL bad.

I went to bed last night with images in my head of factory farm slaughter. We've all heard that it's BAD and maybe even seem images before. There were some new practices I learned of last night that shocked me.

The baby chicks -- boys, I think they said -- would be useless for meat, so were being thrown into a machine that ground them up alive for farm feed.

Pigs were killed by being pushed into boiling water.

Chickens, after being genetically modified into horrific looking creatures, were mutilated so they wouldn't peck each other, then killed by hanging them upside down and dipping their heads into electrified water.

"Thank G-d I keep Kosher," you might say. But there are plenty of practices wrong that with that industry as well including shackling and hoisting cows off the ground before schita. Terrifying an animal before killing it is torture, and there are many out there who would dispute the idea that such practices can count as "Kosher."

But let's say you're a vegetarian, which I try to be although I just did my annual meat order from pasture raised Grow and Behold to get us through Pesach. (So glad to be able to have this "alternative" meat, but still feel sad about eating animals, and don't feel so healthy after eating them.)

Here are some other concerns:

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Manic Activism

I think this tends to happen to me in the spring that I start to feel a sort of manic activism.

I just got home from watching Vegucated with my CSA as a launch for this year's farm share. It got me reflecting once again on my food choices which is a little stressful for me because there are so many "don'ts" and "can'ts," some more self-imposed than others. I try to be mostly vegetarian and would consider veganism if 1. I didn't love cheese but 2. (more importantly) I wasn't allergic to nuts and wary of soy. I would love to craft the most humane food-eating regimen possible, but for my food sensitivities, Kashrut, difficulty to come by certain foods, high risk for breast cancer (and so avoidance of soy) etc. After the images of animal mistreatment, however, I think it's tragic how many people eat meat -- including Kosher -- without fully realizing the impact of their consumption. If they knew, they might still choose to eat meat. But shouldn't they know?

It's not just food on my mind.

I'm also about to start my yearly Tread On Trafficking campaign to combat modern day child sexual slavery.

I'm writing an article about issues of gender in the Orthodox Jewish Community.

I spent a weekend with a dear friend that reminds me of my desire to watch my actions environmentally throughout every part of my day. (Amazing how proximity to the right people can remind you of values you share.)

I also just completed phase 1 of a project in my school to reduce waste production, especially of plastic water bottles. I'm proudest of that because it took a lot of planning and I see the effects immediately, but I'll return to that in another post.

I suppose when I'm like this, it could start getting annoying for others. All this desire to change is a form of perfectionism for the world and we all know how unhealthy perfectionism can be. I may be labeled idealist, self-righteous, obnoxious. They would be fair labels.

However, the alternative is dire. The things I'm aware of that drive me towards working on each of these causes (and more) must be tackled if not actually changed. The fact that so many people are  unaware is frightening.

Like the bumper sticker says, "If you're not pissed off, you aren't paying attention."


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