Silence? Not anymore

Editorial

A grotesque attack on Beth Tikvah Synagogue in Richmond last weekend was an incident of both anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. The graffiti left on the shul made specific reference to the Holocaust – just hours after our community's Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) commemorative concert Sunday night.

Perhaps most disturbing about this incident and others like it is how not random they are. Last November, the day after the community's Kristallnacht commemoration, two boulders were thrown through the windows of Hillel House at the University of British Columbia. Coincidence?

The correlation between these vandalism incidents and the commemoration of the Holocaust should cause us to wonder: What are they trying to tell us? Anti-Semitism is a tenacious and mutating virus. It metastasizes in bizarre and unpredictable ways. Holocaust denial is one of many ways in which this ancient hatred emerges, but why? How does denial of the Holocaust advance the agenda, however appalling, of any movement or ideology?

If such cruel attacks benefit these vandals and their worldview, it is probably through some sadistic pleasure gained from the pain such incidents inflict on our community. Incidents like these cause pain far, far beyond what a can of spray paint or a magic marker should. By attacking the legitimacy of the Holocaust, these incidents reopen the most painful of old wounds. They also remind us that all our troubles are not in the past. Life is comparatively good for North American Jews, but we learn from history and we know that good times and bad times are cyclical. On Monday, Tel-Aviv University released figures showing a sharp rise in acts of anti-Semitism around the world. In our own community, there have been three recorded anti-Semitic attacks within the last six months, including one directed at a Richmond doctor who lost relatives in the Shoah.

Reminding people of the Holocaust's history is a step toward building sensitivity to the historical experience of the Jewish people – and for those who hate us, this is enough to make undermining Holocaust awareness a worthwhile endeavor. By attacking our community on days when we commemorate the 20th-century catastrophe, perhaps they think they can shut us up. If commemorating the Holocaust brings attacks upon our community, the disordered thinking of these violent individuals might go, we will stop commemorating it, history will subsume its memory and any residual sympathy for the Jewish experience will be diminished. It makes as much sense as anything in this crazy situation.

So we must not be silent. We must stand up as a community, with all the allies we can muster, and rededicate ourselves to spreading understanding and empathy for our historical experience.

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