Bone wet
I watch
as Council members
under rifle
dig obediently
and the earth opens up
to swallow my rabbi
and his sons.
Mach schnell! I hear in my nightmare…
and as I turn to leave,
I notice that the earth still moves
where they buried my heart.
-Lois E. Olena from her poem “Behind the Monastery”
quoted from The New Anti-Semitism
Daniel Hennessy’s new book Remembrance and Repentance: The Call to Remember and Memorialize the Holocaust is generously sprinkled with such “Holocaust poetry.” This one particularly spoke to me as I imagined the love of the Rabbi and his sons buried and still moving within Olena’s heart as their dead bodies were roughly interned in a shallow grave.
Hennessy’s book is written to speak to all of our hearts, especially the Christian heart. His book begins by juxtaposing the betrayal and murder of Jesus with Christian indifference to and even tacit approval of the death of millions of Jews at Nazi hands.
In the Gospel account, we hear the good news of redemption that Jesus rose according to the Scriptures. In the book of Acts, we see Peter — who at the moment of his betrayal was no doubt one of the most miserable human beings on earth — eventually lifted up out of the grip of despair, rising to become an apostle and dynamic leader, a fisher of men used powerfully by God at the very onset of the Messianic movement.
As for the indifferent Christian European world that stood outside the circle of doom, eyes to the ground, during the Holocaust era, it is as if Jesus alive and seated at the right hand of the Father, is looking straight into our eyes today, grieved by the ongoing Silence and indifference associated with the twentieth-century betrayal of his people. Unlike Peter, we as Christians have not yet been restored to fullest spiritual character.
-Hennessy, pp 16-17
That’s a most scathing indictment of today’s Christian church and Hennessy doesn’t let up on the comparison between the ancient betrayal of Jesus and the modern betrayal of his people Israel by Gentile Christianity. According to Hennessy, Peter stood outside the “circle of light” (pg 17) of the fire he warmed himself by as he wept bitterly, and so do we in the church who are beginning to forget the Holocaust and our part in it. As the last aging Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust fade and die, so does our own remembrance and even our own conscience.
Perhaps the circle is light, the light in our hearts, is what is diminishing in our world and when it finally grows dark and cold, what horrors will spring forth from the blackest night?
There’s hope, but only if we choose to remember and act righteously in the cause of justice.
This year, Yom HaShoah or Holocaust Memorial Day was on Sunday, April 7th, so you may be wondering why I’m reviewing this book now. On a practical level, it was because I didn’t receive this book until last week. On a more important level, perhaps the most important level, it is because we do not dare to reserve our remembrance to a single day. When we limit our memory and our caring to just one twenty-four hour period, once it’s over, we can safely tuck away our guilt and our desire to see justice done back in its dusty, cardboard box, and shove it back on the top shelf of some forgotten closet or on a rack in our garage until next year, just like our Christmas ornaments.
But if we choose to read, to experience, to remember Shoah each and every day, then each and every day, we can allow the fire of righteous indignation to burn within us, we can ignite the flames of justice, and burn on the pyre of our own responsibility, lest we ever let ourselves and especially our children, forget.
Dan does an excellent job in this short book (less than 100 pages) of reminding Christianity that it was not just the Nazis who were guilty of atrocities. They were only the outgrowth of anti-Jewish history. It was our own nearly two-thousand years of church supersessionism that formed the massive foundation upon which rested Hitler, his camps, his ovens, and his bloody legacy.
And if there are Christians who do not feel responsible for the past and perhaps the future persecution, torture, and execution of Jewish people and of Israel, lest we forget, we have a High Priest in the Heavenly Court, a King sitting at the right hand of the Father, who watches and waits and who will judge and the Earth. He will also judge us for what have done and what we failed to do.
And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.
–Luke 22:61-62
Jesus watches still. He looks into our eyes. And at his gaze, we also should remember the Lord, and remember his people, and remember Israel, and we should weep for the dead and their children and grandchildren. We in the church can either say “Never again” and cradle the children, the descendents of those who were once herded into cattle cars and driven into ovens, or we can use our own hands to do the herding and the pushing of these Jewish children into some future Shoah.
That is, until Messiah returns to judge us for who we are and what good or horrible things we have done.
I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he may delay, every day I eagerly anticipate that he will come.
-The twelfth of Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith
Moshiach is coming. Let him move in your heart.
148 days.
Morning Meditations 
The indifference is what gets to me. It seems like a giant mountain, huge and obvious, yet ignored. God help us to allow our hearts to feel the weight of the burden and then begin the repentance.
People don’t want to remember anything unpleasant, especially if they may be responsible in some way, and especially if they have to take some sort of action in response to it. Also, “it happened so long ago.” A lot of people, including Christians, don’t see Shoah as relevant in our world and don’t believe it can happen again. Little do they (we) realize that we may actually participate in Shoah again if we allow ourselves to forget. We don’t believe it. But it could happen.
Great review. Can’t wait to read… with my children. They need to understand our part in this abomination.
It’s a good book Pete, but you might want to read it first before you read it with your kids. Depending on how old they are, they may not be able to appropriately process some of the graphic images and wording. It’s not a really “scary” book, but little kids can have a tough time with children watching their parents die and people digging up mass graves.
“…lest we forget, we have a High Priest in the Heavenly Court, a King sitting at the right hand of the Father, who watches and waits and who will judge and the Earth. He will also judge us for what have done and what we failed to do.”
You certainly understand the demeanor of my heart as I wrote the book, James. We must do what needs to be done, not for any social or political purpose, or even a religious one, but to bless and honor the King of Israel as He looks down upon His people. May He look down and be pleased with the remnant of Christians who, I believe, will hear the shofar blow and respond to its call.
Thank you for your words and thank you for your own personal passion in projecting the message outward further into the space where ideas can be shared and hearts can be turned. Blessings to you and yours… ~ Dan
And to you and yours, Dan.
@Pete: My book may be less interesting to kids as well, Pete, but two great books on the subject, for 6-8th graders and up are: “Number The Stars” by Lois Lowry about the Danish rescue of Jews and “The Devil’s Arithmetic” by Jane Yolen about a young Jewish girl who is tired of “holiday” gatherings and at Passover is mysteriously transported into the past, to a concentration camp. She possesses new appreciation for her Jewish tradition upon return. They’ve won the Newberry Award and National Jewish Book Award, respectively. And, of course, there is always “Diary Of A Young Girl” by Anne Frank, which I just taught to my sophomores. By all means, however, purchase one or more copies of my book :)… and pass them on to your pastor, rabbi, friends, and other key people in your community! I am grateful and much impressed for your immediate impulse to “teach your children,” as CSNY have put it, as the memory of the Shoah is certainly under attack from numerous fronts. L’chaim! And blessings to you and your family…
I’m so blessed to know you Dan and your heart for the Jewish people, and to see your words in print after all these years. Mazel-tov this book was so well done with the right heart full of compassion for the truth that we need to remember God’s chosen people and to treat them with respect and never forget them. You have a calling on your life to bring people to remembrance of what really happened in this world of denial of the Holocaust. This book is so well done with the inclusion of personal words from victims and pictures that breaks my heart when I think of what they went through and to see their babies ripped out of their arms never to be seen again.
I’m not sure Dan will see your message Mary Jean, since this isn’t his blog. Thanks for commenting, though.
Mary Jean… You made my day. I’m so glad your comment “popped-up” in my email updates for James’ ‘Morning Meditations’, a blog I read ‘religiously’ … to keep my inner self ‘warmed up and lubricated,’ so to speak…
Boaz Michael and the team at FFOZ added so much to what I’d written… I believe Aaron Eby oversaw the inclusion of b/w photographs,Toby Janicki was Project Manager, and Ann Mandell did an incredible job, along with Daniel Lancaster, with the editing. Boaz and the team added all the power and beauty of the b/w photographs and included the heart-breaking poetry I selected from survivors and victims. Thank you for all of your support over the years… I know you and Bill have a heart for the Jewish people… share the book… spread the word. Blessings and shalom to you and Bill (oh, and go to my blog, Jacob’s Relief [jacobsrelief.com] to read more about the victims and survivors of the Holocaust…)
I’m glad you got to read it and I will check out your other website! Hope to see you soon now that we’re be off for the summer.