Great. News of yet another wad of cash crapped into another building that does nothing to advance Jewish identity. I mourn my people’s tragedy and can name 100 victims of my family murdered outside the Pripyet Marshes and in the Ghetto of Pinsk, but when are we gonna stop feeding at the trough of the depressing, guilt-ridden cash-cow Holocuast industry?
I got an email about the groundbreaking whose contents I’ll link after the jump. The new Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is going to cost $25 Million. Its a staggering amount of money that could do wonders for Jewish culture, engagement, education and outreach. It could alleviate poverty, relocate Ethiopian or even French Jews to Israel or support education here. But no, its a building. In Skokie. Yawn. Here’s an idea- rather than sink all that money into a new building, wy not just convert the soon to be shuttered Kaplan JCC into a Holocaust museum? Somehow that would seem to be a more fitting, symbolic nod to how Holocaust worship has overtaken Jewish culture itself.
When are we gonna stop centering Jewish life on the horrors of our persecuted past and start focusing on the beautiful Jewish way of life? We need to teach the lessons of the Holocaust, but do we need a $25MM building to do it? Can’t $25MM endow an education and action program to do that same thing in schools, statewide?
Don’t we have enough of these memorials? When are we gonna stop pumping our bubbes and zaydes for cash to glorify our dead? Maybe if we were instead dumping that money into quality Jewish education and continuity programs (as opposed to ANYTHING Holocaust related), we wouldn’t see so many people drifitng from Am Yisrael. Or JCC’s closing. That seems like the best memorial of all: a vibrant, well educated Jewish community.
The Shoah was one of our worst tragedies, and its lessons ought be learned, but its centrality in Jewish life these days is depressing enough to keep people totally disinterested in all things Jewish. In focusing Jewish resources so heavily on the horrors of our persecution rather than the beauty of our ways, we give Hitler a posthumous victory. Yes, I said it. The Holocaust Industry glorifies Hitler’s acheivements, turns young people off of Judiasm and in the end, helps fulfill Hitler’s dream of a world Judenrein.
But there are some upsides. The building will be “green” and has won a $100,000 grant to that end. Great, Bubbe’s donation won’t ruin the environment. Oh, and there’s going to be a social hall! Because everyone wants to hold their special event an the upbeat place like a Holocasut museum…
http://www.hmfi.org/index.html
Join the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center as we break ground on the new 65,000-square-foot museum. Expected guests include Governor Rod Blagojevich, Israeli Consul General Barukh Binah, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen and Lt. Governor Pat Quinn.
10:30 am
Museum Site, SkokieParking
Reserved Parking will be available in the EAST PARKING LOT of WESTFIELD OLD ORCHARD (near Maggiano’s Little Italy)Transportation between Maggiano’s and the Museum site will be available from the East Parking Lot beginning at 9:30 am Parking will NOT be allowed at the Museum site.
RSVP
Please call 847.491.0905
Transportation and Parking Generously Provided by Westfield, Old Orchard.
very interesting arguements and very well stated. i agree nearly 100%.
to play devil’s advocate…the Shoah was not just A tragedy, but THE tragedy of all time. An event that teaches lessons about the darkest evil that resides in the soul of man, and lessons about the ultimate perserverence and goodness in the soul of man. an event that happened a mere 60 years ago, perpetrated by a nation that was considered one of the most sophisticated on earth.
if one person, one child, hears the story, is moved by it, and grows up to be a great peacemaker, someone who stands up and helps one person, a group of people, a region, or the world avoid another epic calamity, isn’t it worth it? and wouldn’t you be proud to know a Jewish institution made that happen?
All fine and good, but I will counter.
First, from a Jewish theological perspective, the destruction of the Temples, Roman wars and the dispersion of the 10 Northern Tribes would all be far worse. The Shoah comes next in that never in so short a time have so many Jews perished. But the Roman War probably killed just as many Jews from a percentage standpoint- some estimate as many as one million, whose descendants over two millenia would have truly made us a numerous as the stars in the sky… But I disgress.
Second, why do we need an institution to teach those lessons? As I suggested, an endowed, mobile educational program could reach more students, have less overhead to constantly fund and be more effective than a building.
Third, if preventing another calamity is TRULY the aim, a museum would be the LAST thing to fund. An action coalition to prevent genocide could be funded… Someting that’s proactive and not a building.
There are already lots of organizations memorializing the Holocaust, and while there’s a need to educate and prevent its repetition, the truth is we haven’t effectively done that to date when it mattered. How does a museum in Skokie REALLY prevent genocide in Darfur?
But again, my point is that this propogates more than the education of the lessons of the shoah, it props up an industry that thrives on an image of eternal victimhood of the Jewish nation and makes the center of Jewish education and identity a negative and depressing endeavor that turns youth off. JCC’s are closing and we’re building this? This is the last sort of instuttion that we need to open. Better to sink the money into endowing a Jewish education fund; 9 of 10 Jewish kids can tell you about the Shoah, but maybe 1 could tell you anything about actual Jewish practice and life and that’s the sham, the backwards priorities of the Holocaust industry.