For the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the BBC posted in its The Big Questions Twitter account the following question: “Our one big question this morning: Is the time coming to lay the Holocaust to rest?” That same day, Professor of Modern Judaism at Indiana University, Shaul Magid, titled his article in Tablet magazine as follows: American Jews Must Stop Obsessing Over the Holocaust. In his article he describes the view of the highly acclaimed scholar, Prof. Jacob Neusner, that we must “normalize the Holocaust” in order to advance our “intellectual and spiritual acculturation.” I wish it were that easy. I wish that British actress Maureen Lipman wouldn’t have to consider “leaving Britain because of a “worrying” rise in attacks on Jews.” I wish that “Belgian public schools” would not be turning into “Jew-free zones.” In short, I wish that we could all put the Holocaust to rest, or at least “normalize” it, but it isn’t going to happen. There is Nothing Normal About the Holocaust When people deny there was ever a Holocaust, and then promise to finish what the Nazis began, you know that there is nothing normal about the Holocaust. And if we don’t understand why it happened, and why specifically to us, then some version of it will happen again, guaranteed. First, we need to realize that we are not a “normal” people. The sheer number...
