Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself

[Lain2016]

The issue that should have sparked panic in the survey is the total consensus among Israeli Jews - regardless of religious, ethnic or political differences - that the "guiding principle" for the country and for Judaism itself is "to remember the Holocaust." Ninety-eight percent of the respondents consider it either fairly important or very important to remember the Holocaust, attributing to it even more weight than to living in Israel, the Sabbath, the Passover seder and the feeling of belonging to the Jewish people.

The Holocaust is the primary way Israel defines itself. And that definition is narrow and ailing in the extreme, because the Holocaust is remembered only in a very specific way, as are its lessons. It has long been used to justify the existence and the necessity of the state, and has been mentioned in the same breath as proof that the state is under a never-ending existential threat.

The Holocaust is the sole prism through which our leadership, followed by society at large, examines every situation. This prism distorts reality and leads inexorably to a forgone conclusion - to the point that former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau announced at a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony three years ago that Moses was the first Holocaust survivor. In other words, all our lives are simply one long Shoah.

As a country, as a nation, Israel has never confronted the trauma of the Holocaust. The shock from the terrible tragedy and the guilt feelings of the pre-state Yishuv leadership for not being able to save the Jews of Europe - plus the presence of the men and women who survived and were constant reminders of both traumas - prompted Israel to repress the Holocaust at first, and then to turn it into a placard in the service of the national trauma, to reinforce the constant existential fear and the aggressiveness that comes with it.

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-...225%2C2.227%2C

[drummed]

Is this worthy of our time?
Seriously, a cut and shut with no content.
Who the hell cares???????????

[ruserious]

[drummed]

This is getting worse than the "Nigerians with free prams" free for alls that used to blight the place.

[tokkie]

Haaretz.Com

Interesting. However a lot of Irish people define themselves through the trauma of the past.

[Hitch 22]

It's the same with Irish nationalism - if the Famine had never happened it is likely that Ireland would still be in the UK.
The trauma of the 1840s-1850s gave birth to the Young Irelanders rebellion, the Fenians and IRB, the Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Gaelic Revival and the GAA and the demise of the Protestant Ascendancy.
If Scotland or Wales or Northern England had not industrialised in the early 19th century and remained agricultural economies like Ireland, a similar phenomena could have occured in Britain as happened in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We define ourselves by famine, war and emigration.
The Jews and the Irish are very similar.

[Munnkeyman]

This is getting worse than the "Nigerians with free prams" free for alls that used to blight the place.

Feck off. 62 "likes" for that thread.

[tokkie]

It's the same with Irish nationalism - if the Famine had never happened it is likely that Ireland would still be in the UK.
The trauma of the 1840s-1850s gave birth to the Young Irelanders rebellion, the Fenians and IRB, the Land League and the Irish Parliamentary Party, the Gaelic Revival and the GAA and the demise of the Protestant Ascendancy.
If Scotland or Wales or Northern England had not industrialised in the early 19th century and remained agricultural economies like Ireland, a similar phenomena could have occured in Britain as happened in Ireland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We define ourselves by famine, war and emigration.
The Jews and the Irish are very similar.

You're asking for trouble now.

[drummed]

Ignore Munnkey. He's Mossad. Don't give him your passport number.

[amsterdemmetje]

How do you define yourself?
I know how i would define you but Im not going to go down that road ,ill leave you and you're anti Israeli friends to keep on defining you're selfs.