Chanukah and Christmas After the Holocaust

The Holocaust, arguably, has been the most studied event in human history.  And yet, 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, has anything changed?


I would say yes but not enough.  Many of us who have studied what happened in those days, are horrified by what happened and have discovered the capacity for evil inside human beings.  We have learned how an entire society can be overtaken with hatred and fear.  We have been forced to see the capacity of human beings to kill other human beings in large numbers.  And today we are compelled to see the ongoing “lethal obsession” with hatred of Jews.


Let’s be honest: Despite all the hoopla surrounding Christmas and Chanukah, the Holocaust was a time when the darkness overwhelmed the light.  The Holocaust years were a time when human evil defeated the divine purpose of redeeming the world.  And no amount of religious piety should diminish what happened during those days.


If we Jews and Christians keep on talking, teaching and exhorting about the Holocaust, it is because we refuse to believe that human beings cannot be human.  We refuse to believe hate and fear will have the final word.  We refuse.

This Chanukah and Christmas let us commit ourselves anew to remember those days, to teach them to our children, and to do everything we can to prevent the darkness from overcoming the light