In Israel, the Shoah, or Holocaust, has typically been spoken of lately alongside tekumah, that means rebirth, after the survivor technology selected to rebuild a nation quite than lose itself to grief and vengeance. Molded by that spirit, Israel turned a refuge for Jews at risk the world over, and has healed its relationships with Germany and different nations that perpetrated or enabled the Holocaust.
I work at Israel’s nationwide Holocaust remembrance center, Yad Vashem, the place I educate Israeli twelfth graders in regards to the Shoah and put together them for college journeys to Poland. Because the final remaining members of the survivor technology dwindled amongst us lately, my focus has been on how greatest to show college students in regards to the Shoah when the eyewitnesses are gone.
Whereas preserving the reminiscence of the horrors and losses the Shoah wrought stays necessary each for younger Israelis and for youngsters all over the world, the idea of tekumah can be a central part of Holocaust schooling. Tekumah supplies us with the important life lesson of learn how to transfer on with dignity and function after experiencing a tragedy, and it’s maybe crucial present that the survivors gave us.
On Oct. 7, the Jewish folks suffered our biggest tragedy because the Holocaust. That tragedy got here to my own residence in Kibbutz Nir Oz, which was burned down as I used to be taken to Gaza as a hostage. I used to be held in a house with Gazans and Hamas fighters, with no information of the surface world. Terrified, alone and uncertain of the destiny of my household, I stored myself going for practically two months, promising myself I wouldn’t miss the commencement ceremony of the category I educate and imagining reuniting with my husband, Aviv, and our three youngsters. I’m a twin citizen of Israel and the USA, and I used to be launched after 54 days thanks largely to the intervention of President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. My youngsters, fortunately, survived — one after terrifying hours in hiding, one by sheer luck of getting been elsewhere that day, one who staved off the attackers by holding the door of a protected room closed. However my residence of 30 years was burned past recognition, and the house of my coronary heart — my husband, Aviv — was among the many 1,200 killed by Hamas in Israel on that horrible October day. So immense was the destruction, I discovered that terrorists had even killed my canine, Revi.
Once I obtained out of Gaza, I found there was no Kibbutz Nir Oz to return to. I’m residing in what is named a “momentary association” condominium within the southern metropolis of Kiryat Gat; as of now I can keep right here for 3 years, maybe longer. My youngsters are of an age when they’re leaving the nest, and I’m experiencing that bittersweet ceremony of passage as a brand new widow, with out a residence.
Now’s the time for the world to demand and safe the discharge of the remaining hostages in Gaza. I need to be reunited with my neighbors. Then will come the time for mourning what we have now misplaced.
Neither of those missions ends our work. Past the horizon of our ache, we should recommit ourselves to tekumah with the identical decided optimism of the Holocaust survivor technology.
I see no different. With out tekumah, we’ll solely sink additional into the cycle of mutual anger and victimhood that has plagued our relationship with the Palestinians for too lengthy. That isn’t the strategy that the survivor technology selected, and of their spirit I don’t search revenge for what I’ve been by way of. I’m humbled by how my fellow Israelis put their lives in danger to combat my kidnappers, however I don’t really feel any catharsis in seeing the destruction of Gaza. As a substitute, I need to deal with constructing a greater future for my three youngsters — and for the youngsters of Gaza.
After the Holocaust, a brand new technology rose up in Israel, targeted not on the previous however as a substitute on making the longer term bloom. Tekumah for Israel after this struggle will imply rebuilding our nationwide id and shifting previous the divisive politics that marked the 12 months main as much as Oct. 7. Our adversaries could also be harmful, however nobody has the facility to destroy our nation greater than we do ourselves.
However for me tekumah is just not solely about Jewish lives, it’s additionally about all these lives that shattered on Oct. 7 and after — together with these of my non-Jewish neighbors, Israeli residents, who’ve been caught up within the battles ever since. It additionally means working towards a rebirth for Gaza. Whereas I can not affect the alternatives that Gazans will make for themselves, I hope these chargeable for launching this struggle are changed with individuals who need a greater future alongside Israel. After seeing the funding Hamas made in its underground metropolis, it’s simple to know that a lot was squandered in Gaza over the previous 18 years. Gazan residents, too, deserve a rebirth, one which imagines a future not of fight however of shared existence.
Another area by which tekumah is sorely wanted is within the diaspora. Antisemitism, which is as previous as Western society, lately appears to seep into a lot of the general public discourse round Judaism, Jewish folks and Israel. I’m not blind to my nation’s failings, however it’s deeply troubling how this battle, which was began in essentially the most violent means by Hamas, has contributed to an increase in violent antisemitic acts. Tekumah within the diaspora would permit for the total expression of Jewish life with out concern, each in Israel and all over the world.
If the younger folks among the many decimated European Jewish inhabitants have been in a position to face the longer term with optimism after the Holocaust, we, too, can discover the energy to restore what has been damaged.
Liat Atzili is a highschool instructor in Kiryat Gat, Israel, and an educator at Yad Vashem, Israel’s nationwide Holocaust museum.
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