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Tuesday, April 30, 2024

The Chafetz Chayim Coined the Word "shoah" meaning Holocaust 20 Years Before the Holocaust


Read the line in bold 6 lines from the top in the footnotes!

It was only on April 12, 1951 when the Israeli Knesset institutionalized the word "Shoah" in reference to the Holocaust!  

When I was growing up, and I grew up amongst survivors, in fact I didn't know any Jews, frum or secular, that weren't survivors, they used the term "churban" meaning destruction. The word "churban" was also used vis a vis the destruction of both Bais Hamikdash. 
However, people wanted a special word to describe the worst atrocity ever to have occurred to the Jewish people in its entire history. 
It seems that the Zionists took a page out of one of the Chafetz Chayim's drashos. 

I just want to point out that in 2018, a letter was auctioned off at the Genizim Auctions, which went for over $10,000 that referenced his "final plans' to move to Israel and to Petach Tikva. 
The CC was derailed when his wife got sick and daughter got sick soon after, and then couldn't get a passport because he had no documents on to when he was born. Officials told him to bring someone who remembers when he was born, which was an impossible feat as that person would have had to be over 100 years old. 




 

1 comment:

Garnel Ironheart said...

Shoah is an old word. It's in that little paragraph after Aleinu that almost everyone skips.