Chareidim Join Arabs in Ignoring Yom Ha'shoah Siren

The article below appeared in the Hebrew Newsletter "Matzav HaRuach" 

I translated it into English! 

The Whistle Refuseniks

Three sects in Israel refuse to honor the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust and to stand still during the siren of Memorial Day in memory of the six million * The Jewish commandment אל תפרוש מן הציבור is not even a choice for them * And how exactly do we save the people of Israel from our young men who spend time in the Swiss Alps and report from there on 'A-Gishmake Hasidishe Ski'?

 1. The wheel of history has turned in such a way that Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 27th of Nissan, usually falls in the week at the end of which we read in Parashat Shmini, about the tragic death of the two sons of Aharon the Cohen. The parasha also describes the powerful reaction of their father Aharon, which was summed up in thunderous silence: "וידם אהרן." From this we learn that sometimes it is precisely the silence, in the sense of "Thy blood is praise," that is the most thunderous action.

There is no doubt that the silence that Aharon Hacohen decreed upon himself on the occasion of the death of his two sons, was the background of  the Rav of the Medina's decision, in 1959, to hold a moment of communion on Holocaust Remembrance Day, accompanied by a loud siren, with the holy memory of the six million who were slaughtered and burned and who were bound to sanctify God's name during the years of rage of 5700-1945 – only because of the sin of being Jews! Since then, the siren of communion has been one of the highlights of the day, as we are indeed experiencing this year as well.

2. But unfortunately, there are three sects in Israel that despise the memory of the martyrs of the Holocaust and the siren that was sounded in their memory, two of them from our fellow Israelites: part of the ultra-Orthodox public and part of the extreme left-wing public.

The third sect of those who despise the siren are the Arabs of Israel (most of them), for whom the most cruel Nazi satanic tragedy does not bother them (and there are those who openly declare that if the Nazis had completed their work, their 'Nakba' would not have occurred)...

I remember that one year I stumbled upon an Arab village that was considered moderate on the morning of the 27th of Nissan, and I realized that the siren did not interrupt the routine at all, as if it did not exist. Even on the nearby intercity road, where traffic was stopped and all the Jewish drivers, without exception, got out of their cars at the sound of the siren to stand still, Arab drivers continued to drive crazy, without any regard for the siren and the feelings of the drivers, who respected the two-minute commandment of silence.

3. Today, the Arabs of Israel have found a reason to support ignoring the siren: the fact that the people of Israel, the descendants of Holocaust survivors, are carrying out "genocide" by turning Gaza into ruins and expelling its residents, the collaborators of the murderers of Hamas and the other terrorist organizations, and there is no one to open their mouths and whistle.

But the parable does not even begin to resemble a parable: in the Holocaust, no Jew threatened the existence of the regime and establishment of Nazi Germany, while Israel began unparalleled punitive and punitive measures, only in response to the despicable attack of the Islamic Gazans, and their murder and slaughter with sickening cruelty that was not even done by the devil, 1,697 innocent civilians, soldiers and policemen who felt to save the false victims in the border communities and Nova from the hands of the neo-Nazis.

4. But we have no expectations from the Arabs. They are not our brothers and they are not our people. On the other hand, what is the point of the refusal of the ultra-Orthodox sect to identify with the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, holy and pure, including those considered ארזי הלבנון ואדירי התורה  in a custom chosen by the public? 

Unfortunately, nonsense and empty claims ("the custom of the gentiles") are voiced by those who are פורש from the ציבור . The kanaim of Yerushlayim , who are accustomed at the precise time of the siren, to gather in the Kikar Shabbat in full view of the traffic stopping,and move in a circle, as a way of defiance against the siren.

Of course, we do not have much in common with those Nazis of the state in the name of the Torah, even though the best of our friends strengthen them financially in their search for their "mehadrin" kashrut. But since some of them are among the readers of this column, let us remind them that the Kabbalist Rabbi Y. L. Ashlag, author of the HaSulam on the Zohar, said that there is a dimension of sanctity in the siren and the mitzva of wiping out Amalek, just as  Haman is "wiped out" on Purim. Rav Ashlag, by the way, "prophesied" immediately after the publication of the Balfour Declaration (1917) that it was a call from Heaven to the people of Israel to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael, over the next 20 years, after which God would strike those who remained in exile with outpouring wrath. And he, unfortunately, was not wrong: the Holocaust began in 1939.

Another argument is that standing still for two minutes is a form of nullification of the Torah. Well, really. Are you serious? 

And what about those Rebbetzins and yeshiva heads who go on Pesach vacations in Switzerland, or hedonistic yeshiva students who claim that their Torah study saves the Jewish people, and in fact fly to a pampering ski vacation in the thousands and share with us all their indulgences on "A-Gishmaka Chassidisha Ski" (a Hasidic, pleasant ski vacation)?

5. These two sects of those who trample on the siren in memory of the martyrs have recently been joined by radical leftists, who also make the memory of the Holocaust illegitimate. This was expressed this week by a left-wing activist, Ariel Rubinstein, in a column in his home newspaper, Haaretz, in which he listed ten reasons, no less, for his refusal to stand still on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

"I will not stand idly by because at the same time, even the soldiers of my country's army, armed with the best lethal weapons, perfectly polished and polished, aided by navigation and control apps made by the best products of the Israeli wisdom industry, will stand still, looking out over the shabby mounds of dirt at the shabby tent camps and ruins of the cities of Gaza. I will not stand idly by, because as soon as the siren sounds, civil administration officials in Judea and Samaria will rise from their seats (sic, with quotation marks), and the siren will only interfere with the ceremony of advice on how to dispossess more Palestinians from their homes, make their lives miserable and push them into the "permitted area." I will not stand by because it does not work out for me, while at the same time my country's ministers will be proud of the fact that they are denying basic living conditions to two million Gazans. Even though the 'two millions' don't want our well-being, they are human beings, just like me."

Later on, the radical refusenik explains to us: "I will not stand because after the siren the prime minister will be filmed for another propaganda video designed to create an associative connection between the critics of Israel and the Palestinians, and the Nazis: as he said... "In a children's room in Gaza, which served as a Hamas terror outpost, our soldiers found a copy of the hateful book 'Mein Kampf,' translated into Arabic."

"I will not stand because Holocaust Remembrance Day instills in us the axiom that 'the whole world is against us'... When Israel does almost as it pleases in Gaza and the territories. I will not stand idly by because this is a false show of national unity, in which I am supposed to stand by those whose values and mine have nothing in common, and what we have in common is that we speak the same language and carry (perhaps) a similar genetic baggage... I will not stand still because since the Simchat Torah massacre, we have been busy with the ritual of death."

6. And so on – a series of excuses and excuses, mountains of nonsense and false claims, which lead him and his friends to walk on Memorial Day in the dark path of our haters and other depravities. 

All of them are united by a burning enmity for the state of saving the Jews, dust in their mouths...