Going beyond the Holocaust

"I'm a bit sad now," said Gilad last night. What was wrong? Had something happened? "No, everything is okay, it's just that I spent the last two hours studying the Holocaust." My eldest took his matriculation exam yesterday in history - just about the only school subject on which I can be of any use to him. Which is, of course, a good thing, but the curriculum was so depressing.

Early Zionism, Holocaust and the birth of the state of Israel and its early years compressed into a hundred pages made easy for test cramming. His enterprising teachers have added other subjects over the last two years, such as the French Revolution and the origins of Christianity and Islam, and earlier they learned about ancient Greece, but none of that is in the exam. At least as an art major he gets his history through other subjects.

I'm not sure what is more depressing, the limited scope of history taught in Israeli schools or the knowledge that is not going to get better. With schools being asked to equip children with practical skills that will prepare them for tomorrow's marketplace, and so much of the time that is devoted to the humanities going to Jewish subjects, there just are not enough history hours in high school to give even a basic grounding in the major periods of world history. Political considerations dictate the syllabus more than anything else, and of course it would be unthinkable to teach anything but the required subjects.

Certainly when my great-grandchildren get down to studying the history of this generation, it won't be very exciting either. When I was my eldest son's age I was trying on a gas mask on the eve of the Gulf War, just before Saddam Hussein's Scuds began raining down. This week at a briefing at the Home Front Command, when we heard of the numbers of warheads currently trained on Israel, from four different directions, and plans to distribute gas masks to the entire population, I reflected that in over two decades nothing has changed except for the size of the missile payloads.

On the other hand, why should I be so dispirited by the Holocaust forming the central part of the history exam? I write about it all the time. But then let's be honest; the Holocaust is a natural subject for this column, despite it being a minefield wherever you turn, because it is a minefield wherever you turn. But while I feel that its relevance to our daily and national lives always challenges me to look at events from different perspectives, the response these columns get is depressingly predictable.

Bekay's Holocaust tribute video “Remember”- Jewlicious Jewish Blog

Bekay’s Holocaust tribute video “Remember” is out!

“Remember” was meant to be different from day one. The vision was clear, the two artists Bekay and DJ Dbefekt joined forces with the Deer Studio Records team to create something extraordinary. Staying close to the roots of the culture that made them who they are, Bekay and DB delivered a piece on the holocaust using hip-hop as the medium. Attempting to touch a wide audience, the YouTube link, (which you can click here to view) is equipped with an interactive transcript that translates the lyrics into French, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Let us know what ya think!

Will you “people” ever stop talking about your Holohoax?! People are sick of hearing about it. Your not the only people who suffered in this twisted, fucked up world. Let’s talk about the 30 million innocent Russians who got killed by the hands of evil Zionists like Trotsky and Stalin. How about the white genocide in South Africa. Or the slaughtering of thousands of INNOCENT Palestinian women and children. Why can’t you talk about them?

The Jewish Holocaust, an annotated guide to books in English

The Jewish Holocaust, 33 years later

The Jewish Holocaust for beginners

Genocide, A Comprehensive Introduction

The Jewish Bible after the Holocaust, a re-reading