Erasure

Yiddish is a language with playful imagery. Even with its curses, it manages to tickle the imagination. For example, an enemy might wish you to "grow like an onion with your head in the ground." As a child, I cringed at this one: "May all your teeth fall out except for one, and with that one may you have a toothache." It reminded me of the Richard Scarry artwork with the lion's face all wrapped up before going to the dentist.

The most serious curse, however, has nothing amusing about it.  It speaks a lot about a people who value memory and education. It echoes of the belief that, as long as you are remembered, you live on.

"May your name be erased."

In Judaism, names are important. Traditionally, you are named after a recently deceased relative. (This is not the case with me, but my grandma's last words to me were "Toby is a very, very nice name." I named a cat after her.). 

Last names were only introduced in the culture a few hundred years ago. Before then, I would have just been identified as "Emily, daughter of Dennis" ( or my Hebrew name: Dvorah bat Gedalyah). The Germans came in to the Pale of Settlement and gave last names to the Jewish folk. The names weren't always nice. That's how we became Bengelsdorf: the village of the rascals. As the story goes, the first action my great grandfather took when arriving in the country was taking the "dorf" out of the name. (Thank goodness!) He said that he had traveled this far to get away from the village that he didn't want to keep it any longer. I find it amusing that he didn't shed the insult part! 

So, names are important. So is the written text. I look at pictures from the old days and I see scholars bickering about Talmud, writing and reading frantically. The Talmud is filled with written conversations and arguments between rabbis over hundreds of years, interpreting and reinterpreting the bible. Another name for the Jewish people is "The People of the Book."

At Rosh Hashanah, traditional prayers wish to be written into the book of life for a new year. As for me, I don't believe in a week of apologizing just for starting the new year off with a fresh slate and for the sake of being written into the book of the living. If I've wronged you, I'd rather act soon to show compassion and regret. But I think this tradition, as with so many others, is largely symbolic. We can write what happened. We can write our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams. But only forces greater than us can write the future. 

We are empowered to write the past. And the cry of the survivors was "Zachor!" "Remember!"  Writing preserves memory. Teaching preserves memory. Oral testimony preserves memory. With memory, individual stories live on. With memory, we can learn from the past. 

So many people died that for many, there was no one to mourn them. So many people died that there had to be mass graves, sacred mounds where life used to be. So many people died that it is impossible for me to comprehend the immensity of loss.

Roman Kent spoke urgently and accusingly last night of the media. He  said that through using protective language, reporters were missing the gravity of what had happened. For example, he said that we use the word "lost" when we talk about a misplaced item. The media often uses the words "lost" or "perished" to describe what happened to 11 million people in the Holocaust. Roman Kent said this is not accurate; these people were murdered. He urged people to use their language carefully and honestly. 

We do not want these innocent cictim's names to be erased. However, across the world there are places which only allow a period or two in the curriculum for teaching the Holocaust, or worse, do not teach it at all. There are places in the Mideast where it is illegal to teach the Holocaust. 

One of my colleagues on the trip had been teaching Sudanese refugees in Egypt. She loved them and loved helping hem, and she told them about the Holocaust. They had never heard of it. They didn't know here were other genocides, other survivors. They were shocked that white people also killed white people. In their horrific lives, they were sheltered from a past that could have helped them. 

When my colleague spoke to an Egyptian friend about the experience, he looked aghast at her. It is illegal to teach the Holocaust in Egypt, he told her.  It might not even be real. (Now that she went on this trip, he told her that he believes in it. Believes...as if it were Santa or the tooth fairy...)

We need to teach children at an age appropriate level. We need to teach beyond the Holocahst to rights and wrongs done all over the world. We need to uplift children with concrete ideas of what they can do to improve the world. We need to role model this in our daily lives.

Nobody should be erased from History. No culture should be erased from the stories we tell. At holiday time, we need to recognize all populations, and look out for people who feel marginalized.

May we be written in the book of life with indelible ink!