I write this on Tuesday evening as Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day) draws to an end here in Israel.
I had planned to watch the official ceremony on-line last night, as I always do. The core of the ceremony is the lighting of torches by six survivors, for the six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis. Each is accompanied by a relative.
In turn, after each torch is lit, a brief video is shown in which the participating survivor tells his or her story.
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I imagined, oh so foolishly, that the impact of these stories would be less because our nation was currently dealing with October 7 and its aftermath. We were already immersed in pain on a daily basis.
And how wrong I was. The impact of all of the stories was powerful, but the power of one was close to unbearable:
Michael Sidko was born in Kyiv, Ukraine. When he was all of five years old – imagine!! – he, along with his mother and siblings, was brought to Babi Yar – a ravine in Kyiv where a horrendous mass shooting of Jews took place; in the course of two days, Nazis and their collaborators shot dead 33,771 Jewish residents of Kyiv.
“I saw it,” he related, explaining that he stood with one brother. “I saw it all. I saw the children shot.” He also saw his mother shot. How he and that one brother escaped is unclear.
Suddenly he stopped talking and pounded his chest silently. He looked heavenward for a moment and then threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. He was incapable of speaking further. And this was after 81 years.
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Michael had born witness to an obscenity – to an act of ultimate evil. There are, of course, good non-Jews (whom we refer to as righteous gentiles, with regard to the Shoah). Michael and his brother were themselves ultimately saved by a non-Jewish Ukrainian woman.
But those who are capable of acts of ultimate evil are themselves evil to their core. They deserve no compassion; rather, they must be destroyed. They should not be provided with opportunities to bargain or cut slack.
We Jews are taught this in the Talmud: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” (Sanhedrin 72a:4).
It does not say, “be nice to him and maybe he will change,” or “offer him a deal and maybe he will see the advantage in taking it.”
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The parallel I seek to draw here is obvious: Today’s Islamists – in the Iranian regime, in Hamas, in Hezbollah – who hold fast to a religious belief that Jews are bad and Israel must be destroyed – are every bit as evil as the Nazis were. (Some see them as more evil.)
They may fall back in strength for a time as a result of this war, but they are patient and if they remain standing will plot, and cheat on agreements, and plan ways in which to strengthen once again, for their ideology will not have altered.
They must be taken down. Or, at very least, brought as close to the brink of collapse as possible, so that they might crumble from within.
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In unprecedented cooperation with the US, we have gone a long way towards weakening the regime. At present the risk to Israel is enormously reduced. But it is not eliminated because those in power in Tehran still believe that killing Jews is a righteous and necessary act.
In point of fact, Israel is stronger and more determined than ever (and I will have more to say about this). Our leaders – whether Prime Minister Netanyahu or Chief of Staff Zamir or Minister of Defense Katz – understand what needs to be done. They are eager to continue fighting.
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It is exceedingly unclear what Trump’s intention is, with regard to the two-week ceasefire, his readiness to negotiate with Iran (although negotiations are now said to have failed), and the blockading of the Iranian ports. I will be following this: Needless to say, there is considerable speculation as to what Trump’s intentions are.
I withhold final judgement until this situation resolves itself. But I cannot pretend that I rest easy at present. What does Trump, who is a transactionalist and not an idealogue, understand about the reality of the Islamist mindset? Will he settle for less than is needed and call it a win? Or will he, indeed, hold tough? Is this whole negotiation a ploy on his part?
One of the factors that makes me uneasy is that the so-called “mediators” are malign actors such as Pakistan. I have been reading comments about the alleged fact that there was progress in the negotiations but not sufficient time to work out differences. This is not the truth of the matter (as reported by chief US negotiator Vice President JD Vance), but this does not prevent individuals of a certain mindset from advancing this story. There is, of course, a corollary here: What we need, they say, is perhaps two or three months to work out differences so a deal might be struck.
No, no, and no again! This is a common ploy of the Islamists when in negotiations: to simply stall and use the time to regroup and get stronger. And so I pray that Trump is not attracted to this argument.
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One last and very important lesson here:
It is said, and said again, that had there been a Jewish state and a Jewish army there would have been no Shoah. And this is true.
We are adrift now in an horrendous climate of anti-Semitism the likes of which we haven’t seen in a very long time. But Jews today are not helpless, as was the case in the 1930s and 1940s. Today there is a strong Israeli army and a state dedicated to the protection of Jews and prepared to welcome all who wish to come. Today Israel is the safest place in the world for a Jew to be.
There are those who claim to not be “anti-Jewish” but simply “anti-Zionist.” But this position – this construct – is logically faulty. Not only do we Jews have a right to self-determination and a state of our own. We need that state for the well-being of our people world-wide.
Do not, ever, tell me that you care about Jewish people, but you are just an anti-Zionist. I will not accept this dichotomy.
If you are a Jew, or care about the well being of the Jewish People, speak out against anti-Zionists and their fallacious argument.
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I ask, as I always do, that you please pray.
©Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by independent journalist Arlene Kushner. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution.
