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Yom Hazikaron: Peace Not Apartheid

Apartheid Wall

(Photo of the mock Apartheid Wall at Brower Commons, for a BAKA event during Palestine Awareness Week earlier this semester.)

Today I’ve seen a number of statuses pop up on Facebook regarding Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s official Memorial Day. The wording of a lot of these status confused me, and left me wondering: why do we celebrate holidays in which we thank people for dying, rather than mourning their loss? Yom Hazikaron is a day that, like patriotic holidays in the US, teach us to honor martyrdom and war–it upholds those killed in brutal, senseless wars as heroes, and turns those victims into national blood sacrifices. Today I commemorate the loss of Israelis and Palestinians alike–but I will not post a Facebook status or blog thanking soldiers for dying in defense of a Jewish homeland, nor will I pretend those lives are any more important than Palestinian lives.

If Jewish tradition mandates an obligation to save and preserve life, there is no true Jewish state as long as Palestine is occupied.

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By Lauren Felton – May 9, 2011

Never again?

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Today is Yom Hashoah, and I have been reminded throughout the day to remember the Six Million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. But when we say “never forget” and use the figure “6 million,” we are forgetting. When we say “never again” and intend it to be applicable to Jews only, we let it happen again… in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Sudan, in Palestine…

So today, I am not only remembering the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. I’m remembering the 12 million who lost their lives, and those who continue to suffer around the world as we forget, and rationalize, and ignore. And that is why I will not say “never again.” Not because I don’t care, not because I’m anti-Semitic, not because I’m racist, but because it is happening again… and we’re forgetting, and forgetting, and forgetting.

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By Lauren Felton – May 1, 2011