(no subject)

[kippurbird]

So today is Israeli Independence Day. The State of Israel has been her for fifty-six years. My father has been alive longer than that. Which I find to be an interesting paradox.

I mean a country should be older than my father. Especially Israel, because... well its history is so old that it should be old too. But it's not. It's only 56 years old. It must be strange to be younger than your history. Of course you can't really be older than your history. I guess you're just as old as your history. Except in this case.

The UJ has what I like to call a memorial of sorts to all the people killed by bombings in Israel. It's a clear plastic box thingy for holding exhibits in. About the size of a really large fish tank. On top of it, they put the yartzhite candles to burn whenever someone dies. Afterwards they put it inside the plastic thingy. So there's this stack of yartzhite candles slowly growing inside of it. Kinda I dunno... makes a statement I suppose.

Yesterday they had this really big candle burning for all the Holocaust victims. A couple of weeks ago I actually met a real Holocaust denier. I mean I knew they existed but they had always been in the abstract for me. They had always been some...loony on the news or something. The way this guy talked about it... was just so casual. He went something like, "Six million ha, I wonder where they got that number from where there were only like a hundred thousand (Or some number) Jews in Europe in the first place." Fortunately I wasn't the one talking to him really. My ... Sally was talking to him. Things kinda went a little sour and strange after that. I guess that's what happens when you start denying the Holocaust in front of two Jews who lost almost all their family in it.

I don't know.

Comments

[coltillicit.livejournal.com]

I know there are sick people out there like that, but I've had the good fortune never to have met them in person. I have, however, recently met Jews who hate black people. I found this utterly shocking. I grew up in strictly observant communities where a lot of the old Jewish families were black/brown/whatever, so I'm still reeling from the knowledge that we are equally capable of oppressing others. I just hope that the authorities to whom I and several others are bringing our complaints will act swiftly to ensure that this is NOT tolerated at all.

Racism is a lethal social disease. I try to have zero tolerance for racism by anyone for any reason.