[Avodah] Shoa

[Joseph Kaplan]

There are other reasons why the Shoa is sui generis. In none of the other
tragedies perpetrated against the Jews did a government seek to annihilate
the Jewish people. Spain wanted to expel the Jews (who could stay if they
converted). The Crusaders were not the government(which often, if only
for practical reasons) tried to save Jews. The Romans were putting down
a rebellion (and took lots of Jews as slaves).But the Nazis government
had only one goal: complete annihilation. Period. That was their goal
with no recourse other than the Allies defeating that government as,
thank God, they did.

Don't misunderstand me. What all these events had in common is that
the perpetrators were evil people. I'm not justifying or defending them
one iota. But the Shoa was different in scale (off the page different)
as well as intent. It never happened before and, please God, it will
never happen again.

-- email #2 [-micha] --

Joel Rich asks: A recent article made the case that the shoa was sui
generis in Jewish history. Would you agree or disagree? (more of interest
to me "why?")"

I would agree. My reason is scale. Take the Kishinev pogrom which resulted
in convulsions throughout the Jewish world and beyond. Total killed --
49. Horrifying; terrifying; unacceptable doesn't begin to describe it.

Now imagine if you can having one Kishinev a day for about 335
years. That's the Shoa. (A similar calculation can be done with the
Crusades (the last estimate I heard from a scholar was maybe 5,000)
and other horrifying events. The numbers will be somewhat different,
but not appreciably so.)

Joseph
Sent from my iPhone