Earlier this week in Toronto, renowned Israeli scholar, teacher, thinker, author, Yossi Klein Halevi, was in Toronto at the invitation of the Toronto Holocaust Museum to share his thoughts on the difficult subject of “how to navigate the post-Holocaust era.”
Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, spoke to the large gathering barely a week after Yom Hashoah v’Hagvurah, and on the “eve” of Yom Hazicaron and Yom Ha’aztma’ut.
The calendar-related emotional “weightiness” of the week, along with, no doubt, Klein Halevi’s reputation for thoughtful, insightful discourse, combined to create an atmosphere among the many who had assembled to hear the speaker from Israel, of anticipatory excitement.
As it unfolded, the event met the anticipation. And the sense of excitement at the possibility of learning, of actually being enlightened, was rewarded.
The following is an excerpted precis of only some of Klein Halevi’s remarks.
Klein Halevi stated pointedly, without equivocation, that the post-Holocaust era ended on October 7, 2023. He explained why. “October 7 upended the two main points that provided a security and comfort in the Jewish world.”
For Israel, it was the return of the worry over the existential threat to the country’s existence to a front-and-centre place by way of Iran’s open quest for offensive nuclear capability and its control and manipulation of the various hateful proxies determined to perpetrate their unique evil upon Israelis and upon Jews.
For Jews in the Diasporah, it was the betrayal by former friends and allies, and the resulting sense of vulnerability, if not also isolation, that erupted brazenly and publicly immediately after Israel was attacked by Hamas. In many quarters the feelings of isolation persist amid a worrisome hostility and openly-expressed antisemitism.
Klein Halevi noted that “the other side is trying to steal the Holocaust from the Jews.” The anti-Israel groups accuse Israel of behaviours that are reminiscent of or replicate Nazi behaviours. They use language in relation to Israel’s actions that is aimed at creating Holocaust-specific images as depictions of the IDF’s behaviour.
The favourite perversion of language aimed at Israel, of course, is the use of “genocide”. The haters of Israel have even cleverly appropriated the suffix, “cide”, from the term genocide, attached it other nouns to hurl new false accusations against Israel. For example, “domicide” for destroying Palestinians’ homes; “educationicide” for destroying schools that are empty or worse, schools that are in session.
“The Holocaust itself”, Klein Halevi said, “has become a principal weapon against Israel and the Jewish people.” He astutely explained that this tactic by Israel’s enemies “is a form of supercessionism – [i.e., the notion that Christianity had superceded Judaism] – being transformed from the realm of theology into the realm of politics. It is very much in the tradition of some 2,000 years of (theologically-based) western thought that had been used against the Jews.”
Despite this malign development unfolding on the streets, in the academies and institutions of Western life, Klein Halevi warned that we must not see ourselves as victims. Rather, he urged us to tell the story of the post-Holocaust return by Jews to active history, stepping out of and away from thousands of years of powerlessness as a people to a condition of “hard”, sovereign power through the creation of the State of Israel and to that of “soft” democratic power through the manifold energetic involvements by Jews in Western societies.
How the Jews of the world recovered from the open wound of the Shoah, Klein Halevi said, is a story that needs to be told. It is the story of “our Exodus from the Shoah.” “And”, he added, “it must be an unabashedly proud story of the reclamation of power.”
Klein Halevi further added that we must not worry in the telling of our story, about alienating those who are already unfriendly to Israel’s cause and/or to Jewish life outside of Israel. “All through history, Jews have always been counter-culture,” Klein Halevi pointed out. This will simply be a new form of the position we have assumed throughout our long past.
But this is the key “take-away” that Klein Halevi imparted: “If we say our truth…we will find our allies.”
This is the vital thought that brings us to the doorstep of Jewish education and into our schools. To teach our children the truth of the Jewish story – from ancient through modern times and especially, following Klein Halevi’s prescription, into the post-Holocaust days – we must ensure that our families have meaningful access for their children to intensive, excellent Jewish education. As we wrote last week, adapted to help convey Klein Halevi’s message, it is the role of our system of formal and informal Jewish education to reinforce and enhance the truth of the full Jewish story that our children may learn at home. It is GAJE’s role to do our utmost to try to help make formal Jewish education affordable for all the families that seek it for their children. That is our promise.
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GAJE expects to be before the Court of Appeal in the Fall, arguing for the right to a hearing on the merits of our application for fair educational funding in Ontario. When we learn the date of the hearing, we will share it with our readers.
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit, please click here. Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of helping to underwrite the costs of the lawsuit. For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
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Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
May 2, 2025
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 