The Sheer Outrage of Ignoring Jews

As Israeli-starved Gazans stampeded into Egypt to buy desperately needed foodstuffs, the self-appointed Council of German Jews vociferated its indignation and “outrage” that a Munich carnival had been scheduled for what Jewish organizations have unilaterally decreed to be “International Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

The Council seems oblivious to the fact that except in its own mind there is no such thing as an International Holocaust Rembrance Day. It is not an official holiday in Germany nor in most of the rest of the world. No doubt the Council will labor ceaselessly to rectify that failure and to insure collective self-abasement by everyone else to the unsurpassable uniqueness of Jewish suffering. But until then, the Council is simply being "uniquely insensitive" to other peoples' happiness.

Personally I find the Jewish Council’s action outrageously hypocritical. The dead are gone. If we are to be about remembering, christian faith requires us to relieve and console the present sufferings of others. Indeed, the Old Testament itself commanded no less. But to hell with Jesus, Jeremiah or Isaiah. In the Council’s imperious view we are all to heap ashes on ourselves and dedicate ourselves to remembering past Jewish suffering while present-day Jews inflict collective hunger and privation on civilians in complete violation of humanitarian international law.

©Barfo, 2008