Most countries celebrate the best in their pasts. Germany unrelentingly promotes its worst.If only we could show as much dedication teaching our children about the history of Israel today.
The enormous Holocaust memorial that dominates a chunk of central Berlin was completed only after years of debate. But the building of monuments to the Nazi disgrace continues unabated.
On Monday, Germany’s minister of culture, Bernd Neumann, announced that construction could begin in Berlin on two monuments: one near the Reichstag, to the murdered Gypsies, known here as the Sinti and the Roma; and another not far from the Brandenburg Gate, to gays and lesbians killed in the Holocaust.
In November Germany broke ground on the long-delayed Topography of Terror center at the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters. And in October, a huge new exhibition opened at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. At the Dachau camp, outside Munich, a new visitor center is set to open this summer. The city of Erfurt is planning a museum dedicated to the crematoriums. There are currently two exhibitions about the role of the German railways in delivering millions to their deaths.
When I was teaching at a Yeshiva Ketanah, the 8th grade class each year had to do a paper on some aspect of the Holocaust. One year I suggested that at the very least the school should spend some time teaching about the modern history of Israel. The school offered a 'mini-course' which I taught. I remember how impossible it was to find a textbook to use for the class--in the end I had to cobble together one or two books with different pamphlets and printouts.
That was in the late 1980's.
As important as it is to remind ourselves--and others--about the Holocaust, at what point do we start to teach our children about the modern history of Israel?
Technorati Tag: Israel and Holocaust.
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