Rabbis For Human Rights

Instituted a number of years ago, the March of the Living, a two-week trip that includes a visit to the concentration camps in Poland, followed by a week's stay in Israel, was to become a panacea for combating increasing assimilation on the part of Diaspora Jewish youth.

Such a powerful trip was designed to enhance Jewish identity and commitment. Yes, a week in Poland and a week in Israel should do the trick. But maybe, that's all it is - a trick.

Now that the March of the Living, or at least some participating groups, has announced Israel will not be included as a part of the program because of security concerns, the trick is exposed, and one is left with a "March of the Dead!"

Indeed, it is truly an irony of history when one determines a visit to Auschwitz is safer for a Jew than a visit to Israel. But such a decision simply demonstrates some Diaspora Jewish emperors (read educators) have no clothes.

Tears shed at Auschwitz for the six million Jews miss the enduring point of a visit to Jewish Europe: The loss was not only of Jewish life, but also the loss of a Jewish culture that was so rich and vibrant for a thousand years. A subsequent visit to Israel for a mere week, filled with mourning ceremonies, hardly does justice to the positive energy Israel can generate, even in the most difficult of times. But such is the underlying educational raison d'etre for the March of the Living program.

Even though the trip brings youngsters here during Independence Day, the festive celebrations are dwarfed by what is essentially negative Jewish identity building. If the Holocaust is to be used as an emotional trigger, a visit to the graveyards of Europe must be followed by a healthy stay in Israel. But this year, there will not only not be the inadequate one-week stay, there will be no visit at all. The trip will end in Treblinka or Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen - another irony of modern-day history.

Then again, the whole adventure is based on an historical inaccuracy. The advent of modern Zionism preceded the Holocaust by 50 years. Yet, it is often postulated that had Israel already existed as a state, Jews would have had a place to go during those awful days. That being the case, one would expect that the overriding theme of the March of the Living would be aliya. But even on such an emotionally-laden program, those educators who fashion this trip shy away from such a thought, despite the manifestly logical conclusion that a historical journey of this kind would suggest.

In light of the cancellation of the Israel portion of the program, these same educators need not bother themselves with the role that the Jewish state plays in the life of the Jewish people, let alone consider the possibility of aliya. They are now free from confronting the question: what if there was a Jewish state in 1933? For if one were to apply a semblance of logic to the recent decision to exclude Israel from the March of the Living agenda, it would not matter if the Jewish state existed in the time of Hitler. It would have been deemed too dangerous for the Jews to go there!

So what is one left with? A negative sense of Jewish self. This could be offset by a visit to Israel, even, as aforementioned, in stressful times.

While we do live partially in fear here, we still go about our daily lives, and there is an excitement that Israel creates for a Jew in the field of arts, science, and sport. The social dynamics that are the life-blood of Israel fosters a vibrant political debate. Not to be exposed to this side of Israeli life leaves one with the pictures flashed on CNN: Israelis being blown up in pizza parlors and Palestinians being gunned down by Israeli tanks. This, combined with a visit to Auschwitz, paints a depressing portrait of Jewish life.

It may be understandable for Diaspora youth movements and organizations to cancel Israel programs because of the fear of terrorism. But given the powerful symbolism of a trip to the concentration camps and the emotional and spiritual need to address the issue of Jewish survival, it is unacceptable to cancel the Israel part of the March of Living.

What is a young person to say at the memorial service held at the crematoria in Auschwitz? You faced the onslaught of Nazism, yet I am afraid to go to Israel, the singular most defiant reply to those who brought upon us the most tragic event in our history. Canceling the Israel portion of the trip - as educationally and experientially inadequate as it is in the first place because of its one-week duration - makes a mockery of an already suspect program that attempts to solidify Jewish identity.

Worse, such a decision belittles the Jews of Europe and the Jews of Israel. And ultimately, it belittles the participants themselves.

The writer is the author of Fifty Ways to be Jewish.

Originally published by The Jerusalem Post, 6 Nisan 5762; Tuesday March 19, 2002
Original Online version can be found at: http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2002/03/19/Opinion/Opinion.45436.html
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Republished with Permission.