Judaism is a monotheistic (singular god) religion with its main teachings being based on the Hebrew bible. The Jews express Judaism as the canonical relationship instituted between God and the children of Israel. This religion is not homogenous and allows the practice of different views and steams. As a Jew of the rabbinic stream, and having been borne out of a family of survivors the holocaust means a time of persecution, religious intolerance and profiling of the crudest degree. My grandparents used to live in a small polish town of Lodz together with my mother and her sister, my aunt. After the onset of the war and the slaughter and rounding up of Jews began, my grandfather moved his family to Warsaw, where he felt was safer. This presumed safety proved an illusion when they were rounded up and herded to the Warsaw ghetto. There, they were fortunate enough to find a Christian friend who helped them in attaining faked Christian documents, which gave them effectively, new identities. Being a Jew or a member of any other group that did not meet the classification of ‘proper human beings’ ,then, was a death certificate just waiting for ratification. However, my family survived with the exception of my grandfather who had the unfortunate added disadvantage of being a man. He was shot after being discovered that he was circumcised.
My mother and aunt survived the war, but their faith did not. My grandmother, who just recently died, could not bring herself to actively practicing her faith for fear of persecution. The United States is a safer place for Jews owing to its diversity, but Jews still suffer the highest instances of religious discrimination beating their closest rival, racial discrimination of the blacks, by a big percentage margin. To me, holocaust means the end of true freedom of worship and association for Jews, the bigoted persecution of Jews of which I am one and the start of real alienation of Jewish populations worldwide. The Holocaust means to me, the day that being a Jew translated to tragedy.
Works Cited
Abrahams, Israel. Judaism. Waiheke Island: Floating Press, 2008. Print.
"Does the Holocaust Still Matter?" aishcom. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.
"God Is Not a Babysitter." aishcom. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Oct. 2013.
