Thank heavens for the LA Times Op-Ed page. Finally Avraham Burg's book on the urgency of ending the Holocaust mindset is getting coverage in the U.S press. I don't think there have been major reviews yet. But the LAT runs an op-ed by the prophetic Burg:
[In Israel] Every
threat or grievance of major or minor importance is dealt with
automatically by raising the biggest argument of them all — the Shoah
— and from that moment onward, every discussion is disrupted.
The constant presence of the Shoah is like a
buzz in my ear. In Israel, children are always, it seems, preparing for
their rite-of-passage "Auschwitz trip" to Poland. Not a day passes
without a mention of the Holocaust in the only newspaper I read,
Haaretz. The Shoah is like a hole in the ozone layer: unseen yet
present, abstract yet powerful. It's more present in our lives than
God.
It is the founding experience not just of our national
consciousness but of more than that. Army generals discuss Israeli
security doctrine as "Shoah-proof." Politicians use it as a central
argument for their ethical manipulations.
The Shoah is so
pervasive that a study conducted a few years ago in a Tel Aviv school
for teachers found that more than 90% of those questioned view it as
the most important experience of Jewish history. That means it is more
important than the creation of the world, the exodus from Egypt, the
delivering of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the ruin of both Holy Temples,
the exile, the birth of Zionism, the founding of the state or the 1967 Six-Day War.
