{"id":102412,"date":"2023-02-25T17:05:39","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T15:05:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=102412"},"modified":"2023-02-25T11:17:41","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T09:17:41","slug":"03-05-84","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=102412","title":{"rendered":"How Can Jews Support Ukraine After the Holocaust?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>How Can Jews Support Ukraine After the Holocaust?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n


\nNATAN SHARANSKY AND BERNARD-HENRI L\u00c9VY<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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An exchange between Bernard-Henri L\u00e9vy and Natan Sharansky, from the recent Tablet event in partnership with the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine.<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

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Questioner: I know there\u2019s a lot of sympathy for the Ukrainians right now \u2014there\u2019s the country that\u2019s been invaded, with innocent children and the women. But as a child of Holocaust survivors, a lot of people that I speak to can\u2019t dredge up much sympathy for the Ukrainians and how they were chewing gum as they shot us in the mass graves at Babi Yar.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Natan Sharansky<\/strong>: Thank you for saying it because it was just a topic that I wanted to raise and there was no time. There\u2019s so many people who died in the Holocaust in my family, and I am the chairman of the Babi Yar Memorial. I\u2019m dealing all the time with the victims. And I hear all the time from very good people and some of my close friends that they have sympathy to the suffering of every child. But they cannot make themselves feel solidarity with Ukraine as a state or Ukrainians as a nation knowing what a terrible history there was there, first with the Chelminitsky pogroms, which were terrible, and of course with the Holocaust. And I can tell you my answer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First of all, antisemitism is not something which was specific for Ukraine or any other land. Antisemitism is the most ancient hatred, which rises regularly whenever people need to hate the other.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So even if you think about some nice places in the Alps in Switzerland, remember that the whole Jewish community were burnt alive in order to avoid plague there. And if you enjoy traveling to Spain, the thing that you see is Ferdinand and Isabella, big heroes of today\u2019s history of Spain, who exiled half of the Jewish people. Or think about Provence, a great place, I enjoy it there very much. Only think of what Crusaders did there, the terrible massacres of entire Jewish populations.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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So if we Jews will start building our relationship with the world on the basis of what they did to us, we should move to another planet.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Second, our sages are giving very good advice. I am not a rabbi, but I was advised to read this comment of Rashi on the chapter when Hagar and Ishmael are sent to the desert, and Ishmael almost dies from thirst. He has no water.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And then God says to Hagar, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid. I\u2019ll help your son as he is,\u201d and he helps Ishmael. And then the comments of our sages is that the angels of the heavens revolt and said, \u201cAh, you\u2019re helping him? Don\u2019t you know how many awful things his people will do to our people?\u201d And God says to them, \u201cNow at this moment, is a child innocent or guilty?\u201d And they say \u201cinnocent.\u201d So I\u2019ll judge everybody in his time and that\u2019s our way. It means that we have to deal with the people at this time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The people of Ukraine at this time, not only, as Bernard said, by the way, have the lowest level of neo-Nazis in Europe. You have to understand that when these neo-Nazis that Putin speaks about so much, when they tried to go to election, they didn\u2019t get 1%. They didn\u2019t get one-tenth of 1% of the vote.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And think about many countries in Europe where it is different. And of course half of the Ukrainian government is Jewish, and openly Jewish. And Zelensky is not only speaking about his Jewishness, but about his deep love for Israel. And they were all elected in free elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And above and beyond all this, it so happened that God, providence, history, has put Ukraine and its people in the unique position of being defenders of the free world. So let\u2019s judge Ukraine in this time, as God told us.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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