AMERICAN JUDAISM AND THE HOLOCAUST


While almost 75% of American Jews feel that remembrance of the Holocaust is an essential, defining aspect of Jewish identity, this was not always the case. The centrality of the Holocaust in the American Jewish mindset evolved throughout the 20th century, and If I Forget explores how controversial the topic remains in our own times.


It took nearly 10 years after Hitler came to power in 1933 for Americans to learn of the Nazi’s actions. One of the first Americans to speak out was Rabbi Stephen Wise, a Budapest-born Jew living in America. In August 1942, Wise received a message from Europe about Hitler’s plans for mass extermination. But the U.S. State Department chose to withhold this information from the public until it could be verified. Wise cooperated, waiting until November 24,1942 to speak to the press about what he had heard.


In 1942, The New York Times published its first reports of Hitler’s actions on page 10. In the following years, most mainstream newspapers failed to cover the Holocaust prominently or extensively, in part because the American press had been criticized for false coverage of German atrocities during World War I.


The American Jewish community did respond with alarm, and Jewish organizations pressured the government to take action; however, most Americans were preoccupied with the war itself and remained unaware of Nazi atrocities until after the war, when the Allied armies liberated the concentration camps.


Restrictive immigration policies, supported by strains of anti- Semitism in parts of American society, limited the number of European Jews who found refuge in America, both during and after the war. Although President Roosevelt and other international leaders conferred about the mounting refugee crisis, the U.S was slow to accept significant numbers of exiled Jews. This, in turn, strengthened support for the foundation of modern Israel in 1948.


In the post-war years, some American Jews chose not to focus on the plight of European Jewry, but rather on the establishment of Israel, the Cold War, and their own lives moving into the suburbs and building new synagogues. Still, memory of the Holocaust was honored through literature, liturgy, and public displays, amongst many Jewish American organizations.


6 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY


The public trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann put the Nazi crimes into the spotlight in 1960. In the same period, Americans learned more about the Holocaust through literature, like Elie Wiesel’s Night (published in English in 1960), plays like The Diary of Anne Frank (1955) and Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy (1964), and films such as Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1965). Starting in the 1970s, American


memorials and museums were built, and today, over half the 50 states have a dedicated memorial or museum for the Holocaust.


If I Forget is set in 2000, when some historians were expressing dissenting views on Jewish identification with the victimization and trauma of the past. Peter Novick’s The Holocaust in American Life (1999) asserted that postwar American Jews initially ignored the Holocaust, then clung to their status as victims to forward their political interests. Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry (2000) posited that an industry of Holocaust remembrance emerged to serve right-wing Israeli policies and economic gain through the pursuit of reparations. While such views are controversial, they’ve pushed American Jews to question how to honor the lessons of the past while building a positive, equitable, and peaceful future.•


BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL The Birthright Israel program was founded in 1999 in response to concerns that assimilation was reducing engagement with Jewish life and the State of Israel. The program provides every Jewish young adult worldwide, ages 18-26, a free trip to Israel. Birthright visitors meet Israelis, visit important sites, and are taught the ideas and values of the Jewish people. The goal is to strengthen Jewish identity, communities, and support for Israel, thus ensuring the future of the Jewish people. Since its founding, 500,000 Jewish young adults from 67 countries and all of the United States have visited Israel through the program.


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