Natalie Portman tells the Jewish community to stop focussing on the Holocaust

[bodenbiscuit]

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/natalie-portman-says-jewish-community-should-focus-less-on-the-holocaust-10465577.html

The Holocaust is proof of the unspeakable evil that human beings are capable of and I don't think anyone should ever stop talking about it and I don't think anyone should ever be allowed to forget it.

I think also it's quite understandable that people don't want to forget why they have gaping holes in their family history. What an insensitive thing to say IMO! That doesn't mean I don't think about the crimes that are committed towards others, like Rwanda for example. Arguably though, the sheer scale on which an attempt to murder an entire race of people was made is unparalleled.

We need to be reminded that hatred exists at all times and reminds us to be empathetic to other people that have experienced hatred also. Not used as a paranoid way of thinking that we are victims

If this quote has been reported accurately, I can see no problem with it at all

That said, I can't help wondering what the reaction would have been if she'd picked some other issue to say it about - slavery, for example

I can't see anything wrong with the article, and I think she makes a valid point.

I was watching a documentary recently and a young Israeli woman was talking about the education she received on the creation of Israel, where she was told in school that it was created in an unpopulated desert, amongst other blatant untruths. I found it shocking, and while I agree that children all over the world should be taught about the world wars and the holocaust, I think it needs to be taught alongside other things, because the holocaust is only one of many atrocities and it is not the only one that matters.

I think she makes an excellent point and makes it sensitively. I'm Jewish and the thing that upsets me most about the Holocaust remembrances is the "Never again" sentiments. It's too late for never again, there have been countless genocides since the Holocaust and it seems to be hardwired into human nature to scapegoat and other races and religions who are different from us.

I would like a remembrance day for Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq and wherever and for it to focus these atrocities as much as the Holocaust. I read somewhere that there isn't one family in Rwanda who hasn't lost someone during that time. I don't think as jews, we should claim all the rights to being the only people who have suffered horribly.

TheseventeenthSixteen - Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK is described as "the day for everyone to remember the millions of people killed in the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur."
I only learned this last year, having been under the impression that the events organised on that day were soley concerned with the Nazi Holocaust.

We only touched on WW2 in history lessons when I was at school in the 1990s. The Holocaust might have been mentioned very briefly but it must have only become part of the curriculum in later years. (I do remember an assembly at about the time of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, when our teacher told us that the number of people gassed there every day would have filled up our lecture theatre 62 times). I remember the emergency appeals on TV about the Rwandan genocide, although I don't recall it ever being mentioned at school. I wouldn't necessarily expect the Rwandan genocide to be taught in school classes on European history, but I think Natalie Portman makes a good point that we must also remember and learn from other genocides and ongoing atrocities.

I agree with her.

Reading the full article rather than just the headline she makes a good point and sensitively.

Hard to call. It is a big part of Jewish history and there's still people alive from when it happened.

But it shouldn't be the only thing they focus on when teaching classes. There's a lot of stuff going on currently that should be taught and talked about.

Well Americans tell the native americans all the time to get over it, white people tell black people to get over slavery and there are discussions about whether apologies are any good. The Jewish community got huge amounts of money to pay back what happened to them but have black people? Native Americans got a small amount but nowhere near the same as Jews.

Maybe we unconsciously give more credence to what Jewish people went through because we can think oh it wasn't us it was the natzis.

I wonder why the Holocaust has essentially become shorthand for "the worst example of what humans can do" when the black slave trade (sadly) was far worse.

Strike black, insert African.

Ah, FriedFish got there first.

I believe something like 20 million Native Americans were killed.

Making connections between the Holocaust and other acts of atrocity - particularly PRESENT acts - is surely a way of actively remembering - rather than interring a memory. Actively remembering, and using these memories to incite action in our lives, right now, is surely a good thing? I think this is her point.

I've been reading a fictional novel based in the period leading up to the Holocaust this week and it has made me think a great deal about events I am seeing on the news. I've found I'm getting quite depressed and it has occurred to me that one of the great cures for (politically-based) depression is to find some - however small - thing you can do. So that's what my aim is for this week. I guess this is - on a very small, quite laughable really, scale - what I mean by active remembering.

Some historians use a definition of the Holocaust that includes the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to approximately eleven million

It is very complex problem because Hitler and his cronies made sure they killed every Jewish person they put their hands on.
6 MIllions Jewish and 5 Millions of other nationalities. Many, many Gypsies, Russians, Poles and other nations.

thecatfromjapan - what is the novel you are reading?

Have you read Hare with the amber eyes?

I don't think we can ever comprehend how many Africans were slaughtered during the slave trade. Even once slavery was abolished the kkk took over and it's still an organisation now and people don't look at them in horror. Whereas if the natzis were protesting and marching down the street against Jews there would be uproar, but black people are just supposed to grin and bare it. Fucking disgusts me.

I'm not saying, antimatter . It's pretty trashy and was supposed to be light reading BUT because it's (researched) historical fiction ... well, the back-drop is grim. But, frankly, so, so useful to bear in mind as I reflect on present politics. I strongly suspect that the author had this effect in mind when she was writing: lure people in with the froth but keep the serious stuff there.

FFAB - I'm absolutely NOT going to get pulled into some sort of either-orring of atrocity. Avoiding that - which is a divisive strategy - is exactly the point. It's not necessary and is morally objectionable.

Wow, as many disabled people were killed as German Jews.

Charis1 - have you seen this article? It's about the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors talking about inherited trauma.

There's book called Hope: a Tragedy which talks about inherited trauma of those who didn't take part/survived.

Glad [if that's the right word] to hear about inherited trauma on the thread.
Some years ago I worked at a college in London and a couple of Holocaust survivors visted to meet Sixthformers to answer questions and talk about their experiences.
I really hadnt got any words when they both told me they had a child each who had committed suicide as a result of being born into a survivor family.

It's about the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors talking about inherited trauma.

If trauma is inherited, then surely it's not just restricted to grandchildren of the holocaust?

Agreed rabbit. But to mention that would be either or orring apparently and distasteful.

If trauma is inherited, then surely it's not just restricted to grandchildren of the holocaust?

no, but the extent of the trauma within one community is so great in the case of holocaust survivors and their descendants that it has become one of the main focusses for research on epigenetics. Particularly when they are spread throughout the world now, so living in many different circumstances. Ideal scientific study.

That is one way in which the holocaust remains at the forefront of peoples minds.

Epigentics isn't just about inherited trauma, though. That is just the example relevant here. It last three generations, and gets less with each. That is the current thinking.

Yes. This study about inherited trauma is a prime example of how the holocaust has eclipsed everything else. What about the effects of European colonisation of Africa? I'm guessing they're still suffering a lot of trauma.

Well Americans tell the native americans all the time to get over it, white people tell black people to get over slavery and there are discussions about whether apologies are any good. The Jewish community got huge amounts of money to pay back what happened to them but have black people? Native Americans got a small amount but nowhere near the same as Jews.

The slave trade was certainly another holocaust, every bit as terrible.

The difference is it was longer ago, there is no one left alive living with the epigentic effects. Your epigenetics depend on what you mother experienced in her life time mostly, followed to a lesser extent by her mother, and her mother.