The Holocaust: Private Memories, Public Memory

Over the past 15 years it has been the penchant among historians – myself among them – to present the first couple of decades following World War II as a period during which the Holocaust was suppressed in Israeli national consciousness. It has been claimed that, throughout this period, the Holocaust played no more than a marginal role in shaping the Israeli national identity, that it was never at the center of the public discourse, that it was not internalized by the education system. People did not want to hear about the Holocaust. People did not wish to discuss the Holocaust. The struggle preceding the founding of the state and, later, the War of Independence suppressed the shock of the Holocaust and the impact it had. There was no room in the newly formed heroic state for exhibitions of weakness and humiliation. Some historians have been able to understand this attitude, even excusing and explaining it away. Other were enraged by it and regarded it as a crude expression of heartlessness on the part of the veteran Israeli population toward the new immigrants, survivors of the devastation. But as for actually pushing aside the Holocaust issue to the edges of the Israeli agenda, there was no dispute: this assumption has been accepted as fact by historians and writers alike, and it has received wide coverage in the popular press and television. It served as a central factor in a scathing accusation against David Ben-Gurion – who is identified as the state's founding father – and against the first native generation, the sabras, for ignoring or erasing deliberately the memory of the Holocaust. On the other hand – so goes the accusation – they over-emphasized the role played by the all-powerful Israeli macho in building the nation and the country, and they nurtured the myth of heroism. This convention was to become one of the battering rams in attacks on the Israeli entity. It is now widely agreed that the age of marginalizing the Holocaust in Israeli awareness is past. There is no agreement, however, as to the exact moment at which it came to an end.