Two Minute Torah Podcast

Mishpatim 5769 by Rabbi Rafi Rank

EXPLOITING THE HOLOCAUST

When it comes to Jews, some people really know how to push our buttons, and they do it by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

We've seen the comparisons. It's the Israeli flag with a swastika replacing the star; it's the head shot of an Israeli prime minister defaced with a little Hitler mustache; it's the references to a Palestinian Holocaust. It's the Jewish British Member of Parliament, Gerald Kaufman, who recently referred to a report by an Israeli army spokeswoman as [quote] "the reply of a Nazi [end quote]."

These comparisons have enjoyed a vicious resurgence with the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza. Let's examine the comparison. Is it fitting or fiction?

Between Israel's entry into Gaza in 1967, and its 2005 departure, the population quadrupled from 360,000 to 1.4 million. The European Jewish population during the Holocaust years did not quadruple—did it?

A Palestinian woman's life expectancy in 1967 was 46. When Israel left Gaza life expectancy had increased to 73. The life expectancy of a Polish Jew during the years of the Holocaust was…well actually, a Polish Jew had no life expectancy.

During the 68 months of World War II, Jews were murdered at a rate of 90,000 per month. Israel's three week operation in Gaza sadly took the lives of 1000 Palestinians.

The comparison between Israel and Nazi Germany further deteriorates when we consider the facts that during the Gaza operation, the UN and Red Crescent (the Arab version of the Red Cross) continued to operate; medical, fuel and food supplies continued to flow; concentration camps forcing the able-bodied to labor gratuitously for hours were non-existent; and no sickening medical experiments on living human beings were ever conducted.

This week's parashah, Mishpatim, reminds us to never oppress a stranger for having been strangers in the land of Egypt,

Ve'atem yedatem et nefesh hager

[we just happen to know] the feelings of the stranger (Exodus 23:9)

We remember Egypt and we remember Nazi Germany. Israel compares to neither. So in the spirit of Rabi Eliezer who taught us long ago—"Da mah shetashiv l'epikuros, Know how to answer an unbeliever" (Pirkei Avot 2:19), let's be sure to answer those who would delegitimize Israel with comparisons as outrageous as they are wrong. So answer with the truth—it really pushes their buttons.

* The author would like to thank David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, for bringing into focus how unlike the two are.