As we commemorate Yom HaShoah at a time when the war with Iran remains unsettled and antisemitic violence continues to grow, avoiding the continuing diminution of the Holocaust while still learning from it for today’s world is an ongoing challenge. 

The waning of Holocaust influence continues to be an enormous problem. As Holocaust survivors (the most influential witnesses to generations who did not live through the tragedy) die, as greater distance from the events makes it harder to establish their relevance and reality to younger generations, and as anti-Israel sentiment in the world grows, it is hardly surprising that the Holocaust is in danger of losing the power it had over the decades to influence a better world. 

These factors have a life of their own and pose great challenges to combat. At the same time, it is critical not to contribute to this diminution through acts that either trivialize the Shoah or make it harder for people today to relate to it or even acknowledge it. 

One of the most significant manifestations of this phenomenon is the tendency to use the Holocaust to describe anything people dislike. The glib use of either the murder of six million Jews or the evils of the Nazi regime to denigrate any and all things unlikable (whether abortion, the Trump Administration or even Israeli policies in Gaza........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)