Judaism

One of my annual diaries (when I remember to do them) is honoring the Warsaw Ghetto uprising during WW II, which happened to coincide with Hitler's birthday in 1943. I happen to feel that it was a particularly good birthday present for Hitler: the defeat of his elite force by a bunch of half starved, barely armed Jews.

This year the anniversary is particularly poignant because, as in 1943, Passover began at sundown on April 19th and April 20th, the day the uprising took off, was the first day of Passover.

Last night, at the Seder we attended, the hostess compiled her own Haggadah for the evening. Within it she included something that seemed out of place and too modern...except that it was perfectly appropriate for a night that in 1943 was the Passover Seder, such as it was, just before the Warsaw uprising. In her photocopied Haggadah she included this (source unknown):

We remember the heroism of the Jews--men, women, children--who fought in the ghettos, in the forests, on the war fronts, together with all of democratic humanity, to stop the curse of fascism from engulfing the earth. We will be true to their memory by being vigilant in the cause of peace and freedom in our land and throughout the world.

In memory of Passover 1943, here's to the very appropriate gift the Jews of Warsaw gave to Hitler:

April 20th is Hitler’s Birthday. In 1943, Heinrich Himmler wanted to give Hitler a particularly nice birthday present. He decided that in honor of Hitler’s birthday he would eliminate the entire Jewish Ghetto of Warsaw, which had been causing trouble in the early months of 1943. The idea was to eliminate a group of uppity Jews and please Hitler in the process.

To all of our Jewish readers, Hag Hanukkah Sameach. This is the first night of Chanukkah, that minor holiday that got blown out of proportion due to marketing. Since Christmas got marketed to kids' greed, Chanukkah had to be so marketed as well.

Fundamentally, Chanukkah is a historical holiday. Although the clebration commemorates a supposed miracle (the use of one day's worth of oil for a full 8 days needed to purify the Temple) the underlying meaning is historical.

The ancient nations of Israel and Judah (probably never originally one nation despite what the bible says...though this is not definitively proven) had long ago been destroyed by Assyria and Babylon. They had been violently wiped from existence. Israel had believed in a multitude of shrines, the original Jewish way of worshipping, supposedly dating back to Abraham. But once Israel was destroyed, Judah did its best to centralize all worship in the Jeruselum Temple. So when Babylon razed that Temple and exiled the eleite of Judah, it was possibly the most traumatic experience in Jewish history at least up to that date. Though in the long and frequently traumatic history of the Jews, that may just be a matter of how the media spun the event.

Bottom line was, Judaism was slated for extinction by the Babylonian government. Arguably, Judaism was saved by the take over of Babylon by Persia. Babylon was the more brutal conqueror. Persia, despite the bad press it got from the Greeks who hated them, was among the most tolerant empires of history. They basically let local populations do whatever they wanted as long as they paid their taxes and provided troops for the army. To the jews this was liberation. They were given free reign, allowed to return from exile and allowed to rebuild their Temple. Persia was the good guy in much of the Eastern Medeterranean. Their religion, Zoroastrianism, didn't require conquered populations to adhere, so people could basically believe what they want and do what they want...as long as the Emperor got all the resources he needed to do what HE wanted.