20-04-2012
Israel Chief Rabbi, Yonah Metzger in a special column: “Antisemitism is as strong than anything.”
67 years have passed since the Nazi oppressor surrendered. The state of Israel was established in order to provide home and haven for all the diaspora Jews who were persecuted by the gentiles, with the hope that there the Jewish people would reach a state of peace and security. A sensible explanation for the atrocious holocaust has not been found and will probably never be found. When there is no logical explanation there is only one answer: hatred of the Jewish people.
In the last holiday of Passover, at 2:00 AM, the central Seder at the synagogue of the Jewish community in Kiev ended. Aaron Alexander Goncharov was walking to his home with a yarmulke and a hat on his head. A group of neo-Nazi youngsters who were waiting for him around the corner beat him savagely with clubs and caused him two fractures of the skull, an internal head hemorrhage and severe bruises in all parts of his body. Alexander was flown to Israel with the help of the ZAKA (Disaster Victim Identification) organization and he is hospitalized now in Ichilov Medical Center.
The media claim that so far there is no evidence of the attack having had an antisemitic background, but the people of the Jewish community can tell about a group of skinheads that has been roaming the area lately and intimidating its inhabitants.
The local Jews tell that amazingly, exactly at this site, a resident of the area, Mordekhai Gavriel Chaim Molzhanov was attacked in the past by 15 neo-Nazi youngsters who pelted him with stones until he lost consciousness. Molzhanov is hospitalized until this very day in Beit Levinstein. It seems that the condition of his neighbor and member of his community, Aaron Alexander Goncharov, is no less severe.
There is no sensible explanation – antisemitism
Sixty seven years have passed since the Nazi oppressor surrendered. The state of Israel was established in order to provide home and haven for all the diaspora Jews who were persecuted by the gentiles, with the hope that there the Jewish people would reach a state of peace and security. A sensible explanation for the holocaust has not been found and will probably never be found. When there is no sensible explanation there is only one answer: hatred of the Jewish people, or in its shortened name - antisemitism.
There is no excuse and no reason to defend even in the slightest way him who butchered, murdered, strangled, exterminated, burned and eradicated the life of six million people, among them a million children, with unimaginable cruelty and torture.
You will ask: who needs explanations? We, and our children and our offspring who may never meet those brands snatched from the burning fire; what shall we answer and what shall we tell them? Just one word – antisemitism! Eternal hatred of the eternal people is the only answer, albeit senseless, for all these unanswered questions.
Divine reckoning cannot always be understood
A few years ago I met the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She presented to me the data of antisemitic incidents that had taken place that year in Europe, emphasizing that in general, the number of these incidents was in decline and that in Germany, the number of antisemitic incidents was the lowest in Europe. I do not intend on this day to explain the data, but I could say that in many cases, like the last one, ’there is no evidence of the attacks having had an antisemitic background.’
About a month ago, we attended the funerals of Jonathan, Arie and Gavriel Sandler along with little Miriam Monsego, all members of the Toulouse Jewish community, who had been martyred. When I finished eulogizing them, one of the women members of the Jewish community in France approached me and asked how to explain what had happened to the children of the community. We talked about faith in the Creator, and divine edicts and divine reckoning that cannot always be understood; and, of course of how happy are the souls of these children, who are now close to God.
The blood of the Toulouse saints is still warm
Following this conversation I continued to reflect on these things and found myself standing in the same place of the children who are searching for an answer, asking myself “why?” and I found no answer except for senseless hatred of Jews, only because they are the sons of the chosen people, known for short as antisemitism; for Rabbi Simeon Bar Yohai declared about two thousand years ago that “It is a known Halacha (rule) that Esau hates Jacob”. By saying “A known Halacha” he meant to teach all the generations to come that there is no explanation to this. This is a reality that cannot be understood or changed.
