The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes
by Avraham Burg.  New York:  Palgrave Macmillan,  2008. Pp. 252

Reviewed by Dr. Susan K. Hedahl

This work is an eloquent, anguished and finely-tuned look at how the Holocaust has shaped the nation of Israel.  Burg, an active politician and former speaker in the Knesset, asserts in many ways that the tragedy of the Shoah is that Israel seems to have allowed, even cultivated, a victimology based on its history, which prevents it from acting as a confident and liberated nation.

Burg points to the ways in the over-emphasis on the Shoah forces Israelis to relive it in negative terms politically, personally and emotionally.  One of the costs of this self-focus is:  “We do not know the universal context of the Shoah and therefore do not realize the consequences of our absence from protesting, altering, and struggling again other people’s holocausts.’ (p. 153).

Burg devotes some space to the Eichmann trial as well and claims:  “The Eichmann trial was an initiation ritual in which Israel reasserted itself as a victim…..We must always feel like perpetual victims and must always sacrifice to avoid responsibility for the reality that we face.” (p. 128)

This work demands a close read.  Every paragraph offers insights, recasts Israeli history in ways many non-Israelis never consider and offers a way forward, which Burg thinks Israel is unwilling to take at this point. His solution is that Israel and the Jews must consider themselves in context.  “There is not, and there must not be, a separate Jewish humanity.  Humanity is humanity, without compromises and exceptions.  Not even us. [contra the Chosen People mentality]. With the annulment of this notion from our law books, we will be free and liberated.” (p. 238)

As a Minnesota teen, I remember being taken to see the hit movie Exodus; I remember the humanities teacher at the University of Minnesota who was passionate about Israel, Hannah Arendt and World War II.  As a theologian and teacher, I have daily reasons to ponder Israel.

As an adult who travels periodically to Israel/Palestine, I find Burg’s work a lyrical, in-depth historically and morally informed work that should be read by all who love Israel and its neighbors, since Burg reveals many insights into the general history of Israel which most of us have not learned.  Burg’s humanity and scholarship are praiseworthy; truly a voice unafraid and compassionate.