The Appropriation of the Holocaust and Sectorialism – To Adi Ophir (Haaretz Books – 2001)

Nathan Schneider, in his review of Adi Ophir’s book ‘Lashon Lera’ (‘Haaretz’ – Books, 18.4), entitled ‘There Is Poetry after Auschwitz,’ sympathetically describes Ophir’s call against appropriating the Holocaust and its lessons for any purposes whatsoever: national, Zionist, religious, etc. Schneider writes that in Ophir’s book there is “an attempt to arrive at a pluralization of memory, that is, at individualization.”

These remarks raise two important points, both of which have implications far broader than the matter under discussion, and with neither of which can I agree:

1.a0a0a0a0a0a0a0The delegitimization of appropriating the Holocaust for any purpose whatsoever. This is not unique specifically to postmodernists like Ophir. In these troubled times, if you say that someone is appropriating the Holocaust for some purpose, you have thereby pulled the rug out from under any argument he makes.

2.a0a0a0a0a0a0a0Underlying these remarks is the assumption that positions such as Ophir’s do not suffer from such appropriation.

As stated, I disagree with these remarks on both of these levels, and I shall begin דווקא with the second point. I wonder whether appropriation of the Holocaust for the sake of a moral position in general, or for the sake of a specific moral position (and a controversial one) such as Ophir’s in particular, differs in essence from other processes of appropriation.

At the basis of such statements lies the assumption that the pluralist-individualist position is free of sectorialism; that is, that it constitutes pure morality, cleansed of the interests and machinations surrounding Ophir and his companions in the postmodernist position (or perhaps more accurately: experience).

As noted, this assumption has very broad implications. Generally speaking, those who hold liberal individualist worldviews feel that they are not a ‘sector.’ The religious are a sector; sometimes the nationalists are also a sector; the Arabs are a sector; so too are the development towns. The Left, by contrast, and especially its postmodern avant-garde, is never a sector. They are the world itself, the space within which all the sectors live.

Yet I, humble as I am, like many of my friends, דווקא feel that the most brutal sector, and the one that most appropriates the Holocaust and its lessons, is the individualist sector. That self-interested sector whose aim is to impose the individualist position on society as a whole.

This sector secures budgets for humanistic education, and awards itself prizes and scholarships for tolerance and pluralism, yet of course it ‘does not act from sectorial motives,’ and it also ‘does not extort money in an ugly manner.’ It establishes political parties, yet they of course ‘do not represent a sector, but rather act for the benefit of the entire population.’ It supports the Supreme Court’s judicial imperialism because, as stated, its composition ‘does not represent a sector but rather the space within which the sectors live.’ This sector also claims, in the name of the lessons of the Holocaust (!), that we must not rule over a foreign people, and that occupation corrupts, all this of course ‘without any appropriation of the Holocaust’ (see the beginning of the review under discussion).

I דווקא believe in the sincerity of these feelings. In my view, there is no conspiracy here of agents of vested interests, since I am not a postmodernist. In my eyes, this sincerity and innocence are the very heart of the danger in the assumptions implicit in these positions.

Postmodernism is a narrative like any other narrative, and therefore those who espouse these positions are a sector like any other sector. This is the sector of the individualists. On the other hand, in my view, a national, non-individualist position is also a moral position. The same is true of a religious or Zionist position, in the eyes of those who hold them. Therefore, if moral appropriation is permitted, then it is permitted to everyone.

Ophir and his fellow adherents of this view (this sector, this narrative) may claim that they believe in a different moral doctrine, but they cannot appropriate morality for themselves while at the same time protesting against appropriation.

Here I come to the other point mentioned above (the delegitimization of appropriation). Every moral position tries to make itself prevail in society. Were it not to do so, it would not be proper to call it a moral position. Whoever believes in some moral position certainly thinks that this is how every person ought to act, and therefore nothing is more legitimate than a reasonable attempt to make one’s position prevail in one’s surroundings. This applies even to the positions of Ophir and his friends, yet it is not clear to me why they deny the ‘other’ this right.

Therefore, in my view, appropriating the Holocaust for the sake of condemning our rule over a foreign people is an appropriation like any other, and it is also as legitimate as any other appropriation (even if it is plainly mistaken). The process of appropriating the lessons of the Holocaust is not only legitimate but obligatory. Anyone who draws conclusions from the Holocaust, in support of any moral doctrine, or any other doctrine, ought to try to disseminate them and to ensure that they are derived and implemented by as broad a public as possible. Opposition to appropriation should be directed against drawing demagogic conclusions from the Holocaust, and against using it as an emotional instrument for swaying opinions.

In conclusion, I propose as conclusions the reverse of the two points above:

1.a0a0a0a0a0a0a0We must all appropriate the Holocaust, provided that the conclusions can indeed be fairly and non-demagogically derived from the historical events. Therefore Ophir too, who does this (although he is certain that he is not doing so) in support of his position (mistaken though it is!), does well.

2.a0a0a0a0a0a0a0The postmodernist prohibition against appropriating the Holocaust is itself nothing but an appropriation of it in support of this very position.