Recently the actress Natalie Portman in an interview with the U.K. Independent opined about the Holocaust that “Sometimes it can be subverted to fear mongering…we need to, of course, be aware that hatred exists… against all sorts of people… we need it to serve as something that makes us empathetic to people … not used as a paranoid way of thinking that we are victims.”
Furthermore she believes that her Jewish day school education put too much emphasis on the Holocaust. As a personal example she recalled a 2007 trip to Rwanda in which she learned about the genocide that took place there and was appalled to discover that these atrocities occurred at the same time she was taught about the Holocaust in her school.
What is most disturbing about all these statements is not necessarily that they are all complete inversions of the truth but that they come from an intelligent individual with an Ivy League education who was born in Israel, who takes pride in being Jewish, and who has relatives who died in the Holocaust. Even more disturbing is that these off the cuff opinions uttered by a single individual are representative of many unaffiliated and partially affiliated Jews of her generation. The only reason her opinions are documented and given import is because she has a certain degree of fame.
Because of the prominence bestowed upon her, it is important to point out the faulty logic of her statements, and to further analyze why and how she and other young Jews of her generation can and do think like her.
If the goal of Holocaust education is to increase Jewish sensitivity to the plight of others, as recommended by the actress, then it can be concluded that it has been remarkably effective. Just to mention a few examples, was it not Holocaust educated, or at the very least, Holocaust knowledgeable Jews who were in the forefront of the Black Civil Rights movement in the United States, and in the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa? Weren’t Jews disproportionately vocal in the “Save Darfur” movement, perhaps even more so than Christians and Moslems?” Aren’t Jews today one of the loudest voices protesting the genocide of Christians in large swaths of the Middle East? Is Ms. Portman aware of the Jewish Schindler saving Yazidi girls from ISIS slavery? Perhaps she has not been in contact with Prof. Gabriel Motzkin, director of the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and a Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Hebrew University, who thinks it’s important for Israeli society to understand what the Palestinians call the Nakba and to be sensitive to the trauma that constitutes the identity of the Palestinians. Has she ever walked into to any random Holocaust Museum in the United States or anywhere else in the world which curate simultaneous exhibitions of various non-Jewish genocides, and whose missions they all maintain are to prevent genocides from happening to other peoples?
Let us now also look at the flip side of Ms. Portman’s thesis. If she is asking Jews to stop obsessing over the Holocaust, which does nothing but invoke paranoia, why not be fair and ask the same of all other peoples. Has she asked representatives of the African- American community to stop incessantly discussing their history of slavery and their fights for civil rights and social justice, and insist that these topics are given too much emphasis in schools? Does she take umbrage at the audacity of the Armenians who remember their genocide by the Turks and want it to be recognized as such and properly memorialized? Has she had discussions with the GBLT leadership and chastise them for their paranoia and their constant complaints of unequal treatment and for harboring memories of their history of discrimination? When she visits Israel does she go to the Palestinian territories and insist that they give too much emphasis to their interpretation of the Nakba in their school texts? Don’t count on an affirmative answer to any of these hypotheticals.
Too much Holocaust education according to Ms. Portman evokes paranoia which by definition “is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion”. This is a curious time to accuse Jews of paranoia. In France where Ms. Portman lives, is it delusional to think that killing Jews in a kosher supermarket and the execution of countless violent physical and verbal anti-Semitic attacks by extremists is a figment of an overactive Jewish imagination? When Iran pledges to destroy Israel and compares it to a cancer, while there is nary a protest from the civilized world, is it irrational to think that they really do mean it?
So why does a clever young woman and so many other people her age express these commonly held misguided views? They’re not bad people. They are, however, constantly being bombarded by high levels of unrestrained and rampant anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism which are echoed by traditional media, social networks, college professors and multiple other sources permeating every walk of life, until these views eventually sink into many of their psyches and become internalized.
It isn’t uncommon to hear tropes such as “I’m sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust” which though not exactly Holocaust denial, attempts to convey a need for Holocaust amnesia. Loud and noisy movements like BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction), and pseudo pro-peace organizations like J Street and many others are legitimized and lionized by the media, and as a result delegitimize and undermine Israel, and whittle away at Jewish identity and Israel advocacy. If one is constantly taught to believe that Israel is the epitome of all evil, and that the Holocaust is equivalent to the supposed Nakba, then one starts to believe that the Holocaust is not only a mere footnote in history, but it’s probably not as bad as all the other genocides.
Human beings have a strong social need to be respected and to be accepted by their peers. If the majority of people around a minority of Jews are sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust and think that Israel is a mean Apartheid State whose sole reason to exist is to persecute Palestinians, then in order to fit in, and gain acceptance, pretty soon at least some Jews will start coming around to that view.
To a large extent Natalie Portman’s views are shaped by, and conform to the opinions of those she is surrounded by, both in anti-Semitic France and in liberal Hollywood. Like most people she craves social acceptance .Likewise, all the United States Jewish legislators who are voting in favor of the Iran Nuclear deal are afflicted by similar, if not identical social pressures. If these Senators and Congressmen were capable of ignoring these pressures and objectively reviewing all the facts, there would be enough Jewish legislative support to prevent the Iranian deal from passing. In other words, if only they were paranoid enough about the Holocaust, they would clearly see that they are potentially promoting another Holocaust by their actions.
At least Ms. Portman has some semblance of a Jewish identity. But what of those younger than her, and future generations who barely have any Jewish affiliation or background, who will be exposed to non-stop BDS assaults on campus, and incessant media barrages of Israel demonization? What kind of educational background and tools should they be equipped with in order to withstand these onslaughts, and to stand up for their own rights, and for that of Israel’s? Without coming up with a solution for these issues there will be many more future Natalie Portman’s whose hearts bleed only for all other peoples’ genocides and racial struggles, but never for those of their own people.
Natalie Portman’s opinions should be viewed as a mental snapshot of young Jewry today, and should serve as a cautionary tale to stimulate creative and bold steps among those in Jewish education, and in leadership positions to fortify Jewish identity with innovations such as Birthright Israel, to aggressively challenge BDS at every turn, to fight and legally challenge anti-Semitic words and deeds, to provide an intellectually and emotionally stimulating Jewish education, and yes to teach Holocaust history . This will sensitize Jews not only to their own plight, but to those of all other peoples, as has been our tradition for quite some time.
