Limmud Bay Area Festival 2018

Since 1945 we have erred in emphasizing what was done by perpetrators to Holocaust victims (the Horror Story) while slighting what victims tried to do for one another (the Help Story).  We need a reset that draws on both matters, the better to highlight our Social Instinct to aid others even at risk of our own lives.  We need to learn about creative, secret, non-militant resistance to dehumanization in ghettos and camps.  We need to alter an unduly bleak view of the Holocaust, our cringing school lessons, our depressing Yom HaShoah commemorations and our veiled devaluation of the 1933-1945 lives of European Jewry.  There is much in the actual history of which we should be proud, as some Jewish victims lived up to the Commandment - "Thou Shall Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself."  Pragmatic and inspiring reforms are overdue and merit our warm support.