silver rabbit: atlantic city holocaust memorial

how many holocaust memorials are actually needed in this world????

dont get it   10.16.10

some comments on these memorials tend to be contrarian, self-righteous, and uninformed so I’m hoping that these thoughts come across as level headed in their criticisms.

at first i was also a little confused by this project; from atlantic city's perspective, i cannot think of particularly relevant reasons to begin erecting holocaust memorials. moreover from the perspective of holocaust memorials, i cannot think of relevant reasons for a one to be erected on a boardwalk (and isn’t this the one from the board game monopoly?).

also literally every holocaust memorial in this world is centered around themes of absence, identity, incomprehensibility, and hope in continuity. we are not breaking new ground here. not only that, these themes already dominate almost any non-scholarly discourse about the holocaust today. whatever it was that the design team meant with the term “a new perspective” in the last line of the project’s proposal description, lets not pretend that this memorial in any way engaged in it.

Lastly -to further get on my soap box, for a moment- can i say that it might be time that we american jews begin exploring more rational and constructive ways to engage jewish and non-jewish youths in conversations about the relevancies of the holocaust? i am so tired of holocaust tributes being nothing but these things of conceptualized mourning. it is limited in educational value, and ultimately, detrimental to the jewish youths that grow up surrounded by that rhetoric. do american jewish youths know what jewish identity in america was before the holocaust came to define it? do they know how the memory of the holocaust affects our support of israel, or how it influences israel’s actions? is there ever really any emphasis put on broader conversations about identity and status in society, and how we all are/not forced to see various groups of people as more or less worthwhile?

where are the values? Where is the push to instill in jewish youth the sense of social justice the way christians have embraced charity?

That should be the ultimate goal of these memorials; to make vivid the loss of values in the holocaust, not to simply prolong a sense of sorrow. obviously this memorial could not have imparted all that, i’m just saying people should get their heads straight and priorities right.

YL   10.16.10