MIRAH LANGER
“What happens to the Jewish community is like the canary in the mines. It [violent animosity against a group] spreads, and happens to other communities. We saw what happened in New Zealand and the mosques, and we saw what happened in Sri Lanka at the churches,” he said.
“We see it spreading like wildfire because hatred knows no bounds.”
Kievman was speaking at the “Faith Under Fire” event at Chabad’s Goodness and Kindness Centre, which he runs along with his wife, Batya.
He said that as an example of anti-Semitism, the enormity of the Holocaust was startling. “When I think of Yom HaShoah, I think about the moment of silence in Israel. Everyone stops for two minutes, 120 seconds. That is 50 000 victims to remember per second. The number is mind boggling.”
Yet, when it came to the murder of Lori Gilbert-Kaye in Poway during a terrorist shooting, so too was the loss immense. “We are taught that to save one life is to save the whole world; so to think that if it is the loss of even one life, or if it is the lives of six million, that we are remembering… [ultimately] one life is a whole world… one whole universe.”
There is a distinction to be made in times of loss, depending on the context. “When it comes to G‑d’s behaviour, we don’t have answers, but when it comes to man’s behaviour, I think we have to stand up and speak up. We have to say: ‘Never again’.
“At this time, it is important that we don’t allow the terrorists to prevail.”
Kievman said that in response to the desire of terrorists to intimidate Jewish people from practicing their faith and culture, “we have to stand strong and tall”.
He illustrated his point by relating the story of a rabbi who, while visiting Yad Vashem, had come upon an Israeli soldier weeping in front of video testimony of an elderly man.
When the rabbi asked her if she was alright, she said she was fine, explaining that the video she was watching was her grandfather, who time and time again had told her this very same story of his Holocaust experience.
Kievman said that the rabbi had offered an interesting perspective to the soldier, telling her, “It’s the same story, but it’s a different ending… We know what happened then, but you are the continuation, the next chapter in our story.”
Just as the soldier, in defending Israel, had become part of rebuilding the homeland after the Holocaust, so too is the lesson for all of us to write the story forward.
“As we commemorate Yom HaShoah and we remember Lori Gilbert-Kaye who was murdered in cold blood last week, and we think of all the other recent terror attacks in the world, we are not alone, and we have to do something about it.”
