The Holocaust is rarely discussed between Israelis and Arabs because of a disconnect between the two cultures, an Israeli professor said last night in the School of Education.
Dr. Avihu Ronen’s lecture, titled ‘The Suffering of the Other: Arab and Jewish Teachers Studying the Holocaust,’ is part of Holocaust Education Week, a series of events to commemorate the Holocaust, and was presented by The Boston University Holocaust Education Committee. Ronen is currently a visiting scholar in Boston University’s Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University.
The Holocaust, he said, was rarely discussed between Israelis and Arabs during Israel’s early-history, and is still only briefly mentioned, if discussed at all, within Arab culture.
It wasn’t until after the Camp David Peace Agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1979 that attitudes between the two cultures began to change. Peace discussions between Israelis and Palestinians in the 1990s also sped the process of cultural understanding along.
But Ronen said Israeli educators, including himself, have found ways to teach both Israeli Arabs and Jews alike about the Holocaust. Ronen said he helped develop a program in the early 1990s for Arab and Israeli teachers, guiding them on how to teach about the Holocaust.
He credited the program with helping break barriers that had prevented Arabs from attending Israeli institutions.
The program also inspired three Arab student participants to visit concentration camps in Poland, allowing them to feel personally the suffering many Israelis endured he said.
Ronen said it is difficult for different cultures to understand others’ suffering. Tensions can develop easily between people with different religions, languages, education and cultures.
‘The presumptions of a multicultural society are problematic when the issue of suffering of the other arises, especially when each group has bad memories of suffering,’ he said. ‘And often, such recognition comes too late.’
But Ronen said the Holocaust was such a tragedy that it is even difficult for Israelis to discuss it. Many Israeli Jews have used the tragedy to develop a tougher identity for themselves, he said, cutting down on both internal and external dialogue, though both dialogues have increased and improved in recent years.
College of Arts and Sciences freshman Madiha Ashuor, vice president of the Holocaust Education Committee, said she found the presentation very interesting because she did not learn about the Holocaust until she was 15 years old and she came to the United States. She said while she lived in Egypt in her childhood, the topic of the Holocaust was barely mentioned.
Holocaust Education Committee president Erica Jaffe, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said last night’s event was different than most Holocaust Education Week events have been in the past.
‘Today’s presentation was a bit of a risk,’ Jaffe said. ‘In the past we’ve presented very ordinary programs, ones where people would meet with survivors and show films about the survivors. This presentation was being displayed with more of a cultural spin, with the hopes of attracting more people.’
College of Communication freshman Noah Chanin, treasurer of the organization, said the event did a good job of reaching out to other communities.
‘The main purpose of this was to extend out beyond the Hillel and Jewish community and to other communities,’ he said. ‘It was interesting that we found this lecture because that’s exactly what it deals with, particularly with Arabs.’
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