A World Away
By Rebecca Lewinter
 The old man at the front of the classroom looked at us through his weary eyes, then cleared his throat and with that accent familiar to us all, began telling his Holocaust survival story. He told of tragedy, injustice and genocide. He spoke expecting a look of shock on our faces, but all he saw was a room full of sleeping kids.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is becoming more and more prevalent among Jewish kids. After years of attending Yeshivas, where hearing Holocaust survival stories several times a year is the norm, kids have almost become desensitized toward the horrors of the Holocaust. With all the information and commemoration of the Holocaust, Jewish teens, including me, have become jaded toward the tragedy and importance of this piece of our history.
For many teens, however, the problem is that the Holocaust seems too distant, too remote and too ancient for us to connect with what happened to our ancestors. Living in America, where life is easy and our Jewish ways are rarely challenged, it is difficult to imagine a world like the Holocaust. However, after spending my summer in Argentina, I realized that this world is not as far off as I thought.
Just 20 years ago in Argentina, thousands of Jews were dragged out of their homes, tortured and killed during the Falklands War. Then in 1994, the AMIA building—the center for Jewish affairs in Argentina—was bombed, and in 1992 the Israeli embassy was attacked. Even today, boys on my summer program were told it was unsafe and they should remove their kippot when walking in the street. The terrifying world of the Holocaust suddenly felt like yesterday.
Living in America gives us a great opportunity to let the stories and lessons of the past live on forever. But living here is both a blessing and a curse. While the freedom we have gives us the opportunity for hindsight and education, it's that same freedom that allows teens to overlook and neglect history's importance. So what's the answer? Should schools begin to tone down the amount of Holocaust education they provide? Or is the answer to increase it?
There is no simple solution to this problem plaguing young Jews across the country. But the outcome, if nothing changes, is obvious. The more Jewish teens become desensitized and uninterested, the more the horrors of the Holocaust are bound to be forgotten. As Jewish teens, it is more our obligation than anyone's to never let the world forget what travesties occurred during the Second World War. It is our job to make sure history never repeats itself, and a tragedy like the Holocaust never happens again.
 Rebecca Lewinter lives in West Orange, N.J. She is 16 years old and is a senior at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School. She enjoys snowboarding, traveling, Jodi Picoult novels, MTV and hanging out with friends. |
