The politics of memorization are never straightforward. All the more so when it comes to one of the most horrific events of the 20th century: the Holocaust. Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial is one of the country’s most sacred sites. It’s also Ground Zero for a controversy over how the state uses the Holocaust to reconcile its behavior, as the nomination of a far-right political figure to lead Yad Vashem sparks debate. But this misses the point. Whether Israelis understand it or not, it’s not the first time the memorial has been weaponized in political discussions. And this, indeed, goes to the very heart of questions over what Israel is today.
Yad Vashem sits just outside Jerusalem. The primary exhibition meanders through dimly lit and confined spaces filled with artifacts describing the Nazi genocide of six million Jews. The experience is claustrophobic and unsettling. Finally, at the end, the walls of the museums spread open, leaving visitors on to an expansive outdoor deck overlooking the rolling hills of Jerusalem.
The experience is not an accident, but designed from the outset. First, the visitor is transported to the ghettos of Europe, filled with death and destruction, only to end in the warm embrace of the Jerusalem Hills. From captivity to freedom. What’s missing at the end of this uplifting journey are the Palestinian villages that once dotted those same hills but have since been depopulated to make way for the Israeli state.
Yet, even that silence over the Palestinians is intentional. So one must ask: does the museum serve as a memorial to the past or a justification for Israel’s creation at the expense of the Palestinians? The recent nomination of far-right figure Effi Eitam to lead the museum indicates where the Israeli government falls on this issue.
In the early 2000s, Eitam was one of the leading voices advocating for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank. As a commander of the elite Givati infantry brigade, four of Eitam’s soldiers were convicted of beating a Palestinian to death on his orders. Eitam also has pushed to have Palestinian citizens of Israel barred from politics. He has a long history of being one of Israel’s most unsavory public figures.
Jewish groups and Israeli intellectuals have denounced Eitam’s nomination, saying it will undermine Yad Vashem’s critical educational message. Israel Bartal, a professor of Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The New York Times that “an institute headed by a person with such extreme opinions and controversial human values will never be taken seriously within the global academic community.”
Eitam’s appointment is seen as a means of politicizing the critical education and academic work of Yad Vashem. That is true. But it misses the more important point. Israel has politicized Yad Vashem from day one, and it began with the decision to build it in Jerusalem overlooking the remnants of Palestinian villages. Then, it goes even deeper.
The first stop for foreign leaders visiting Israel is invariably Yad Vashem. Autocratic leaders, such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, all have been guests. From Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, to Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, global far-right leaders have all made appearances at the memorial. Bolsonaro even made a joke at the memorial about Nazis being leftists. In 1976, South African Prime Minister BJ Vorster read a psalm in Afrikaans next to the memorial flame in Yad Vashem’s crypt.
Israel’s willingness to welcome such figures into an ostensibly sacred space designed to educate the world about the horrors of racism and genocide raises several questions about the real purpose of the monument. How can it be that a memorial to the victims of far-right fascism has become such a popular spot for today’s far right? The answer lies in how Israel’s leadership understands the nature of racism and the extreme right.
For Israel’s own far right, anti-Semitism and racism don’t matter as long as there is support for Israel and, by extension, its policies of occupation and domination. Rising levels of anti-Semitism have alarmed Jewish communities from the US to Hungary over the last four years. Still, the Israeli government has remained mostly silent, instead preferring to focus on leftist anti-Zionism and the Palestinian-led boycott movement. From this perspective, the appointment of Eitam to lead Yad Vashem makes perfect sense, since the memorial is a critical vehicle to solidifying support for Israel.
By focusing solely on the personality of Eitam, however, the outcry over his appointment misses the more profound point. Yad Vashem has become a tool with which to advance Israel’s right-wing agenda. In so doing, the memorial abuses the memory of the Holocaust and insults its survivors.
The politics of memorialization are complicated because historical events can be used to achieve nefarious goals. When Germany was building its Holocaust memorial in Berlin, there was a years-long debate in newspapers and public spaces. On the side of the construction site, someone spray-painted this thought: “The conversation is the memorial.”
One wonders, what does the conversation about Yad Vashem reveal about Israel?
Joseph Dana, based between South Africa and the Middle East, is editor-in-chief of emerge85, a lab that explores change in emerging markets and its global impact.
