Editor’s Comment on a Yad Vashem Group Visiting Lithuania




The following comment appeared on Facebook today:

YAD VASHEM’S “political department” and the group that visited Lithuania last week:

Thanks to both members of the group who quietly reached out to the Defending History team for a meeting. As you saw, nothing but good comes from relaxed, pleasurable, respectful and frank exchange of ideas and knowledge, over a cup of coffee. It was sad that the group was (again) hermetically sealed from “The Second Opinion” here in Vilnius (and those Holocaust survivors who hold such opinions), as if Israeli citizens cannot be trusted to cope with a rich tapestry of opposing views when they visit Eastern Europe. (That various “Yiddish” institutions gleefully, at times, play the role of gatekeeper of ideas here is another issue.) For background on the issues from our team’s perspective, please see:
https://defendinghistory.com/…/political-pressure-on-yad-vas…
https://defendinghistory.com/israel-debates/43340
https://defendinghistory.com/blaming-the-victims
https://defendinghistory.com/category/israel

Over the years some amazing Israeli heroes of truth and courage have indeed spoken out.

Two of them are the late brilliant and inspiring diplomat Ambassador CHEN IVRI APTER ז”ל, and (tsu lánge yorn) Dr.YITZHAK ARAD. See their takes at:

https://defendinghistory.com/tel-avivs-leivick-house-r…/44176
and
https://defendinghistory.com/yitzhak-arad-on-the-holoc…/46252

Incidentally, Dr. Arad, who was himself Director of Yad Vashem for over twenty years, published this paper in Defending History only after it was turned down by some top Israeli venues that receive government funding….

As the Lithuanian government-sponsored “Red-Brown Commission” (popular moniker for the “International Commission for Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi…
DEFENDINGHISTORY.COM
This entry was posted in Dovid Katz, Israel, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Opinion, World Jewish Congress (WJC) and ORT, Yad Vashem and Lithuania, Yiddish Affairs and tagged , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
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