An Ami Magazine article once claimed, as Rabbi Adlerstein summarizes:
Survivors of the Holocaust would naturally take great comfort in seeing the creation of the State as a Divine Hand reaching down to comfort the bedraggled remnant of the Jewish people. It took principled courage, claims the author, to resist what he calls “the comforting interpretation of Jewish history.” Survivors refused the convenience of such an interpretation of the events around them out of fealty to their religious convictions, which had no room for a secular state replacing the yearnings of the Jewish soul.
Now, I didn’t see the Ami piece within, but I wish to make a comment:
There is another option.
Perhaps ungrateful anti-Zionism is a form of Avoda Zara, and rejecting God for idols is not “principled courage”. Recognizing God’s Hand is not only “comforting”. It is no less a form of heavy obligation, both generally, and in terms of promoting messianic “Ad Shetechpatz” concerns further. Not to mention what renewed Jewish sovereignty in Israel implies regarding one own’s and one’s ancestors’ very poor religious and survival choices.
And everyone both is and were all-too-aware of this “Dark Side”.
Indeed, the claim feels anachronistic. Nothing I’ve seen about survivors’ thought processes as set forth in Holocaust Lit hints at anything like this. On the contrary, most of the generation were of the antediluvian religious level. That is, not great. Going to America, as opposed to Israel, had more to do with apathy and familial\material concerns, for example.
This could be demonstrated at great length, sure, but anyone can do it, so why me?
