Learning about the Holocaust in Israel

Throughout this class it has been really interesting for me to compare what we learn about genocide to the way I was exposed to and learned about the Holocaust while growing up in Israel. 

My learning about the holocaust through the secular public elementary school system can be split into two categories: the Shoah as a part of national mythology, and the Shoah as a part of personal identity (this binary can also be applied to most historical events/ themes we learned about.) 

Learning about the Shoah as a part of national mythology, we talked to many survivors who later moved to Israel, and heard many testimonials. Participating in productions of Memorial Day ceremonies is especially memorable to me (reading texts, performing songs, dancing.) We would often be asked to draw pictures or write poems, relating to atrocities of the past to the present in Israel. We would talk about what it meant to be a Jew then, and what it means now, the turning point being the creating of Israel, not the holocaust. 

Learning about the Shoah as a part of personal identity was a more sensitive subject because each family has a different way of discussing the Holocaust. I can't remember when or how my parents told me about our own family history, but I always knew my parents were "second generation," which in Israel usually means children of survivors. 

The way in which personal identity is connected to national identity, and the significant role that personal and collective trauma plays in constructing this identity made me wonder about the Sephardic (of Middle Eastern origin) population in Israel, who were not personally affected by the holocaust, yet must construct their national identity according to a collective (Jewish) trauma they did not personally experience.