Jerusalem – Yad Vashem Fires Employee Who Compared Holocaust to Palestinian Suffering

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    Itamar ShapiraJerusalem – Yad Vashem has fired an instructor who compared the trauma of Jewish Holocaust survivors with the trauma experienced by the Palestinian people in Israel’s War of Independence.

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    Itamar Shapira, 29, of Jerusalem, was fired before Passover from his job as a docent at the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, after a teacher with a group of yeshiva students from Efrat made a complaint. Shapira had worked at Yad Vashem for three and a half years.

    This is the first time that Yad Vashem has fired a guide over political differences, an institution official said Wednesday.

    Shapira confirmed, in a telephone conversation with Haaretz, that he had spoken to visitors about the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin.

    He said he did so because the ruins of the Arab village, today a part of Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood, can be seen as one leaves Yad Vashem.

    “Yad Vashem talks about the Holocaust survivors’ arrival in Israel and about creating a refuge here for the world’s Jews. I said there were people who lived on this land and mentioned that there are other traumas that provide other nations with motivation,” Shapira said.

    “The Holocaust moved us to establish a Jewish state and the Palestinian nation’s trauma is moving it to seek self-determination, identity, land and dignity, just as Zionism sought these things,” he said.

    A Yad Vashem official said the institution objects to any political use of the Holocaust, especially by a docent working for it.

    The institution’s position is that the Holocaust cannot be compared to any other event and that every visitor can draw his own political conclusions.

    Yad Vashem spokeswoman Iris Rosenberg said that after holding a hearing for Shapira, at which he refused to accept his superiors’ instructions and change his teaching methods, it was decided to terminate his job as a guide in the institute’s school for Holocaust studies.

    “Yad Vashem would have acted unprofessionally had Itamar Shapira continued his educational work for the institute,” Rosenberg said.

    Yad Vashem employs workers and volunteers from the entire political and social spectrum, who know how to separate their personal position from their work, she said.

    Shapira said Yad Vashem chooses to examine only some of the events that took place in the War of Indpendence. “It is being hypocritical. I only tried to expose the visitors to the facts, not to political conclusions. If Yad Vashem chooses to ignore the facts, for example the massacre at Dir Yassin, or the Nakba [“The Catastrophe,” the Palestinians’ term for what happened to them after 1948], it means that it’s afraid of something and that its historic approach is flawed,” Shapira said.


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    20 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Come on don’t be stupid

    Jewish self haters
    Jewish self haters
    14 years ago

    There are so many ‘Jewish self haters’ within our community. Why are we so lucky? Liberal minded no brainers.

    Babishka
    Member
    Babishka
    14 years ago

    The Palestinians want all the victimhood but none of the suffering. Also the Gaza population is increasing by leaps and bounds–if it was really “genocide” there would be far fewer of them.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    a few issues. one no such thing as Palestinians’ there are arabs from over 50 arab countiers second I have never seen in any place that says jews made gas chambers and ovens to kill arabs also no where has there been a mention of jews killing 6million arabs why ? b/c there has never been a arab holacust. and if you want to count the number of jews arabs have killed in the last 1000 years or so then we have something to talk about.

    PMO
    PMO
    14 years ago

    Some of these pinko liberal communists are so despicable, you’d think they live in NY.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Another brainwashed, uninformed, world-media-influenced fool who happens to be Israeli. He obviously learned nothing from his employment.

    duvi
    duvi
    14 years ago

    the palestinian cause is the biggest human rights farce in history never have such a ruthless evil bloodthirsty people gained such sympathy by the entire world

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    What is the education system in EY teaching that so many secularists there have such meshigoss opinions?

    chaim braun
    chaim braun
    14 years ago

    Its a museum of the second world was! Why would one talk about Pollpot or Fidel Castro?

    Stam a hypocrit ,a lefty, a liberal. in other words a huge Shmuk. Yad Vashem did the right choice.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    U reap what u sow, these are the results of the secular education system in israel….

    Masmid
    Masmid
    14 years ago

    He could get a job with hamas they will accept hip with open arms

    PMO
    PMO
    14 years ago

    I certainly believe he should be fired. The managers of Yad Vashem have set standards that this foolish Nazi-sympathizingi employee chose to ignore.

    However, I will say (and I’m sure people will bash for this) that he has a right to his opinion, no matter how flawed, or stupid I may think it is, and we have to be careful not diminish that right. I find his words to be horribly offensive, but I would risk my life to defend his freedom to spew them out. Freedom is freedom, whether we like it or not. We just have to make sure that always refute and always use FACTS and HONESTY as our weapon. I only hope that someone can get hold of this man and show him the error of his ways.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    So we Jews are supposed to have a monopoly on suffering? Why does everyone hear find it so threatening to think about the fact that others have suffered too?