Holocaust Denial is the canary in the coal mine of Fake News, the mother of all lies, in that it not only defies all standards of empirical science and meticulously documented history, but in doing so it also attempts to whitewash the greatest moral crime ever perpetrated.
“There are seven kinds of thieves. The first of them is the one who deceives people.” Tosefta Bava Kamma 7:8
The Holocaust, and in particular Holocaust Denial, is once again in the news, with Sean Spicer’s clumsy assertions regarding Assad, Hitler and gas.
On one level, Spicer actually has a point, which became even clearer yesterday, with Assad’s ludicrous claim that the images of suffocating children were staged by child actors. This fake news was reminiscent of the infamous Red Cross visit to Terezin in 1944, which fooled the world into thinking that a notorious concentration camp was the happiest place on earth. But that is where comparisons should end.
At least Spicer apologized, for which he must be given credit. But here is why Sean Spicer’s fumbling, bumbling, pathetic comparison of Assad to Hitler matters, despite the apology. And here is why the Administration’s steadfast refusal to follow the Spicer route and issue a similar retraction for its infamous Judenrein Holocaust Day statement of last January, also matters.
Holocaust Denial is the canary in the coal mine of Fake News, the mother of all lies, in that it not only defies all standards of empirical science and meticulously documented history, but in doing so it also attempts to whitewash the greatest moral crime ever perpetrated.
When the Torah speaks of the command to remember the evil of Amalek, it is speaking to our generation specifically about keeping alive the memory of Holocaust.
But on a far deeper level, it is speaking about keeping alive the essence of all objective truth. The Holocaust was objectively, verifiably, utterly — and not alternatively — a fact. That fact is, unfortunately, one of the pillars of our epoch, a foundation upon which we are trying to reconstruct a civilized society. The dilution of this truth is the nullification of all truth.
Maimonides wrote, “A person is forbidden to act in a smooth-tongued and luring manner. He should not speak one thing outwardly and think otherwise in his heart. Rather, his inner self should be like the self which he shows to the world. What is in his heart should be the same as the words on his lips.” (Hilchot De’ot 2:6)
In Judaism, the Big Lie is a Big Sin, and there is no bigger lie than Holocaust Denial.
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