A major uproar has erupted in recent days following statements made during a broadcast on Holocaust Remembrance Day by the military correspondent for the Mako website, Shai Levy, about his uncle, the son of Holocaust survivors, who traveled to Germany, married a local foreigner, and started a family with her.
According to him, it is an expression of the "triumph of life.".
The remarks sparked public outrage, and the Yad L'Achim organization, which has been at the forefront of the struggle against assimilation and misogyny for years, said that the unfortunate publication constitutes an insult to the memory of the millions of Jews who died in the Holocaust and gave their lives for the sanctity of God.
In a letter sent to the CEO of News 12, Avi Weiss, the management of Yad L'Achim demands a public retraction of the statements and even an apology. "Presenting mixed marriages as an achievement or victory constitutes a profound harm to the memory of the six million and to Jewish identity for generations.".
The letter further states: "We at Yad L'Achim, which has been working against assimilation and missionary organizations for over 75 years, are addressing you, not on our own behalf. We are addressing you on behalf of six million Jews, whose ashes are piled up among the hills of Auschwitz and the fields of Treblinka, washed away in the rivers of Poland, and whose graves are scattered across the length and breadth of Europe, solely because they are Jews. Presenting assimilation as a victory, on a major channel in Israel, on this very day, is an insult to the victims, the survivors, the entire nation, and on this day.".
Yad L'Ahim clarified: "Intermarriage and assimilation in Germany are not 'victory over the Holocaust' - they are the completion of the task in other ways. The Nazi oppressor sought to physically exterminate the Jewish people. Assimilation causes the erasure and severance of the lineage and the fact that the next generation of those Holocaust survivors is no longer part of the Jewish people. The fact that the descendants of Holocaust survivors returned to German soil, assimilated and assimilated into the Christian German people, is not the victory of life - but the tragic end of the chain of Jewish generations.".
""We call on you to show public responsibility, express clear and firm reservations about the things that were broadcast, publish an apology to Holocaust survivors, and provide a platform for a real discourse on the meaning of the Jewish victory - which is, first and foremost, ensuring the existence, identity, and victory of the Jewish people for generations," the letter said.
Yad L'Achim emphasizes that they expect an official response from News 12 management, which will clarify the organization's position and sharpen the boundaries of public discourse around such sensitive issues.
