Rabbi Uziel and the Holocaust: New Readings for Tisha b’Av

Tisha b’Av, which begins this year on the night of July 26, is our collective day of mourning, when we spend the day recounting the many tragedies that befell our people. We fast, pray and observe select rites of mourning. Our primary medium to revisit our past tragedies is the recital of Kinot – mournful liturgical poems about tragedy and loss.

The theme of the Kinot is best expressed in one word: Hurban – destruction. From Hurban Beit Hamikdash – the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem – to the Hurban of six million Jews in the Holocaust – the Kinot take us on a tragic two-thousand-year journey through the many Hurbans that befell the Jewish people. 

Our most recent Hurban is the Holocaust, and it is customary to include the Holocaust as part of our collective mourning on Tisha b’Av.

There are special Kinot for Tisha b’Av that were written specifically about the Shoah, and in addition to reading these, many communities introduce additional materials — poems, speeches, film excerpts or diaries – that help deepen our connection to that colossal Hurban.

In that spirit, I present here excerpts of my own original English translations of two Holocaust-era speeches delivered by Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, who became Israel’s first Chief Sephardic Rabbi. I also present an excerpt of a new Kinah that he composed after the Holocaust, lamenting the Hurban of the Shoah. His words are as powerful today as when they were delivered, and are especially powerful on Tisha b’Av.

The Pogroms against Jews in Ukraine, 1918-1921

Rabbi Uziel’s first public expression of concern for the plight of European Jewry came in 1919, as a response to the pogroms that were raging against Jews in Ukraine. In his recent book “In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918-1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust,” historian Jeffrey Veidlinger writes that these pogroms were the writing on the wall that “laid the groundwork for the Holocaust.” Rabbi Uziel understood this, and as news came to the Land of Israel of the violent acts being committed against Jews in various Ukranian towns and villages, Rabbi Uziel convened an emergency gathering “in protest against the murder and violence being committed against the Jews of Poland and Ukraine.” Here are excerpts from his remarks delivered at that gathering in Jaffa, Saturday night, May 31, 1919:

“I stand here tonight, wretched and miserable by the fate that has befallen me to pronounce the same woeful lyrics of destruction and mourning that were pronounced in antiquity by our prophet Jeremiah, who thousands of years ago declared with pain: “Oh, if my head were water, and my eyes a fountain of tears! Then I would weep day and night for the slain of my poor people” (Jeremiah 8:23).

“Not a day goes by when we don’t hear more terrifying news reports. These awful reports come to us like a long chain built from links of murder, violence, brutal torture, false accusations and blood libels. 

“Our hearts are shocked, and we are in a continuous state of terror, as we hear the outcry of our brothers and sisters from faraway lands. We hear the outcry of the innocent children and of the elderly, all free of any crime, as they are burnt alive. We hear the crying voices of our communities over the rabbinic leaders who were plucked away from them and murdered before their eyes. We hear the painful outcry of parents who mourn their children. We hear the terrified cries of forsaken widows, who without their husbands are now left alone in fear to confront the ongoing violence that persists before their eyes. They watch in horror as the blood of their brothers is desecrated and the honor of their sisters is violated. We hear their wailing outcries, saying ‘Woe unto us, for we have been plundered.’

“We are filled with pain by the saddening and disgraceful images of innocent souls whose bodies were as prey to the sharp teeth of these dark forces of evil. As human beings, we are filled with shame and disgrace as strange beasts disguised as “humans created in the image of God” behave this way. In the face of all of this, we ask ourselves, and the world at large: is this what humanity has come to? Is this the ‘doctrine of humanity’? Is this the ‘splendor’ of mankind’s strength?

“As the blood of innocents ferments in the earth, we cry out and demand justice from the God of Justice, saying: ‘Behold, O Lord, and consider to whom You have done this” (Lamentations 2:20). Until when will this go on, God? Break the swords of these tyrants. “Do not be adamant in your anger, O Lord, do not remember iniquity forever. Behold and see, we beseech You, we are all Your people’” (Isaiah 64:8)

A Public Day of Mourning & Fasting for Jews Being Burnt Alive in the Holocaust, 1943

On December 2, 1943, just two days before Hanukkah, Rabbi Uziel declared a “Public Day of Fasting and Mourning” throughout the Land of Israel. This came as a reaction to the news that Jews were being “burnt alive” in gas chambers. Here are excerpts from his remarks:

“We have gathered with broken hearts and teary eyes to lift our voices in prayer and outcry, over the cruel and evil mass murder and mean-spirited torture of our Jewish brothers and sisters, who are held captive under the evil and oppressive German regime.

“Along with our bitter outcry to heaven, we also cry bloody murder before all of the Allied Nations and governments of the world. We cry out to them over the spilling, like water, of the blood of the innocents of Israel. We cry out to them over the mass murder and torture by the Germans, a mass murder the likes of which the world has never seen from the day God created the world. 

“To all human beings created in the image of God, we cry out to you in anger. We demand justice for the blood of our people who have been murdered by cruel and tortuous measures, all of which have brought intolerable shame to this generation of humanity. 

“How long will you stand silently in the face of these atrocities? We demand that you raise your voices against these abominable and shameful actions. Raise your voices to the world and demand justice for the blood of innocents. Do whatever is in your power to save the innocent people of Israel from these vultures and predators. We especially call on you to help save our innocent young children from such incomprehensibly evil forms of torture and murder.”

A Kinah for the Holocaust

After the Shoah, Rabbi Uziel composed a special Kinah mourning the Hurban of the Holocaust. He wrote it in the style of the first Kinah read on the night of Tisha b’Av – Zekhor Hashem Me Haya Lanu – “Remember God, what happened to us.” Here is a short excerpt:

“Zekhor Hashem – Remember God, what happened to us, as a shameful wicked tyrant rose above us, Adolf Hitler, may his name be eternally cursed and disgraced. The worst-ever hater and enemy of Israel, he rose to power from the bottom of a trash barrel, imposing his evil on the world as the Chancellor of Germany.

“Zekhor Hashem – Remember God, what happened to us. Look down from your sacred heavenly abode, and behold the Shoah of your people Israel, their immeasurable suffering, their blood that flowed like water, and the tortures they suffered. Remember God, the sacred and pure souls of your people, who perished by the destructive sword of the enemy.”  

On Tisha b’Av, we mourn, we remember, and we never forget. In the spirit of Rabbi Uziel, my prayers and wishes for a meaningful Tisha b’Av. 

Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the director of the Sephardic Educational Center and the rabbi of the Westwood Village Synagogue.