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The Story Jews Repeat on Passover Is the Secret of Their Survival
(JNS-Israel Hayom) Melanie Phillips - Throughout history, there have always been times when Jews had to celebrate Passover alone and in unimaginably dire conditions. There are unbearably moving accounts of it being celebrated by the inmates of Nazi extermination camps during World War II. What was so astonishing was the iron determination of those Jewish inmates to celebrate the deliverance of the Jewish people from a terrible evil while themselves being subjected to another, even more terrible evil. By observing Passover in whatever way they could, those inmates affirmed what the Nazis sought to eradicate - the indelible sense of their own identity as Jews and their utterly unbreakable connection to the Jewish people. The strength of that connection has ensured the survival of the Jewish people despite their unique history of persecution and oppression. As former British Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has observed, Jewish identity is based on collective memory; and that means it survives as the result of the story the people tell themselves about who they are, how they should live and their bond with those who came before them. If there is no such story to be told, a nation and its culture cannot survive. A strongly internalized and indelible sense of identity is the unbreachable defense against tyranny, slavery or imprisonment. It's inside your head and your heart, and nothing and nobody can take that away from you. The writer is a columnist for The Times of London.