19.04.2011                      15.Nisan, 5771                      Pessah 1

Kennenlernen:

From the slavery of falsehood to the freedom of truth

UNRWA teaches children in the schools of Gaza about the Holocaust; Israeli schools need to teach about the Palestinian Nakba. Passover should teach us to live with the truth.

Passover’s central theme is the transition from slavery to freedom, and every generation needs to reinterpret this theme for its own times. I believe that for Israel and Jews around the world freedom today means to know that we need not repress historical truth; that fiddling with the truth is a hallmark of weakness; and that those who try to suppress truth are bound to disappear into the dustbin of history; today, in the age of global communication networks more than ever.
No society can maintain stability in the long run by suppressing the truth. The Soviet Union tried to do so for decades, but ended up disappearing. China, despite its tight control over the media, cannot prevent critics from voicing their views. They can detain Nobel Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and prevent him from attending the Nobel ceremony; they cannot block the truth about human rights violation. We see Arab dictatorships falling one after another: in the end corruption and incompetence are uncovered….