In thinking about the holocaust, I wondered what kind of an effect it had mentally on the Jewish people, both culturally and in terms of population. As I mentioned in class before, I saw a play of The Chosen. It is set in time such that it straddles World War II. At the end of the play, the Hasidic rabbi becomes depressed when the news of the Holocaust comes over the radio. He exclaims, "six million Jews!" The contrary reaction from the Orthodox Jew is a more extreme Zionist opinion. However in both cases members of the Jewish faith became more dedicated to reestablishing their religion. Although faith may have been crushed in the concentration camps, the faith of jews outside the camps grew more determined to preserve their faith.
In terms of population, the jewish population is similar to that of 1900, an interesting statistic from world censuses.
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It's very interesting that they haven't recovered in population, as they have their own nation and with modern medicine and 65 years, they would have a population twice as great as their pre-Holocaust populace was.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sam, very odd the Jewish population did not recover fully yet in population. I would assume the Jewish community would have connected with each other after the Holocaust. The fact that the Jews still haven't reached their pre-Holocaust population surprises me.
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