To avoid repeating history, we must never forget - opinion

The famous quote from George Santayana, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” is often overused but is largely correct. 

We do not learn from history. It fades into the background. The Holocaust became a number, a talking point, and most tragically, a weapon to beat the Jewish people with.

However, we, the eternal people of history, do learn from history. Through our festivals and rituals, we remember events that took place thousands of years ago and try to draw lessons from them for our everyday lives. 

We must learn from history

As a child of Holocaust survivors, whose grandparents fled Germany immediately after Kristallnacht, and whose father-in-law escaped persecution in Egypt in the 1950s, I never thought I would bear witness to events like the Hamas atrocities of October 7, especially in the State of Israel. 

However, this day must be marked in our history, as it signifies a major change in the lives of the people of Israel, and especially for Jews in the diaspora vis-à-vis our understanding of our neighbors around us.

Last month, I joined a tour of the south of Israel and the Gaza envelope and was witness to one of the most traumatic events in Jewish history, and certainly the bloodiest and most deadly since the end of the Holocaust. I felt I needed to go and bear witness to what many are already disgracefully denying. We must share the truth about what happened on October 7, because we must never forget or allow others to forget.

I recently joined a tour of the south of Israel and the Gaza envelope. 

We attended multiple security meetings, including with the leaders of the Eshkol Council, Ashkelon military command, and the Netivot security committee under the leadership of the mayor, in some of the hardest-hit communities.

When called upon to speak by Gadi Yarkoni, head of the Eshkol regional council, at the security meeting, as a representative of Diaspora Jewry, I tried to give them words of strength, inspiration, and support because, like many other Israeli communities, they feel alone and understandably vulnerable. 

Nevertheless, it was they who strengthened and inspired me with their steely determination to hold their ground, the very ground which our people miraculously returned to after 2,000 difficult years in exile. Their words are what led me to come away optimistic that we will not only survive this but continue to thrive and flourish.

Afterward, we traveled along what is now called the “road of death,” where so many who fled the massacre ran straight into bloodthirsty terrorists who lay in wait for them. We entered the eye of the storm in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. I witnessed scenes there of appalling devastation and destruction and heard heartbreaking details from the Zaka volunteers of horrors and massacres.

IT HAS left me changed. It should change anyone who is witness to such scenes, but it is important to see them and learn the grizzly and gory details to recount them to others.

Already in the hours and days after the pogrom, it was minimized, denied, or excused, even by the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

Jewish suffering is not equal, it is not noted, it finds little solidarity, and our enemies know how to make our bloodshed justifiable.

We must remember what we witnessed, not just in Ofakim and Kfar Aza, but on the streets in the west, online, and on the university campuses in the US.

There will certainly be a time when, hopefully, the war will be behind us, and Hamas will be but a memory.However, we must not forget what they did to us, and we must not forgive those who did not stand by our side.

We must remember those university campuses and other educational institutions that became hunting grounds for Jews, ignored and excused by their presidents and faculty. 

We must remember those NGOs who constantly ask us to stand with them but have no room for Jews or Jewish experiences and suffering.

We must remember those celebrities who jumped on the latest fad of standing with Gaza but had no time for the bestial murder of 1,200 Israelis, the rape and injury of thousands more, and the kidnapping of over 240 children, grandparents, men, and women.

We must remember those politicians who ignored our plight or did not back the Jewish State’s right to defend itself and ensure that genocidal terrorists would not have the ability ever to do this again.

We must never forget.

If we forget, we are doomed to repeat history.

After October 7, we cannot return to “normal,” even if the guns go quiet and the State of Israel might have gained some well-earned quiet. 

There is no normal after what Israel experienced, and there is no normal for Jews in the Diaspora who were shown by bystanders, allies, and enemies where they stood when the Jewish people needed them most.We are duty-bound to remember.

The writer is a Los Angeles-based philanthropist and real-estate developer who serves as chairman of the Abraham Accords Roundtable and the Golda Meir Commemorative Coin Committee. He has been involved for many years in strengthening the US-Israel relationship and was instrumental in the passage of the Iron Dome legislation.