Limmud Miami 2020

The notion that all of the dreams and nightmares of the Jewish people were realized in the 20th century is not an exaggeration. Half of us were killed by the Nazis, and the other half bore witness to trials of perpetrators who sought to eliminate us. We were, and are, thankful to our liberators. For those paying close attention to the trials, however, an accident of oversight occurred in the courtrooms at Nuremberg. The intention was to remove the gold crucifixes, brilliantly displayed above the judges’ benches, yet several remained throughout the trials. There, the mood was one of retribution and justice, but carried out for the Jews, not by the Jews. Soon after Nuremberg, the state of Israel was resurrected after two-thousand years. With a fresh start, and the Holocaust in the rear-view mirror, the question has been raised, “was the Eichmann Trial necessary?” It focused resources away from statecraft, and many wondered if the trial justified the expense of scarce political capital. Still, it was the first time in two thousand years that enemies of the Jewish people were tried in a Jewish court. In order to manifest this trial, a small country demonstrated that its reach was large. We will discuss these events in seminar format, in the presence of original historical artifacts from the trials.