‘Shoah’ mistranslated as ‘Holocaust’

hebrew word nature, hebrew for nature, teva, sebago



The defense minister merely meant ‘disaster’, according to Melanie Philips:

This reported remark by deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai caused widespread shock and absolute horror. For an Israeli minister to use the word ‘holocaust’ to describe a limited war of Israeli self-defence, when for Jews of all people the ‘Holocaust’ means one thing: genocide — and this at a time when the calumny of the ‘Jews as Nazis’ is rampant around the world, putting Israel and the Jewish people at risk — was simply beyond belief.

It was indeed without any credibility — because Vilnai never said it. It was an appalling mistranslation by Reuters

[…] Reuters translated the Hebrew word ‘shoah’ as ‘holocaust’. But ‘shoah’ merely means disaster. In Hebrew, the word ‘shoah’ is never used to mean ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide’ because of the acute historical resonance. The word ‘Hashoah’ alone means ‘the Holocaust’ and ‘retzach am’ means ‘genocide’. The well-known Hebrew construction used by Vilnai used merely means ‘bringing disaster on themselves’.

Haaretz (an Isreali newspaper) disagrees with Philips and says that the term “Shoah” is commonly used to refer to the Holocaust:

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai went as far as threatening a “shoah,” the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster. The word is generally used to refer to the Nazi Holocaust, but a spokesman for Vilnai said the deputy defense minister used the word in the sense of “disaster,” saying “he did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide.”

“The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves,” Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.

So I would say that it was an honest mistake on the part of Reuters.

The main wiki page on the Holocaust uses the term “Ha-Shoah”. But the page for names of the Holocaust uses “Shoah”. And says:

The biblical word Shoah (שואה), also spelled Shoa and Sho’ah, meaning “calamity” in Hebrew (and also used to refer to “destruction” since the Middle Ages), became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s. Churban Europa, meaning “European Destruction” in Hebrew (as opposed to simply Churban, the destruction of the Second Temple), is also used.

The Hebrew word Shoah is preferred by some Jews and non-Jews due to the supposed theologically unacceptable nature of the word “holocaust” whose original Greek meaning indicates a sacrifice to a god.

I didn’t know that origin of “holocaust”.

I think the term “Ha-” is a prefix to a noun assigning it the definite article “the”.

And it seems that the BBC article refered to by Philips has been updated:

Matan Vilnai said Palestinians risked a “shoah”, the Hebrew word for a big disaster - and for the Nazi Holocaust.

[…] The BBC’s Katya Adler in Jerusalem says many of Mr Vilnai’s colleagues have quickly distanced themselves from his comments and also tried to downplay, them saying he did not mean genocide.

“We’re getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we’ve used a small percentage of the army’s power because of the nature of the territory,” he added.

That the DM’s colleagues have distanced themselves from the comments implies, to me, that they must have an impact in Hebrew too. (Assuming those colleagues heard the comments in the original Hebrew, of course).

The DM made his comments after Hamas rockets reached Ashkelon, about 15km from the Gaza border.

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You know things are bad in a country when the Red Cross declares “there is no solution that can be provided by humanitarian organizations.” To what is this grim prognosis referring? The massive conflict-ridden Sudan? Occupied Iraq? Warlord-ruled Afghanistan? According to the Red Cross, humanitarian aid still holds promise in these massive disasters. The area they describe is in fact a small strip of land about one-tenth the size of Dane County: the Gaza Strip.

The Red Cross arrived at this disquieting conclusion back in December. Since then, conditions have worsened immeasurably. In the first two months of 2008, Israeli forces have killed 146 Palestinians, 42 of whom were civilians uninvolved in fighting. Israeli leaders then apparently decided that they were still producing too low a level of terror in the Palestinian population, for in the last week, Israeli operations have killed more than 100 Palestinians — half of whom were noncombatants.

This latest massacre is purportedly in response to the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into the southern Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon. I often wonder what Israel would do without the Qassam attacks, for they have provided such a versatile excuse for whatever atrocity it is the state wishes to inflict on the Palestinians this week. It is easy to forget, amid the copious obloquy heaped upon the Palestinian government, that Hamas actually maintained a 16-month unilateral ceasefire in 2005-06. Throughout this period, Israel continued to mount attacks inside Palestine, culminating in the shelling of a Gaza beach in June 2006 in which eight civilians were killed.

The hysteria over Qassam attacks also obscures the vastly disproportionate nature of the threats Israel and Palestine pose to one another. Since Qassam rockets were first launched into Israel in 2001, they have killed a grand total of 14 people. This means that this week alone, Israel has killed many times more Palestinians than the entire death toll from the dreaded Qassam. These facts do not, of course, justify attacks on civilians, but they do illuminate what is at stake for the opposing sides in the Levant.

Israel is, of course, acutely aware that its own destructive capabilities greatly eclipse those of Hamas. Just last week, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai declared that if the Palestinians continue their ineffectual rocket attacks, “they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves.” According to the Jerusalem Post, “The Hebrew word shoah, which means ‘disaster’ or ‘conflagration,’ is primarily used in Israel to refer to the Holocaust.”

When confronted about his genocidal intent, Mr. Vilnai quickly retreated, insisting that he wasn’t referring to the Holocaust, but merely disaster in a more general sense. This seems to me to be missing the point. An analogous situation would be Mr. Vilnai announcing that he had a “final solution” to the Palestinian problem, but then later clarifying that he wasn’t referring to that Final Solution. Phrases like shoah and “final solution” may not, in and of themselves, refer to genocide, but they cannot be spoken without evoking it.

Mr. Vilnai is joined in his desire to eliminate the Palestinians by former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, who made a pronouncement last May that “there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza.” Mr. Eliyah’s son, chief Rabbi of the holy city Safed, brought out the full implications of his father’s ruling: “If they don’t stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand. And if they do not stop after 1,000, then we must kill 10,000. If they still don’t stop, we must kill 100,000 — even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop.”

Defenders of Israel will undoubtedly respond with equally unpleasant quotes taken from members of Hamas. The key difference here, however, is that Mr. Vilnai and Co. have the means to make their foul words a reality. Israel is armed with nuclear weapons, each capable of killing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Palestinians are armed with Qassams, which have a kill rate of 14 deaths for every 3,000 launched. Qassam rockets are hardly the harbingers of Judeocide they are portrayed as. Rather, they are the futile lashing out of a people who have been forced to live for nearly 60 years without hope.

Hebrew word for nature

Hebrew word for nature, ebrew nature, hebrew word nature, hebrew for nature, teva, sebago

Q The ritual of blessing the new moon confuses me. Are we praying to the moon?- Jon L., Toronto

A The ritual blessing of the new moon, colloquially known as kiddush levana (although more properly named birkat levana), developed over many centuries, thereby accruing different layers of rituals that embellish its meaning but sometimes confuse its message. The ritual originates in talmudic times, with the sages declaring, "Anyone who blesses the new moon in the proper time, it is as if he greeted the Divine Presence" (Sanhedrin 42a).

Far from being moon-worship, the ritual serves as one of the many blessings we recite to acknowledge God's continual control over nature. As the blessing itself extols, "Blessed are You, Lord our God, king of the universe, who by His word created the heavens, and by His breath all their host. He set for them laws and times, so that they should not deviate from their appointed task..."

R. Menahem Hameiri (13th century, Provence) explains that the wonders of nature exemplify God's presence in the world and demand from us to praise His greatness. Indeed, the Talmud Yerushalmi (Brachot 9:3), followed by Maimonides (Hilchot Brachot 10:16), codifies kiddush levana with other laudatory blessings recited over natural wonders, such as rainbows.

Nonetheless, given the context of moon-worship found in other societies, different measures were taken to highlight (and make unambiguous) our belief in God as controller of the cosmos. Kabbalists added as an introductory hymn Psalm 148, which describes the heavenly bodies' praise of God's rule, a poem immediately follows the blessing that praises God as the moon's creator, and the Aleinu prayer was included as a concluding blessing to proclaim God's kingship over the world (Biur Halacha 426).

Some raised concerns that Jews congregating outdoors to recite prayers while staring at the moon might give the wrong impression. They dictated that one should only momentarily stare at the moon before reciting the blessing, but then look away for the rest of the ritual to show that we direct our prayers to God (Magen Avraham 426, quoting Shlah).

A major dispute developed regarding the proper date to recite the blessing. Maimonides and other medieval Spanish authorities, following the plain reading of the Talmud, ruled that we recite kiddush levana starting from the first day of the month, when the crescent phase of the moon's cycle begins. Similarly, the Talmud rules that one cannot recite the blessing after the 15th day of the month, when the moon beings to wane. Many authorities, however, contended that one should wait 72 hours into the crescent period, when the moon's rejuvenation becomes more visible (Sefer Eshkol).

However, Masechet Sofrim (19:1), one of the Talmud's minor tractates, advocates reciting kiddush levana immediately after Shabbat, when we are still surrounded by the fine aromas and clothing of Shabbat. (Shabbat itself, some scholars speculate, was not chosen since we already acknowledge the divine rulership that day in kiddush). Especially with the potentially larger post-Shabbat participation, this atmosphere, which was first accepted in France and Germany, transformed kiddush levana into a more festive ritual. The historian Yaakov Gratner has also speculated that this embellishment might stem from an attempt to recreate the joyful celebrations of the new month in Jerusalem during talmudic times.

Some authorities opposed this custom, especially in rainy climates, when postponing the blessing might close the window of opportunity to see the frequently cloud-covered moon within the crescent period. Nonetheless, the custom to recite the blessing after Shabbat has become widely accepted (Orah Hayim 426:2), and consequently most people today wait until the first Saturday night following three days of the new moon.

The festive embellishment of kiddush levana complements the blessing's second and more subtle theme that the moon's constant rejuvenation symbolizes the hope for the Jewish people's coming redemption. As the primary blessing continues, "To the moon He said that it should renew itself as a crown of splendor for those he carried from the womb [Israel], for they are destined to be renewed like it..." Many of the other poems included in the ritual carry this theme, including the famous song, "David, king of Israel, lives and endures... May it be a good sign and a good omen for us and all of Israel."

One startling custom along this theme includes rising on one's toes in dance as we recite, "Just as I dance before you but cannot touch you, so may none of my enemies be able to touch me." Besides creating Jewish break-dancing, bopping on one's toes allayed fears that the bodily gestations of actual dancing might be misconstrued as bowing to the moon