(1) Anonymous 12/1/2007 7:02:00 PM
thought provoking question
This is a thought-provoking question. However, I believe that the Holocaust should connote what happened as we know it exclusively and the term should not be used to describe any other genocide and especially not to compare to abortions which is in no where near in comparison to the actual Holocaust. The Holocaust was so large in scope and what the Nazis did was so unthinkable and incomprehensible in nature that I think it is offensive to the 6 million Jewish and 2 million other victims to use the term whenever one feels it is convenient. I also don't like when people freely compare others to Hitler for propaganda purposes. There really are no comparisons when it comes to Nazi Germany and the crimes they committed


(2) Andy 11/14/2007 12:24:00 PM
President Huckabee to the rescue
The reason many Jews [particularly liberals such as the ADL etc] took offense at his use of the word holocaust was because they don't see abortion as murder, [which the holocaust clearly was] or even as always something negative. If he used the term nuclear holocaust as in your example, it's my guess you would have heard barely a murmur. Gotta love that name Huckabee.If it wasn't so serious I'd vote for him on that alone. President Huckabee. Sounds right out of a comedy skit.


(3) Richard 11/11/2007 7:27:00 PM

One more comment; The holocaust was also leagal just as abortion is leagal in America the land of the free and the brave.

(4) Kip Gonzales 11/11/2007 6:24:00 AM
Holocausts still go on...
Im a gentile Christian, who has a great love for Israel und the Jewish people. I have read and studied about the Holocaust, or Shoah, since 1967. I have become very familir with what happened, and of course, it was the deliberate robbery and murder of six million Jews. When any political force annihilates any religious or ethnic group, it´s a holocaust. In 1931 Stalin killed at least 9 million Ukrainians who refused to submit to collectivization, and Mao-Tse Tung killed many more millions in his "Cultural Revolution". Pol Pot in Cambodia wiped out over two million of his own people in his short reign. When the innocent are led to the slaughter, and no one seems to care, it truly is a holocaust. (Proverbs 24:11-12) Today, among all the innocents being killed in the world, the greatest crime is the killing of the pre-born. "Pro-choice" is a lie; babies NEVER choose to die!


(5) Marcus 11/10/2007 4:36:00 PM
A Question of Ownership
It behooves the conveyor of any information to remember that the information for information sake is for nothing else save informing the receiver of the intended or required information that is to be conveyed. How dare any one person think they own any thing when they know perfectly well that the ownership of all is under HaShem and that the use thereof is nothing more than an act of stewardship and nothing less than a commitment of worship which should edify the intended hearer as it is intended to do. How truly haughty are a people who think they "own" a word as though they also own the context and the idea that word creates. How big they think they are, and how small will they be shown to be when they meet the Creator.


(6) Anonymous 11/10/2007 10:04:00 AM
We have our own word
We have our own word: Shoah. It applies to our people and is not a Greek root-word.


(7) Yochanan 11/10/2007 6:37:00 AM
ahmadinejadi denial
Every time a Jewish woman commits abortion, she is re-committing the holocaust on yet another of our people.


(8) Yochanan 11/10/2007 6:16:00 AM
with Huckabee
Abortion is a holocaust. Huckabee was in no way downplaying HaShoa or being antiSemitic. On the contrary, he was trying to shock the liberals out of their comfortable ahmadinejadi denial. Further, it is an act of arrogance to control the use of the word holocaust. Are we indeed the only ones to have experienced such a thing, terrible as it was?


(9) Richard Stachowski 11/9/2007 7:38:00 PM
Holocaust
I think what he was saying that the abortions being performed are as immoral as the holocaust. We see pictures that are very hard to look at, dead bodies piled up like trash. We don't see the murdered children in abortion facilities . They are removed from the mother and dumped in the garbage and nobody sees it so it's much easier for us to accept. Legal yes but still cutting short a human life for convenience.


(10) Anonymous 11/9/2007 9:41:00 AM
Re SISI's perspective
It's scary, how murder of unborn children can fall under the "women's right to control their own bodies and the way those bodies are used."

Why stop there? Don't women have a right to control the use of their bodies after birth as well? Can a woman who doesn't want to use her body to hug a child, feed him, cover her, shop for him (the exhausing task of continual grocery shopping should not be forced on any body!)get "rid" of her child as well?

How desensitized to the sanctity of life we have become, to refer to the violence perpetrated on millions of babies as "the women's right to control her body and the way her body is used"- utterly nauseating!

The Torah position, which incidentally is the position of even staunch pro-lifers (why in heck aren't we all pro-lifers- what is it about this century that makes spoiled people willing to politicize murder?!) that abortion is necessary in very specific situations.

The wild scare tactics such as that a very ill woman with a life-threatening pregnancy would be unable to have an abortion to save her life is so unbecoming to intelligent individuals.

May we all be brought to view life as sacred and intrinsically valuable, to bring our generation into a TRULY modern one.






(11) Edward Morris 11/8/2007 12:35:00 PM
Unadulterated murder of humans, embryonic, Jewish, or otherwise is a Holocaust
Understandably, anyone Jewish will forever and always regard the wanton murder of 6 million Jewish people as an unspeakable horror and blight on Humanity. I am not Jewish, but I have a pure love for the Jewish people, and am deeply saddened for the ongoing persecution and hatred shown towards Jews. You are God's Chosen People as outlined in the Pentateuch, and as such should be revered, honored and protected. Likewise, any human being, especially those stiil developing in their mothers' wombs, are especially precious and worthy of the same honor and protection, for they cannot even scream at the abortionist to stop vacuuming their shredded remains to be discarded as so much garbage. And this has occurred across America since Roe v. Wade, to the tune of 40+ million babies!!! Not puppies, kittens, whales, etc, but Homo sapiens, described in Psalm 139 as being shaped and formed by the very Hand of the Almighty. Oh how God must weep at our blatant disregard for the pinnacle of His Creation--Mankind. A holocaust??!! Most definitely.Understandably, anyone Jewish will forever and always regard the wanton murder of 6 million Jewish people as an unspeakable horror and blight on Humanity. I am not Jewish, but I have a pure love for the Jewish people, and am deeply saddened for the ongoing persecution and hatred shown towards Jews. You are God's Chosen People as outlined in the Pentateuch, and as such should be revered, honored and protected. Likewise, any human being, especially those stiil developing in their mothers' wombs, are especially precious and worthy of the same honor and protection, for they cannot even scream at the abortionist to stop vacuuming their shredded remains to be discarded as so much garbage. And this has occurred across America since Roe v. Wade, to the tune of 40+ million babies!!! Not puppies, kittens, whales, etc, but Homo sapiens, described in Psalm 139 as being shaped and formed by the very Hand of the Almighty. Oh how God must weep at our blatant disregard for the pinnacle of His Creation--Mankind. A holocaust??!! Most definitely.


(12) Clare 11/8/2007 9:23:00 AM
The real Question
As a life long pro-Israel Evangelical Christian serving the same God, my question is, " Does God really differentiate between the "MURDER" of
innocent Jews and the "MURDER" (not killing) of innocent non-Jewish persons, babies or adults. As I understand the Bible, the lives of everyone He creates is precious to Him.
To me Holocaust means MURDER, not killing. There is a difference. In Lev.
we read " there is a time to kill (not murder) and a time to heal.


(13) David Tzvi-Hersh 11/8/2007 8:05:00 AM
Appropriate
Mike Huckabee was trying to find a word that would adequately describe how he feels about abortions. His comment reflected his belief that the systematic killing of babies reaches the level of the most horrific aspects of WWII, The Holocaust. He was not minimizing what happened to the Jews (and others). On the contrary, he was confirming how intense his feelings are about abortion, comparing it to the most evil thing he could imagine. It is totally appropriate.


(14) Yaron 11/8/2007 7:35:00 AM
Jews do not own the term
The term has been used way before WW II and can be used by anybody for anything, as far as I'm concerned. If it makes sense to use it for abortion, is another thing entirely. Probably Huckabee is not for castrating rapists if abortion would become illegal. I'm all for castrating them to protect innocent minds of girls and women from harm. I'm pro-wanted-life; wouldnt want a rape-victim to have to give life to a rapist's baby...


(15) Michael Bear 11/7/2007 7:50:00 PM
It is not appropriate
Now a day, everytime a large number of people die someone wants to call it a "holocaust". After repeated inappropriate use, the word loses it's impact. Holocaust means the sistamatic, intentional murder of a specific, identifiable group, in an attempt to eliminate that group from an area or areas. What Turkey wanted to do to the Armenians is another example that comes close to being a "holocaust".
Abortion, even with the terrible numbers it involves, is not a "holocaust".


(16) David S. Levine 11/7/2007 7:47:00 PM
In The End, Not Exclusive
The word existed before the events to which it is most applied and was used to describe the confligrations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki before it was applied to what happened to and and/or our relatives. We're stuck with that language history.


(17) yoni c 11/7/2007 6:27:00 PM
Perspective

The man was talking about how terrible abortion is and how sacred life is and as Jews all we could talk about is how he used the word Holocaust instead of annihilation or catastrophe? And can't we be happy he's one of the few who's still pro life?

I remember you brought up what Michael Ray Richardson said about his jewish lawyers or something of that sort. You said then, "Let's save anti-semetism for the real thing." Do you consider THIS to be the real thing?


(18) Chaim 11/7/2007 6:11:00 PM
What is right
At least someone is standing up against death, abortion.


(19) Joseph Lebitt 11/7/2007 4:57:00 PM
Today's Holocust
For "Holocaust" to carry meaning to today's new generation, it must be applied with intensity to the holocausts of today - the killing of Iragis by US, the Palestine by the Isrealist and the Bosnians by the Serbs.


(20) yonaton 11/7/2007 4:21:00 PM
HANDS OFF THE HOLOCAUST!
Do Jews own the word "Holocaust"?

YOU BET WE DO!

Catherine Manna is right, and here are just two of the many reasons why.

(1) - The only reason to apply it to others is to diminish Jewish suffering. When they say others suffered the same, that is code for, "Hey, Jew, you aren't so special."

(2) - It's also their way of getting off the hook for their complicity in it. After all, if they are so "moral" as to condemn it in other cases, they think they won't be so accountable for remaining silent about us.

And, isn't it strange, for all their self-righteous sophistry, they still can't bring themselves to condemn the so-called "Palestinians" and all the Muslims who support them, in their current attempts to destroy us? Not only that, they are even helping them!




(21) Elizabeth 11/7/2007 3:21:00 PM
touchy issue
I think that the word Holocaust is definitely not to be used loosely. However, I don't think this rules someone out as anti-semitic. If used as anything but its original meaning, Holocaust should be used to compare the original to Darfur and Rwanda, just to show intensity. Obviously, this requires much caution, so personally, I wouldn't go around using it.


(22) Ben Tzion Levy 11/7/2007 2:24:00 PM
Of course abortion is a holocaust
I have no problem with using the word "holocaust" when discussing the tragedy of abortion.
In Israel 40-50 THOUSAND abortions are performed each year!!! That's over 900 a week; Jewish children who could strenghthen the State of Israel. That is a holocaust. The ADL is concered with one issue and one issue only; antisemitism. It is not a religious or conservative minded group that would look at Roe v. Wade as a terrible mistake.


(23) Anonymous 11/7/2007 1:14:00 PM
It is appropriate to attach the word holocaust to abortions
I believe that it comes down to this...when we as a society see fit to do the things that we continue to do, whether an extermination of a people/race or the murdering of the innocent...we must attach to it the strongest word possible. A word that will conger up in our minds, something so horrific, that we will be willing to lay down our life for the cause. I am concerned that in today's climate, life is cheap...if we can abort millions of babies...why not kill off a few folks from Darfur, Rwanda, Armenia or Cambodia. Does "Thou Shall Not Kill" fit either any situation?


(24) Anonymous 11/7/2007 1:12:00 PM
Huckabee and Holocaust
I think Mr. Huckabee's remark was appropriate as he believes abortion is abhorant and murder in the most grievous of ways, as was the WWII Holocaust.


(25) Chaya 11/7/2007 12:21:00 PM
What does the word "holocaust" mean?
Holocaust is the english translation of korban olah, a sacrifice that was brought in the Beis HaMikdosh that was totally consumed by fire. So, there is something intrinsically Jewish about the word.

The fires of Hitler's (y'mach shmo) crematoria, consumed European Jewry utterly and entirely, like fire consumed a korban olah.

I am not outraged or insulted by the word "holocaust" being used in other contexts. Certainly there are other atrocities that are equally horrifying to other groups. I just find the use of that word, in particular, incorrect.


(26) Moshe Broner 11/7/2007 12:10:00 PM
Not appropriate
Yes, there are activities going on today which are heinous, but the word "Holocaust" needs to be reserved for what occurred in WWII. To label everything as a holocaust trivializes the word and through it, all those who died or otherwise suffered during that period.


(27) Mrs. D. 11/7/2007 10:57:00 AM
Response to SISI, 11/6
As I wrote my previous comment I KNEW there would be someone waiting in the wings to shout about women and their rights to make their own decisions with their bodies. That is why, if you would re-read my words, I was emphasizing the feeling that all-out abortion-is-okay policy, resulting in millions of dead babies yearly, is tantamount to a HOlocaust of sorts, FOR THE BABIES, repeat, FOR THE BABIES. This Rabbi's video comes from a Torah source, therefore, we are discussing thiese ideas from a Torah perspective. TOrah Halacha does indeed provide for certain allowances when abortion is permitted, and I believe that is determined by factors regarding saving the mother's life (or at rare times, her sanity), and needs to be done within a very narrow window of early gestation. Let's face it, we know what 1/2 the abortions happen from around this society: unwanted pregnancies, and sometimes, an unwanted baby once it is discovered that it nay be born with a handicap. THe govt would not ban all abortions - Sisi, you have been duped by propaganda. they will simply notFUND all sorts of abortions indiscriminately. And yes, I agree that there must be legal exceptions made, but my list, based on Torah law, is going to be narrower than yours. Still, from a Torah perspective, no, we are not in charge of every decision regarding our bodies. We have been charged with the utmost care of our bodies. Forethought that avoids an unwanted pregnancy is a good idea along those lines. BUt the baby in question has a body and a life developing, too. Being uinwanted, now how that reminds me of the cleasnsing of the nation done by the Aryans. Oh, true, they didn't only kill the retarded before birth, THey were all fair game. WE are taughr that every minute creation, down to a blade of grass, is accompanied by an angel and is here to serve a purpose. WE are commanded not to destry anything in creation without a good reason, including daydreaming and plucking leaves. How much more is our oblligation to protect a human that can accomplish so much in this world.


(28) Elisheva 11/7/2007 10:28:00 AM
Shoah vs Holocaust
While the term Holocaust has come to mean any type of mass genocide, the term Shoah is a more reverential term for WWII, and is 'owned' by the Jewish people. It also conveys a deeper, more spiritual meaning.

Huckabee is correct in his relating the two events. Just look at some of the parallels: both groups of people were deemed 'not worthy of life' by another group. Both groups had war waged on them, with no defense. No one spoke up for either group, and fighting back didn't occur till much too late. If someone attacked the death camps in an effort to free prisioners, they would have been considered heros. If someone attacks a death clinic today, they are a criminal imposing their will on someone else's body. The whole arguement is skweed -- but the analogies are the same. The L-rd gives life and we are to value it, no matter WHO's life it is.

Am Israel Chai!


(29) Mosheh Wolfish 11/7/2007 10:23:00 AM
If it is unique, then we have to be unique!
Obviously the word Holocaust existed before WW2 - it was not made up for the occassion and there have been "holocausts" since then. However, if Jews want recognition of their unique experience, then we first have to understand what was unique about it; but the hate, suffering and murder were not unique to the Jews, not before WW2, not after and not even during (Gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded, etc.). I would suggest that we need to INTERNALIZE and then communicate that what was unique was the assault on G-d's chosen people, the reason for creation, the source of blessing and the conduit of holiness in this world! If we internalize this concept and make it our way of life, THEN the world will come to acknowledge that the Holocaust truly was a uniquely horrible event perpetrated on ALL mankind! But if we keep on trying to be like everyone else, then our experiences are like everyone else's and may be extreme, but not unique - just a quantitative difference, not qualitative. We can't have it both ways - either we are unique (and have to conduct ourselves that way), or we are the same. CHOOSE ONE! A "kingdom of priests and holy nation", or "Israel is like all the nations".


(30) Anonymous 11/7/2007 9:54:00 AM
Word "holocaust" appropriate
Rabbi Salomon: As the God of Abraham knows us before we are concieved (Psalm 139), the killing of over 45 MILLION babies in abortion clinics qualifies as a comparative term. Amen??


(31) Anonymous 11/7/2007 4:22:00 AM

the useds of the word is not exclusive to THE Holocaust. With the use reffering to WWII Holocaust it ussally.THE HOLOCAUST.







(32) Peter Berger 11/7/2007 1:19:00 AM
Use it or lose it
For "Holocaust" to carry meaning to today's new generation, it must be applied with intensity to the holocausts of today - the Darfurs, the Rawandas, and whatever else falls into the category of a great tragedy, whether or not it is truly equal.

My parents went right through the very core of the Holocaust, so the word has a lot of associations for me. Notwithstanding, I meet college kids and teenagers today for whom the word means little - it's one of those historical blips. If they are into history, it's a big blip, but most people are not.

If massacres are going on right now, complete with full-color photos, and they do not make the front page, and they do not stir a young person's feelings more than the annoying buzz of a fly, why should a massacre that happened in another life, in hazy black-and-white, matter any more?

When people use the word holocaust to describe what they think is any intensely immensely great tragedy, it stirs passions and allows young people to connect their feelings with the historical facts. It is using the word in a way that informs and moves and brings about positive actions to fix a very broken planet. It is only a credit to the memory of my grandfather and uncle who were walked into Auschwitcz's gass chambers.


(33) Catherine Manna 11/6/2007 10:36:00 PM
It is in-appropriate!
Yes! It is not appropriate to use the term "Holocaust" for any other reason or any other thing! The name has much pain and heartache attached to it, so there fore NO!
My question is, why would you?
Insensitive, or stupidity?




(34) sisi 11/6/2007 11:46:00 AM
china one child vs. "right to life"
the one child policy in china that forces women to abort their pregnancies is a basic violation of those women's right to control their own bodies and the way those bodies are used.
the "right to life" anti-abortion at all costs policy is very similar in that it disallows women the right to decide how their bodies will be used.
when one person is opposed to both policies it is b/c they feel that women should have some control over their bodies and not have a government official dictating what medical procedures are allowed or forced to have.
the so called right to lifers could have had far more restriction on abortion if they only let women who were victims of incest and rape as well as women whose lives were in danger have unfettered access to abortion.
the REAL massacre and holocaust will be the women who will die b/c their health status cannot let them continue their pregancies but cannot get a safe abortion. the women who will die, as they did before, of infection and complications due to back alley abortions. the women forced to carry a baby and live with the accomponied emotional turmoil of carrying a child forced on them by a violent act....
THAT would be a truly tragic event and far more like the holocaust mr. huckabee speaks of.



(35) Anonymous 11/5/2007 6:31:00 PM
In a word: Nope.
The word holocaust is a Greek derived word meaning "all burnt". It is used specifically when someone or something is burned, not just when they are killed. I'd disagree with Mr. Huckabee's use of the term, just based on the fact that aborted fetuses aren't burnt (at least not to my knowledge). He would be correct, however, in describing it as an unbridled massacre.


(36) Dvirah 11/4/2007 1:37:00 PM
Use of the Word "Holocost"
I agree with Rabbi Salomon that the Jews do not have exclusive use of the term "Holocost", but I would caution that its use in any other context SHOULD denote a human action of equal magnitude, since any other usage trivilizes the word. Therefore, I would judge Mr. Huckabee's usage to be inappropriate. No one is rounding up thousands of pregnant women and aborting those preganacies against those women's will. In using the word "Holocost" more freely, let us not forget what it actually denotes.


(37) Mrs. D. 11/4/2007 12:51:00 PM
semantics/sensitivity
In response to "Rosen's" comments, Helloooo - Dr. Salomon was just using the Huckabee statement as a sounding board point. You're just rattlingly on with all kinds of political rhetoric, and it goes off topic.
Here's my response: The word Holocaust can be found in the English dictionary,and was around way longer than the event for which this term was officially adopted. I didn't actually hear Huckabee's statement, so perhaps there was something about the way he made the comparison that could be perceived as offensive. however, I think it ought to be perfectly alright to apply this term to that other disastrous murderous trend, officially approved of, legalized, and often funded by the gov't. If you don't agree that this is what mass abortion policy means to you, that's a different story, for which the response would take pages of refutation, so it's not for now. However, I always wondered why the Clinton camp and the feminists once made a huge hue and cry about the forced abortion policy in China and opposed right-to-life here in the States. Does the fact that in China this is done against the mother's will and here it's done by them willingly, mean that the babies are less killed here? Which I assume if the babies had any say in the matter they wouldn't be too keen on?
Also, we should never discount all kinds of other horrific mass murders of nations and tribes that have gone on on and still do...Let them be called HOlocausts, I'm not insulted.
As for our own '39-'45 holocaust, I think it's not going to change that the world will always associate this term uniquely to this "event", especially when dubbed "THE Holocaust." But, what term is truly ours exclusively and cannot be trespassed upon? I'd say, "Sho'ah"


(38) Anonymous 11/4/2007 10:08:00 AM
Any kind of destruction of humans on a large scale is holocaust
Any deliberate destruction of human life on a massive scale is a holocaust.
Originally the term was meant to describe the suffering of the Jewish
people in Europe.Today any genocide can
be called holocaust.


(39) Rosen 11/4/2007 5:48:00 AM
Huckabee's delusion
Mike Huckabee hardly has a chance at being our next US president. Many are getting tired of the same GOP rhetoric that we have been experiencing over the past 6+ years, particularly with Huckabee not believing in evolution...When he was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly, Bill bluntly asked him the question "do you think only Christians go to heavan, and everyone else including Jews and Muslims go to hell?" He didn't seem to give a straight-fwd answer, but it shouldn't be like Christians own a monopoly on how to believe...As for his comments of equating abortions to the holocaust, he probably doesn't know what he is talking about, because the pro-life attitude is that life begins in the womb, whereas they cannot seem to differentiate a fetus from a new-born baby. Seems like Huckabee tends to disregard the science of the womb and evolution. Only Tenakh would have a further answer between science and G-d brought into cohesive context.