Jews and Cultural Changes

Jewish Cultural Changes
Liberation of Auschwitz
80th Anniversary – January 27, 1945

The date of the liberation of encamped inmates at the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz-Berkenau, Poland, was January 27, 1945.  January 27, 2025, was 80 years since that day.  Many of the 2,819 prisoners were children, as seen in the photo taken by the Soviet army on the day they entered the camp to free them.

            How do such catastrophic and tragic experiences affect cultural changes afterward?  Most of the prisoners held in the 40,000-plus Nazi camps across Europe were Jews.  The Nazis believed the camps were the “solution” to the Jewish problem.  What exactly was the “Jewish problem?”  It is difficult for scholars and historians to pinpoint exactly how hatred and antisemitism came to be so volatile in Hitler’s Germany.  

            The hatred of Jews, as we know, has a long history in European society.  There were pogroms, expulsions, persecutions, and executions during the Spanish Inquisition. In examining this long history, we must also examine the cultural practices of Jewish populations.  Unfortunately, cultural practices are what drive others to either like us or dislike us.

            Before the Holocaust, Jewish culture varied depending on the locations where they gathered.  One thing we know about Jewish culture is that the Jews tend to be concentrated in areas where their beliefs and customs are celebrated and ritualized without constraint from others.  They have always had strong community ties, with a focus on religious traditions and their dominant language, Yiddish, especially among the Orthodox faithful populations.

            In Eastern Europe, Jews often lived in small areas known as Shtetls. In Shtetl neighborhoods, Jewish populations spoke their ancestral Ashkenazi Jewish language. Yiddish is a dialect of German with Hebrew influences, and it was the primary language spoken in those Shtetls. Remember, language is the primary way culture is passed down through generations.

            In Western Europe, Jews were more assimilated into the mainstream culture.  They participated in public life and were hardly noticed by their non-Jewish friends and neighbors.   Some were doctors.  Others were lawyers or businessmen. Before the Holocaust, there were restrictions on land ownership by Jews, so their livelihoods were tailoring, shoemaking, merchandising, and other pursuits. Studying the Torah and Jewish law was highly valued, and Rabbis were important players in Jewish communities.

            Jews have always had a strong emphasis on their religious observances within family settings.  Marriages outside of Jewish boundaries were not encouraged.  After the Holocaust, however, Jewish culture now emphasizes methods of survival due to the horrendous losses of lives and material culture throughout Jewish communities across the European continent during WWII.  The Yiddish language suffered near extinction, which has negatively impacted Jewish cultural practices. Though the state of Israel has been restored, Jews seek a more globalized Jewish cultural identity. Younger Jews want to carry on their faith and traditions in a more modernized way.  They are incorporating some elements of secular culture but leaning on their connections to a Jewish identity             The Holocaust’s aftermath led to the large-scale migration of Jews to their restored homeland.  Israel is a place of refuge where Jewish identities have also been restored.  The shared trauma of the concentration camps has been passed on in history books, museums, memorials, and other repositories.

People visit the Memorial and Museum in Auschwitz-Birkenau, a former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp, in Oswiecim, Poland, Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025.

(AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

            The commemoration of the death camps’ liberation on January 27, 2025, in Poland, had survivors warning us about antisemitism, hatred, and prejudices in our contemporary world.  They reminded us that understanding the past brings awareness of the cost of intolerance and the importance of taking action. Human rights do matter.

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