Interpret, analyze, and evaluate culturally diverse narratives, poetry and drama, aesthetically and ethically, by making connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives, eras, personal events and situations. Self-select text to respond and develop innovative perspectives.
Article: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Observant-survivors-keep-the-faith-after-Holocaust-2725098.php
Poem: http://www.thehypertexts.com/Yakov%20Azriel%20Poet%20Poetry%20Picture%20Bio%20Holocaust%20Poem.htm
"How can one still believe in a merciful God after suffering through the worst genocide in history?" Friday January 27 was Holocaust Remembrance Day and this article is about some of the survivors (mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews) of the Holocaust and their struggle with faith. The article covers the ideas that these ultra-Orthodox Jews live by and talks about how during the annual celebration of the day they "do not participate. They ignore the two-minute air raid siren that brings the country to a standstill, calling it a foreign ritual unfit for Jews. They shun the somber songs and speeches of official ceremonies and reject the Israeli ethos of a Zionist state rising out the ashes of the Holocaust." The article also touches upon the fact that the ultra-Orthodox were the "hardest hit" during WWII because they were "Easily identified by their long beards, sidelocks and distinctive black garb, they were targeted first."
This article relates to the poem Smoke by Yakov Azriel. The first lines of the poem, "At the Umschlagplatz, the train to Treblinka,/Ready to transport the Jews of Warsaw/ To where people are transported through chimneys/As smoke,/ Waits" shows the terrors that the Jewish people went through during the Holocaust. This line explains so well why it was so hard for the Jewish and anyone else that survived the Holocaust to keep faith, when people were being violently murdered left and right for no reason.
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