National Review Online, NY
April 29 2005
April Diary
Holding a grudge, the joys of computing, etc.
Holding paper. News item: `Hundreds of Armenian-Americans gathered in
Times Square yesterday to observe the 90th anniversary of the 1915
Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million people died at the hands of
the Ottoman Turkish empire. They demanded that the mass
extermination, which they say served as a model for Hitler’s `final
solution,’ finally be acknowledged by Turkey.’
That, as readers of The Corner will know, is called `holding paper.’
The Armenians are certainly entitled to hold paper on the Turks in re
the appalling 1915 massacres, as are the Irish on the British, the
Chinese on the Japanese, and so on. Paper-holding-wise, though, this
is penny-ante stuff. For really tenacious holding of paper, nobody
can come close to the Jews. In the course of an e-conversation on the
topic, Noah Millman sent me this:
Parshat Zachor is read the Sabbath before Purim each year (which this
year is in late March). The section ends as follows: `Deuteronomy
25:17-19 `17. Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you
came forth out of Egypt;
`18. How he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were
feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and they did not
fear God.
`19. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest
from all your enemies around, in the land which the Lord your God
gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the
remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it.’
Amalek was a tribe that dwelt in the Sinai and Negev desert during
Mosaic times (about 3500 years ago according to the traditional
dating). So we’re already talking about holding a grudge for a very,
very long time.
But the interesting thing is that 2000 years ago or so the rabbis
concluded that the mitzvah of wiping the nation of Amalek off the
earth was no longer operative because Amalek no longer existed as
such; all the nations of ancient Canaan were, they said, mixed
together during the Babylonian exile of 2500 years ago, and so now
there was no way to distinguish Amalek from anyone else – or even
from Israel! NONETHELESS, even though it is impossible to perform the
mitzvah, the mitzvah remains, and we are obliged to remember never to
forget to blot out the name of Amalek, because of what they did to us
in the desert.
So the Jews bear the following distinction: We are under a RELIGIOUS
OBLIGATION to hold a 3500 year-old grudge against a group of people
WHO DON’T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE.
Now that is holding paper.