Silent Holocaust
Encyclopedia
The silent holocaust is a phrase that is used to refer to several unrelated events:
  • Abortion
    Abortion
    Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

    , among some involved in pro-life activism. One group has even named itself "Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust."
  • Certain Jewish communal and religious leaders have used this term to describe Jewish assimilation
    Jewish assimilation
    Jewish assimilation refers to the cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture. Assimilation became legally possible in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment.-Background:Judaism forbids the worship of other gods...

     (cultural assimilation
    Cultural assimilation
    Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...

    , religious assimilation
    Religious assimilation
    In religion, assimilation refers to the passive or active inclusion of persons or aspects of another religion as members or elements within a particular faith or belief system...

    ) and interfaith marriage
    Interfaith marriage in Judaism
    Interfaith marriage in Judaism was historically looked upon with very strong disfavour by Jewish leaders, and it remains a controversial issue amongst Jewish leaders today. In the Talmud, interfaith marriage is completely prohibited, although the definition of interfaith is not so simply expressed...

     of Jews with gentiles.


The term is often highly controversial, regardless of use.

Use in pro-life circles

To pro-life activists, the silent holocaust refers to more than 50,000,000 fetuses that have been aborted in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 since 1973. One activist group, known as the "Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust," feels that everyone has been directly affected by this holocaust because all people have been denied the company of aborted individuals. This group believes it is their job to "defend the right to life of future generations and end America's genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

."

Referring to assimilation of Jews

Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

s can refer to assimilation (along with abortion within the Jewish community) as a type of "Holocaust". This is because assimilation http://www.ujc.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=83913 is the leading cause for the shrinkage of almost all Jewish populations in Western countries
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...

. Since World War II, and it has been called the Silent Holocaust http://www.njop.org/html/Newsletters_and_articles.html#a1 (in comparison to the genocide against Jews
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

 during World War II) by communal leaders such as Rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

 Ephraim Buchwald
Ephraim Buchwald
Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald is one of the leaders in the movement of Jewish return in America today.Ordained at Yeshiva University, where he was a student of Rabbi Dr. Joseph B...

 of the National Jewish Outreach Program
National Jewish Outreach Program
The National Jewish Outreach Program was established by Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald in 1987, in response to the urgent need to address the critical issue of the spiraling losses of Jews from Jewish life due to assimilation and lack of Jewish knowledge...

, perhaps the best-known popularizer of the phrase.

Use of the term "silent holocaust" in reference to Jewish intermarriage:
  • "...Unlike the persecution that the Jewish people have endured by the hands of others for over 3,000 years, Jews on this continent now face a "silent holocaust" stemming from within their very own communities and their very own households..." http://www.whymarryjewish.com/j2k.html

  • "There have been many other arguments offered against intermarriage...Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 12 million were left afterwards. Today there are only 13 million Jews in the world. Where are the rest that by natural increase should number close to 20 million? The answer is that the silent holocaust of assimilation has caused them to disappear as Jews." http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/191/Q1/

  • "There is a Holocaust taking place in America right now. We can't hear it, because there are no barking dogs; we can't see it because there are no goose-stepping Nazi
    Nazism
    Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

     soldiers and no concentration camps; we can't smell it because there are no gas chambers
    Gas Chambers
    Gas Chambers is a fast, hollow and shallow point break type of wave. Being that it is a high performance wave it is well suited for the average to pro level surfer. Gas Chambers is located on the North Shore of Oahu about a 1/4 of a mile north of Ehukai Beach Park and 1/2 a mile west of Sunset...

    . But the net result is exactly the same. If we fail to act now, if we fail to share with our young Jews the beauty and meaningfulness of Jewish life and Jewish heritage, there will be few Jews left in the next generation who will even know that there ever was a Holocaust of European Jews. The "silent Holocaust" will have done its job. Hitler will have emerged victorious.http://www.njop.org/html/Newsletters_and_articles.html#a1


Intermarriage, assimilation and apostasy
Apostasy
Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...

 are all described in terms of a "silent holocaust".

Controversy with the Assimilation usage

As noted above, use of the term "Silent Holocaust" is highly controversial and occurs mainly among Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 Jews of conservative and Nationalist tendencies. An especially outspoken opponent of the term and the train of thought behind it is Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni is an Israeli politician and left-wing activist. She is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp, founded the Ratz party and was leader of the Meretz party and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993.-Biography:...

. Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni
Shulamit Aloni is an Israeli politician and left-wing activist. She is a prominent member of the Israeli peace camp, founded the Ratz party and was leader of the Meretz party and served as Minister of Education from 1992 to 1993.-Biography:...

 is a former Israeli Education Minister, who considered its use "an insult to and desecration of the Holocaust victims' memory".

Adam Keller
Adam Keller
Adam Keller is an Israeli peace activist who was among the founders of Gush Shalom, of which he is a spokesperson.-Political views:...

, editor of the Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...

-based The Other Israel, spoke at length on the issue during a lecture tour of the US in September 2004, especially in the course of an intense and highly emotive debate with right-wing Jewish hecklers on the university campus at Fullerton, California
Fullerton, California
Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. Fullerton, who secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway...

. Among other things he said on that occasion:
"I find this term, 'Silent Holocaust', more obscene than all the pornography in the world put together. The Holocaust, from which my mother and my father barely escaped and in which many of their relatives perished, was the systematic genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...

 and mass murder of millions of people, solely because of their ethnic and religious identity. The so-called "silent holocaust" is the freely chosen exercise by human beings of the right to choose a spouse and live a happy and satisfying life with him or her, a right specifically guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...

to which the State of Israel is one of the first signatories. Only a monstrously perverted mind can possibly conceive of making such a comparison. This comes from a mindset in which an individual counts for nothing, his or her wishes count for nothing, and the individual's only worth is as being a component of an overwhelming, all-supreme Nation or Ethnos. This is a racist way of thinking, a fascist way of thinking. It is, I must say, Hitler's way of thinking, and I am deeply ashamed that some Jews have taken it for their own."
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