• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

'Shoah' mistranslated as 'Holocaust'

FireGarden

Philosopher
FireGarden
Joined
Aug 13, 2002
Messages
5,047
The defense minister merely meant 'disaster', according to Melanie Philips:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/530786/the-mother-of-all-mistranslations.thtml

This reported remark by deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai caused widespread shock and absolute horror. For an Israeli minister to use the word ‘holocaust’ to describe a limited war of Israeli self-defence, when for Jews of all people the ‘Holocaust’ means one thing: genocide — and this at a time when the calumny of the ‘Jews as Nazis’ is rampant around the world, putting Israel and the Jewish people at risk — was simply beyond belief.

It was indeed without any credibility — because Vilnai never said it. It was an appalling mistranslation by Reuters

[...] Reuters translated the Hebrew word ‘shoah’ as ‘holocaust’. But ‘shoah’ merely means disaster. In Hebrew, the word ‘shoah’ is never used to mean ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide’ because of the acute historical resonance. The word ‘Hashoah’ alone means ‘the Holocaust’ and ‘retzach am’ means ‘genocide’. The well-known Hebrew construction used by Vilnai used merely means ‘bringing disaster on themselves’.
Click to expand...

Here's the BBC story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7270650.stm

It may have been modified since the first article:

Matan Vilnai said Palestinians risked a "shoah", the Hebrew word for a big disaster - and for the Nazi Holocaust.

[...] The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says many of Mr Vilnai's colleagues have quickly distanced themselves from his comments and also tried to downplay, them saying he did not mean genocide.

"We're getting close to using our full strength. Until now, we've used a small percentage of the army's power because of the nature of the territory," he added.
Click to expand...

The DM made the comments after Hamas rockets hit Ashkelon.
 
According to this wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah
the term is Ha-Shoah

But then "Ha-" might be "the"
http://www.theology.edu/hebrew/hb03.htm

I could disagree with the quoted claim: "In Hebrew, the word ‘shoah’ is never used to mean ‘holocaust’ or ‘genocide’ because of the acute historical resonance." So I'm not claiming Reuters were on acid or somesuch when they did the translation. Perhaps they were too hasty. But, then again, the DM's colleagues have distanced themselves from the comments so (assuming they heard them in the original Hebrew) they must have an impact in Hebrew too.
 
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959532.html

Haaretz disagrees with Melanie Philips, and says that "Shoah" is generally used to refer to the Holocaust. So I would say an honest mistake on the part of Reuters.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai went as far as threatening a "shoah,"
the Hebrew word for holocaust or disaster. The word is generally used to refer to the Nazi Holocaust, but a spokesman for Vilnai said the deputy defense minister used the word in the sense of "disaster," saying "he did not mean to make any allusion to the genocide."

"The more Qassam fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, [the Palestinians] will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves," Vilnai told Army Radio on Friday.
Click to expand...
 
shoah has been the standard hebrew and jewish word for holocaust for 40 years. no honest person can claim that 13 million jews know it to mean one thing, but he meant something else.

big oops...mr. deputy defense minister. huge ooops.
 
"Ason" is the Hebrew word for "disaster" ---

I believe that you are correct in your post parky76, that Vilnai overstepped the bounds of propriety.

And beyond the quibble about the word usage ----- the very idea that IDF forces will manage to perform a massive mission against gaza terrorists without substantial loss of additional civilian palestinian lives, is preposterous. (see: Summer Rain 2006)

The only way they can actually move the rockets back beyond the 12-km firing zone is to create a scorched-earth DMZ where no human beings are allowed in. While the IDF could indeed perform that task, the question remains, what then?
 
webfusion said:
The only way they can actually move the rockets back beyond the 12-km firing zone is to create a scorched-earth DMZ where no human beings are allowed in. While the IDF could indeed perform that task, the question remains, what then?
Click to expand...
What then? Build settlements in the 12km zone of course!


:scarper:
 
Last edited:
He was certainly stupid to use a word that is so ambiguous.
 
Sunni Man said:
The real meaning of Shoah should be changed to Fraud
Click to expand...

There are numerous threads in the History section about the Holocaust. There is a poster by the name of Nick Terry that you might like to discuss this opinion with.
 
How is it that Holocaust deniers keep crawling out of the woodwork? They're like cockroaches only I like cockroaches more.
 
While the use by Deputy Defense Minister Vilnai of the term "shoah" (major inferno) was indelicate, to say the least, it has now been seized upon by the most vile of terrorist organizations in their descriptions of what is currently happening in Gaza.

A statement issued by Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Mahdi Akef condemned the Israeli military actions. "I will quote the Israeli defense minister as describing it as a Holocaust," it said.

and

The Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla group also described the attacks as a
Holocaust which it said was taking place with "blatant Arab complacency and Western weapons and financing and comprehensive American protection of the Israeli butcher."


Without any question, the battle that's happening in Gaza is NOT comparable to the Holocaust. It's a localized incursion, designed and focused to target specific palestinian individuals and infrastructure they are using to launch terroristic rocket attacks against the State of Israel:
Warehouses, transport vehicles (a truck was targeted earlier today, carrying 140 rockets), Hamas-occupied compounds, and the launch-sites themselves.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959654.html

While civilans are indeed being caught in the crossfire, the aim of the IDF is not civilians. The IDF is using ground forces (at great risk to the soldiers) because we prefer to avoid massive civilian casualties among the people of gaza.
Israel's Army is carrying out these limited actions to defend its citizens. We do not have a policy of causing a "major inferno" (shoah) in Gaza.
 
Technically, according to the Sapir Hebrew-Hebrew dictionary the meaning of the word 'shoah' is 'a major disaster'. That's how it has been used first in the bible. But ever since the holocaust, the word 'shoah' has been associated with it and that word has not been in use for anything other than the holocaust.
If Vilnai used that word, then it was a poor misuse of it.
Now Abbas is using that word also to describe what's happening in Gaza:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080302/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians
"The response to these rockets can't be that harsh and heinous," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "It is nowadays described as a holocaust."
 
"The word Nakba - which denotes "catastrophe" in Arabic - is the term used by Palestinians to describe the outcome of the 1948 War. The word Shoah also means "catastrophe" and denotes the murder of European Jewry during WWII."

"first recorded 1957, earlier known in Heb. as Shoah "catastrophe"."


It would seem he meant "Shoah" as in "catastrophe".

That is the etymology of the word Shoah. Shoah is a very disambiguous word.

can't post links yet.
 
In the real worls, which I hope we are all in.....Shoah does not mean Holocaust in the same way that Gay does not mean homosexual..

This politician is an Idiot for using the term...
 
Oh gawd. And haha, look who got drawn out of his hole: The Sunni Man! And here I thought we lost him to the vast space of the internet, where he can roam freely and foster his evil MO elsewhere.
 
An impressive case of PR fail but I feel little more. Even if the individual in question was planning genocide I really really can't see them getting enough support to carry out that kind of objective.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom