Yaakov (Gerald) Blidstein is Professor Emeritus in the Goren Goldstein Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has written extensively on the legal thought of Maimonides and the relationship between law and ethics in Jewish law and is considered one of the foremost authorities on the Mishneh Torah. His publications include: Honor Thy Father and Mother: Filial Responsibility in Jewish Law and Ethics(1975), Political Principles in Maimonidean Law (1983; 2d ed., 2001), and Authority and Dissent in Maimonidean Law (2002). Professor Blidstein is a Fellow of the Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2006 received the coveted Israel Prize in Jewish Thought.

The invitation to write this column arrived at my computer on April 17. Yom HaShoa would be the 19th of the month. The radio and newspapers were already full of Holocaust material. There were the usual interviews with figures who made the Holocaust a career, and the usual squabbles among politicians as to who would light which memorial flame.

I am in my mid-70s, so an easy computation shows I grew up during those years. My nightmares were of Nazis.

I have since avoided purchase of German-produced items, turned down invitations to lecture in Germany or participate in conferences held there, though I have taken part in Israeli- German conferences held in Israel. I haven’t booked flights through Germany or even changed planes there. I must confess to have had some qualms about all this, but not enough to change my behavior.

Another question has bothered me, increasingly through the years. I have heard many stories of survivors in which a gentile Christian figured as the person who kept the Jew alive, often a great personal risk. Usually it meant taking a Jew into one’s house or farm, providing food and shelter, frequently exposed to neighbors’ eyes. I do not need to learn of the Christian roots of German anti- Semitism or of anti-Semitism in general. It does not really hold much interest for me. But the fact of Christians who saved Jews, does.

I am not interested in pursuing my question through the stories of Hassidei Umot HaOlam (Righteous Amongst the Gentiles). By and large the people involved have not been given that status, or even applied for it. I can understand not wanting to become involved in that mechanism.

But I wonder: what makes a person behave that way? How does somebody decide to risk their life in order to save another? Is it a certain kind of Christian upbringing? Does it derive from the Christian narrative of sacrifice? Or is it a matter of upbringing, period? Or was it an act of revolt? Do we know what kind of person behaved that way? What happened to the children of people who saved others? I am immensely impressed–indeed, mystified—by a person who acted that way. The personal risk was known to all, after all. And the Jew saved was not necessarily a friend, though sometimes he/she was. The Jew, by and large, was identified as an enemy of the State and an enemy of God. In this situation, he/she created a risk to one’s life.

Alternatively, though: perhaps one is not aware of the risk to oneself at all. Perhaps one simply decides to save the other. One is totally consumed by the effort of digging a pit, bringing in food at night, hiding it, and so on. Yet if that is the case we are puzzled in a different way. How does one simply ignore the risk? How is one unaware of the total picture? Is this a real possibility? Or is it obvious that one sees the total picture and proceeds undeterred to do what is necessary to do?

These questions are not metaphysical or metahistorical. They are not concerned with Israel. They do not pretend to generate political guidance or policy. I understand this essay is being published in a journal of education. Is this educational journal or its sponsor interested in these questions? Do we want to educate for these values? Actually, I don’t even know if the readership finds these questions productive or provocative. I think they are educational questions of the highest order.