all of the kids are wearing them, these days Alison Stern Golub, a writer living in Israel, relays a story about a friend of hers who found himself in a bar in Beer Sheva, staring down an Auschwitz-style tattoo on a guy too young to have been in the camps on anything other than a March of the Living trip. Turns out, he got his grandmother’s blessing to have her concentration camp number inked into his flesh as a tribute.

I’m not sure what kind of “licious” this is. But since there’s no “Shoah-licious” category (and I’m not suggesting that there should be…), I’ve filed this under Jewlicious and Popalicious.

My synopsis here.

Hat tip: Lyss at NoBlog

About the author

Esther Kustanowitz

For more posts by Esther, see EstherK.com, MyUrbanKvetch.com and JDatersAnonymous.com.

54 Comments


  • I have spent most of my academic life studying the Holocaust from political, psychological, and personal perspectives, and this is the first time I can remember that I have come across a truly original idea in the domain of Holocaust memorialization.

    Not entirely original. That bartender might have read the book “Beach Music” by PAT CONROY. In that story, the child of survivors gets her father’s number tatooed onto her arm as a means of identifying with him.

  • Compare that to kids in the territories rattling their grandparents’ rusty keys, wishing for a day they can go “home” and just have to walk next door to play Jihad.

  • Hey Harry, I obviously never saw this story on Israelity. Thanks for sharing the URL of the first-person account…

  • Oy vey!
    Is this typical instantaneous (and permanent) material gratification or a truly selfless idealogical gesture?

    Allow me to say this: The Nazis did to us very bad things and there is absolutely NO REASON for us to do it to ourselves in memorial, rememberance, salute, whatever. And this is besides my other opinion that tattooing on a Jewish body is wrong, forbidden, (and you force the hevra kadisha to peel it off before burying you).

    This is not the way to remember. The proper way is to RISE above that. Look at the Matrix with the folks and their connector doo-kickeys behind their heads as opposed to the natural people. Do you think it’s right for the natural people (ahem, Zionists) to implant themselves too in order to remember what their brethen went through?

    Esther’s marker for the night is a nice tribute, but then again T_M will probably says this is buffoonery at it’s finest. No holocaust imagery allowed outside the museum or static displays.

  • I reserve my buffonery comments for Jews who refer to the Jewish state that has spent countless lives and millions protecting them, a Nazi like state.

  • Since you brought up the subject of stormtroopers:

    The first video is a raid into a Jerusalem Satmar Yeshiva to
    arrest those who supposedly participated in protests against the new Highway 6. I wonder how they tell them apart? No problem, just beat anyone ‘suspicious’ looking.

    The second video is actual footage of the protest on site – in which the cops use electric stunnners against the religious.

    http://rotter.net/aa/pogrom.mpeg – 13.9megs

    http://gifs.msn.co.il/WOW/channel2/news8/hasmal.wmv – under 3megs

    There will be no Israeli Rodney King coverup until a policeman is caught on tape beating an Arab. Jews are open season.

  • Hey, everybody! I’ve got a great idea about how to show the Nazis what for! Let’s all get tattoos just lke the ones thay gave our parents and grandparents! That’ll show those Nazi bastards that they’re not the boss of us!

    Mmmmmm! Just smell that Jewish consciousness and pride!

    Nothing like basing your whole idea of Jewish self-worth on what the Nazis did. Yeah, that’s a sure way to remember what’s important about being Jewish.

    Remember: it’s not Torah and mitzvot that’s important, it’s anti-Semtitism. It’s so important, in fact, that we should just brand it onto our bodies in violation of what the Torah tells us to do!

    Yeah, that’s how to rase a genreation of self-confident, aware, and dedicated Jews all right. Why didn’t I thinkof it before? It’s all so clear to me now!

  • Not that I remotely commend the idea of permanently marking ones body with ink, (from a religious or just plain practical standpoint!) but if if a person is okay with tattooing themselves in the first place and they had relatives in the camps, I think it works with the concept of “Never Forget”.

    Besides, better his grandmother’s holocaust tattoo than a dragon wrapped around a naked siren spewing blood or something like that.

  • It wasn’t the police using the taser, it was a private security guard and the images only show one of them doing it.

    The other video is very disturbing but I would like to know more about why the raid took place in this fashion. It still doesn’t resemble Nazis, Josh.

  • “Perhaps I am not a true art fan, or trendy enough, to fully appriciate it, but I feel it stemmed more from a desire for reactions like yours or to get a tattoo (even though taboo in Jewish culture) that he can some how validate to himself… (feelings I have felt in the past).”

    My original post on Israelity.com

  • corrected post:

    T_M,
    I don’t need to speak hebrew to know the difference between police and a private security guard. Anyway, was the guard arrested? No, so in effect, ‘ignored’ or a small no-no-no if at all means it was unofficially condoned.

    The police are claiming that the Satmar tried to kidnap a policeman into the yeshiva. Officially, they claim that they themselves didn’t enter the yeshiva either, but that lie has been exposed. Why does the police have to lie? Is that the exception or an ordinary occurence?

    Haaretz and ynetnews will probably ignore updating this story:
    http://www.a7.org/news.php3?id=112077

    My point is that the country, the government, and the security forces are ill and I fear getting worse by the day. They are not Nazis, the police are not the KGB or the gestapo either. Sharon is not Hitler, ‘Ha’noar ha’oved ve’lomed’ blue shirts are not the Nazi brownshirts youth party, has v’shalom. My warning is that under the current government, the country is regressing into a dictatorial police state and I will not be happy to be proven right when:

    – the media keeps admitting that it is lying to the public,

    – the security services keep lying to the public.

    – more people are put under ‘administrative arrest’ (no need to see judge, lawyer, or actual charges),

    – political opponents and other people start ‘disappearing’ or magically changing opinions (not unlike Rav Aviner of Beit El who has been virtually shutup, probably with some dark secret),

    – the country is put under martial law and curfews are set up around the country.

    Please God, end this nightmare.

  • a friend of mine was wistfully bemoaning how rare it is to see anyone with numbers on their arms in Israel anymore, that when she was a little girl, they were everywhere.

    Does having numbers visible on our arms prevent holocausts or encourage then?

  • All I can think about is the episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm featuring the chef with Tourette’s syndrome. Does that make me a bad person?

  • I agree with ck’s agreement with esther’s agreement with ephraim.

    Y crack Im sure those numbers in the past prevented holocaus,if anything,because it made the jewish people angry and constantly aware not to trust the Non-Jew who had by the holocaust closed all doors of escape to them when there was no place to run.

    We are now seeing the reversal of that trend where Israel against all logic is putting their trust in other nations and peoples: US Jordan, egypt…

    Josh you wrote: “My warning is that under the current government, the country is regressing into a dictatorial police state and I will not be happy to be proven right.”

    –when people like you will not be embarrased to say “Meir Kahane’s warning…” because what you are now warning when it is happening before oyour eyes was already warned over 20 years ago.

    Honesty says that you say something in the name of the originator. Mention Rabbi Kahane’s name don’t be ashamed.

  • Who cares! bitching and moaning about whether this tattoo thing is “right” or not is just a waste of the time it takes to type it!

  • I’m hopping on the bandwagon and am perplexed by TM’s agreement of D’s sanctimonious dismissal of ck’s take on Esther’s comment about Ephraim, mostly cause I totally have no idea what’s going on.

  • Now everyone’s just being silly. But for what it’s worth, I am appalled by TM’s agreement with D’s sanctimonious dismissal of my take on esther’s agreement with Ephraim. I am furthermore perpelexed by the source of laya’s perplexedness regarding TM’s agreement with D’s sanctimonious dismissal of my take on esther’s agreement with Ephraim – I mean seriously! Nothing can be simpler. It’s like this – agree with ck and you’re cool. Disagree with ck and you’re a dolt. These are rules to live by people! Copy and paste these words on your walls and surely good and loving kindness will follow you all the days of your life, and you will sit in the house of the Lord till the end of time.

  • “Nothing can be simpler. It’s like this – agree with ck and you’re cool. Disagree with ck and you’re a dolt. These are rules to live by people! Copy and paste these words on your walls and surely good and loving kindness will follow you all the days of your life, and you will sit in the house of the Lord till the end of time.”

    Hey! Maybe Debbie Friedman can write a tune to this and we can sing it every shabbat at the Reform synagogue.

  • Does the house of the Lord have TiVo?

    Cause if’n I’m gonna sit somewhere till the end of time, I’m gonna need about a jillion episodes of Law & Order.

    I have no idea what’s going on either, but since ck agreed with me to begin with, I’m going to clamber on board with “agree with ck.”

    But I have to request: no Debbie Friedman songs. I was traumatized by a room of Hadassah ladies singing her Tu Bishvat song, and haven’t been able to listen to her music since.

  • I freely admit that I like some of her songs.

    Just as I like Arik Einstein.

    And Idan Reichel.

    I do not like Rita or Rami or Shlomo Artzi.

    Gidi Gov was cool when I was younger.

  • Rabbi Kahane.

    Are you happy Joe Schmo? When are you going to talk about Mashiach Ben David? We have no idea who he his but he will definitely be our saviour.

  • When are you people going to stop the self-pity about something you made up in the first place? The only good thing is that the generation that supposedly went through this will soon be gone, and forgotten, so the rest of us don’t have to “tread lightly” around you poor delicate jews. Haven’t you read all the articles about anti-semitic acts on the rise? Things always come full circle…it’s only a matter of time! That generation will pass, and the world will forget the so called “holocaust,” and see you for what you are. A parasite that must be eradicated.

  • Muffti thought that Leviticus clearly contained an injunction against tattoage. Assuming that’s right (and we have enough experts to confirm), what’s left of the issue?

  • annabel lee, wow that really stings, parasite? I’ll have you know I am a productive member of soceity,who pays his taxes. I would love to hear more of your claims against the holocaust, please enlighten us all with your low wattage thoughts

  • DiGiTaL, before you get all upset, I really need to tell you that I believe this last comment was NOT written by Annabel Lee, but by an anti-Semitic spammer who left the same message on my site. The real Annabel Lee is a friend of mine, and would NEVER have posted anything like this. FWIW. The person who posted it does have “low-wattage thoughts” as you put it, but that person is NOT Annabel Lee. Got it?

  • Also, Digital, as ck will tell you, the entire idea is to get you to debate the Holocaust. Treat them like the scum they are and don’t bother.

  • Don’t worry guys, I get a kick out of people like the faker above.. I wouldn’t take them seriously for a second. I enjoy egging them on, to hear them explain their perverted, hateful nonsense. So do not worry the DiGiTaL only wanted to create a little havoc in the blog world. Besides if any of those Cholerot tried to even make some sort of 1/2 assed cockeyed explantion, I have full faith that the Jewilicious would burn them. And as a bonus in a comical manner to boot..

  • Hey guys. I entered “White Aryan Resistance” into a search engine and this is the first site that popped up. Does anyone know where I can find any Swastika stencils?

    Thanks.

  • Have you tried your local Nazis-R-Us? Also I hear if you smack your head against a brick wall hard like 100 times, swastika stencils come out of the cracks. Really!

  • Obviously, it’s a controversial choice, and most of us probably wouldn’t do it. But this guy did. And it was a striking and odd choice. But for him it wasn’t fashion, or a game. It was a flesh and blood tribute to the pain and perseverance of his grandparent. So, although I wouldn’t choose this particular method of memorializing the Holocaust, that’s how this guy decided to do it. I don’t think he ever thought of it as fun or a game.

  • A bold decision, and I think the tat is a beautifull gesture to his grandmother, mazel tov
    to him I say.

  • Though not a Jew, I am a staunch supporter of the Chosen people of The One Trua and Only God. In that support I want to get a tattoo similar to those recieved during the Holocaust. I know it will anger some, but I hope that my intent will be understood, though I’m sure those will be a rare few. …being a non-Jew, the Torah-says-not-to aurgument doesn’t apply and being just another gentle with a tattoo, who cares? Right?