Why We Must Reject the Word ‘Holocaust’ to Describe the Shoah
- WireNews
- May 13
- 2 min read
by Ram ben Ze'ev
Words matter. They are vessels of meaning, identity, and memory. And when the Jewish People speak of the extermination of six million of our brothers and sisters — along with the attempted erasure of our nation, our Torah, and our soul — we must choose our words with care and sanctity.
The nations call it the Holocaust, a word of Greek origin meaning completely burnt (from ὁλόκαυστος: holos, whole + kaustos, burnt). In ancient pagan practice, this referred to a total burnt offering — a sacrifice, offered entirely to a god. When they use this word, perhaps unknowingly, they wrap our suffering in the imagery of a religious offering. But we are not offerings. And certainly not to their gods.
To call the Shoah a Holocaust is not only inaccurate — it is offensive. It casts our murdered ancestors as sacrifices, implying purpose or divine acceptance in their slaughter. This is not our view. The Shoah was not a sacrifice; it was a crime. It was not a burnt offering; it was a massacre. The flames of Auschwitz did not sanctify — they desecrated.
The correct term is שואה (Shoah) — meaning catastrophe or utter destruction. This is the word used in the Tanakh to describe total ruin, as in ישעיהו (Yeshayahu – Isaiah) 10:3:
“ומה תעשו ליום פקדה ולשואה ממרחק תבוא?”
“What will you do on the day of reckoning, when the Shoah comes from afar?”
We must not allow the nations to reframe our suffering through their linguistic lens. To do so is to hand them power over our memory. They want to soften the horror with foreign terms, to fit it into categories they can understand, or worse, distance themselves from guilt by giving it a theological label.
No — we name our own pain.
We remember in our language, in our way, rooted in our Torah and our truth.
And we teach our children not of a Holocaust, but of the Shoah — a tragedy beyond words, but not beyond memory.
Let us be precise. Let us be faithful.
Let us not let the nations write our history.
This is ours — and we call it by its rightful name.
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Bill White (Ram ben Ze'ev) is CEO of WireNews Limited, Mayside Partners Limited, MEADHANAN Agency, Kestrel Assets Limited, SpudsToGo Limited and Executive Director of Hebrew Synagogue
