My new blog post for The Times of Israel:

By N.S. Palmer

Israeli actress Natalie Portman received harsh criticism for suggesting last week that the Holocaust was not unique and that it should be less emphasized in Jewish education.

Actually, “harsh criticism” puts it mildly. She’s been called an “idiot” and a “complete moron” who married a non-Jewish “baby daddy.” Some of the names she’s been called aren’t printable in a family newspaper like The Times of Israel.

But even when you read comments from her more temperate critics, you notice something odd going on. They insist that the Holocaust was unique, but they want to talk, calmly and abstractly, about details: “It was systematic. It was to wipe out an entire people. It was enormous. It was continent-wide.”

Ms. Portman and her critics share the same moral assumptions …

Read the whole thing at The Times of Israel.