From the book of the same name so some of this is verbatim from the essay, but expanded on, I decided to copy both

Two central dogmas underpin the Holocaust framework: (1) The Holocaust marks a categorically unique historical event; (2) The Holocaust marks the climax of an irrational, eternal Gentile hatred of Jews. Neither of these dogmas figured at all in pubhc discourse before the June 1967 war; and, although they became the centerpieces of Holocaust literature, neither figures at all in genuine scholarship on the Nazi holocaust.2 On the other hand, both dogmas draw on important strands in Judaism and Zionism.

There is another factor at work. The claim of Holocaust uniqueness is a claim of Jewish uniqueness. Not the suffering of Jews but that Jews suffered is what made The Holocaust unique. Or: The Holocaust is special because Jews are special. Thus Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, ridicules the Holocaust uniqueness claim as "a distasteful secular version of chosenness."18 Vehement as he is about the uniqueness of The Holocaust, Elie Wiesel is no less vehement that Jews are unique. “Everything about us is different.” Jews are “ontologically” exceptional. 1 9 Marking the climax of a millennial Gentile hatred of Jews, The Holocaust attested not only to the unique suffering of Jews but to Jewish uniqueness as well.

Appropriating a Zionist tenet, the Holocaust framework cast Hitler’s Final Solution as the climax of a millennial Gentile hatred of Jews. The Jews perished because all Gentiles, be it as perpetrators or as passive collaborators, wanted them dead. "The free and ‘civilized’ world,» according to Wiesel, handed the Jews «over to the executioner. There were the killers — the murderers - and there were those who remained silent."21 The historical evidence for a murderous Gentile impulse is nil. Daniel Goldhagen’s ponderous effort to prove one variant of this claim in Hitler’s Willing Executioners barely rose to the comical.22 Its political utility, however, is considerable. One might note, incidentally, that the "eternal anti-Semitism» theory in fact gives comfort to the anti-Semite. As Arendt says in The Origins of Totalitarianism, «that this doctrine was adopted by professional anti-Semites is a matter of course; it gives the best possible alibi for all horrors. If it is true that mankind has insisted on murdering Jews for more than two thousand years, then Jew-killing is a normal, and even human, occupation and Jew-hatred is justified beyond the need of argument. The more surprising aspect of this explanation is that it has been adopted by a great many unbiased historians and by an even greater number of Jews. "23

The Holocaust dogma of eternal Gentile hatred has served both to justify the necessity of a Jewish state and to account for the hostility directed at Israel. The Jewish state is the only safeguard against the next (inevitable) outbreak of homicidal anti-Semitism; conversely, homicidal anti-Semitism is behind every attack or even defensive maneuver against the Jewish state. To account for criticism of Israel, fiction writer Cynthia Chick had a ready answer: "The world wants to wipe out the Jews … the world has always wanted to wipe out the Jews. "24 If all the world wants the Jews dead, truly the wonder is that they are still alive — and, unlike much of humanity, not exactly starving.

This dogma has also conferred total license on Israel: Intent as the Gentiles always are on murdering Jews, Jews have every right to protect themselves, however they see fit. Whatever expedient Jews might resort to, even aggression and torture, constitutes legitimate self-defense. Deploring the “Holocaust lesson” of eternal Gentile hatred. Boas Evron observes that it "is really tantamount to a deliberate breeding of paranoia… This mentality … condones in advance any inhuman treatment of non-Jews, for the prevailing mythology is that ‘all people collaborated with the Nazis in the destruction of Jewry,’ hence everything is permissible to Jews in their relationship to other peoples. "25

In the Holocaust framework. Gentile anti-Semitism is not only ineradicable but also always irrational. Going far beyond classical Zionist, let alone standard scholarly, analyses, Goldhagen construes anti-Semitism as “divorced from actual Jews,” “fundamentally not a response to any objective evaluation of Jewish action,” and “independent of Jews’ nature and actions.” A Gentile mental pathology, its «host domain" is “the mind.” (emphasis in original) Driven by “irrational arguments,” the anti-Semite, according to Wiesel, "simply resents the fact that the Jew exists. "26 “Not only does anything Jews do or refrain from doing have nothing to do with anti-Semitism,” sociologist John Murray Cuddihy critically observes, “but any attempt to explain anti-Semitism by referring to the Jewish contribution to anti-Semitism is itself an instance of anti-Semitism!” (emphasis in original)27 The point, of course, is not that anti-Semitism is justifiable, nor that Jews are to blame for crimes committed against them, but that anti-Semitism develops in a specific historical context with its attendant interplay of interests. “A gifted, well-organized, and largely successful minority can inspire conflicts that derive from objective inter- group tensions,” Ismar Schorsch points out, although these conflicts are «often packaged in anti-Semitic stereotypes. "28

The irrational essence of Gentile anti-Semitism is inferred inductively from the irrational essence of The Holocaust. To wit. Hitler’s Final Solution uniquely lacked rationality — it was «evil for its own sake," «purposeless" mass killing; Hitler’s Final Solution marked the culmination of Gentile anti-Semitism; therefore Gentile anti-Semitism is essentially irrational. Taken apart or together, these propositions do not withstand even superficial scrutiny. 29 Politically, however, the argument is highly serviceable.

By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure. Arab hostility, African-American hostility: they are “fundamentally not a response to any objective evaluation of Jewish action” (Goldhagen).30 Consider Wiesel on Jewish persecution: «For two thousand years … we were always threatened… For what? For no reason." On Arab hostility to Israel: “Because of who we are and what our homeland Israel represents — the heart of our lives, the dream of our dreams -when our enemies try to destroy us, they will do so by trying to destroy Israel.” On Black people’s hostility to American Jews: "The people who take their inspiration from us do not thank us but attack us. We find ourselves in a very dangerous situation. We are again the scapegoat on all sides… We helped the blacks; we always helped them… I feel sorry for blacks. There is one thing they should learn from us and that is gratitude. No people in the world knows gratitude as we do; we are forever grateful. "31 Ever chastised, ever innocent: this is the burden of being a Jew. 32

The Holocaust dogma of eternal Gentile hatred also validates the complementary Holocaust dogma of uniqueness. If The Holocaust marked the climax of a millennial Gentile hatred of the Jews, the persecution of non-Jews in The Holocaust was merely accidental and the persecution of non-Jews in history merely episodic. From every standpoint, then, Jewish suffering during The Holocaust was unique.

Finally, Jewish suffering was unique because the Jews are unique. The Holocaust was unique because it was not rational. Ultimately, its impetus was a most irrational, if all-too-human, passion. The Gentile world hated Jews because of envy, jealousy: resentment. Anti-Semitism, according to Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter, sprang from "gentile jealousy and resentment of the Jews’ besting Christians in the marketplace . . . large numbers of less accomplished gentiles resent smaller numbers of more accomplished Jews. "33 Albeit negatively. The Holocaust thus confirmed the chosenness of Jews. Because Jews are better, or more successful, they suffered the ire of Gentiles, who then murdered them.

Fuck me, Ellie Wiesel was/is(? Idk I’m not in school) “a basic Holocaust text.” Night on its own may not reproduce this narrative, but knowing about the author’s Zionism makes it feel more insidious.