Like sheep to the slaughter

Common card · No. 487778

"Like sheep to the slaughter" — and its numerous variants, such as "like a lamb to the slaughter" — is a simile that refers to facing a negative situation clueless of its consequences. It is a popular simile, and has been used in various contexts throughout history. In the modern era, one highly significant use of the phrase "like sheep to the slaughter" (Hebrew: כצאן לטבח) is as a phrase that refers to the idea that Jews went passively to their deaths during the Holocaust. It derives from a similar phrase in the Hebrew Bible that favorably depicts martyrdom in both the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. Opposition to the phrase became associated with Jewish nationalism due to its use in Josippon and by Jewish self-defense groups after the 1903 Kishinev pogrom. During the Holocaust, Abba Kovner and other Jewish resistance leaders used the phrase to exhort Jews to fight back. In postwar Israel, some demonized Holocaust survivors as having gone "like sheep to the slaughter" while...

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