Like sheep to the slaughter

"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 armed resistance was glorified. The phrase was taken to mean that Jews had not tried to save their own lives, and consequently were partly responsible for their own suffering and death. This myth, which has become less prominent over time, is frequently criticized by historians, theologians, and survivors as a form of victim blaming.

Background

Religious

Judaism

In Isaiah 53, a chapter in the Hebrew Bible, a virtuous servant is murdered but does not protest: "Like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a lamb that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth" (Isaiah 53:7).