(RNS) — Does any person ever really need to look at images of atrocity?

It is an old question. For some, like Mamie Till-Mobley, who wanted the world to see how her 14-year-old son, Emmett, was brutally mutilated and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, the open casket bearing his body was intended to shock the world and show the disparity of justice for Blacks in the South.

There can certainly be value in forcing people not to look away from an atrocity perpetrated in their midst if the goal is to lessen or stop the barbarity. The historical record sides with Till-Mobley. A few months after Emmett’s murder, the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott began, inspired by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a bus. According to the testimony of Jesse Jackson, Parks “thought about going to the back of the bus. But then she thought about Emmett Till and she couldn’t do it.”

But there also need to be limits to how much to expose ourselves to images and videos of evil.

Does it accomplish anything to have photos of naked Holocaust victims on their way to the gas chambers, when many of them in their lives were careful to guard their modesty and cover their heads?

My friend, the late Rabbi Bob Sternberg, was a Holocaust educator who introduced me to the term “spiritual resistance.” He preferred not to stun onlookers with atrocity, but to highlight the lives and values of those who perished. The deeds of those who practiced their Judaism heroically are the things we should focus on in remembering that historical time.

If we concentrate on the atrocities done to them we are only choosing to see them as their tormentors did, not as how they would prefer to be seen and remembered. There are those who say that photographs of the Holocaust are essential. One filmmaker said recently of a picture of a skeleton inside the incinerator at Birkenau that “without that picture it was impossible to understand the horror.” I disagree.

For me, the important thing is to keep in mind the humanity of victims rather than the cruelty of perpetrators. Annihilators want to remove humanity from their victims. That is why they desecrate them and foment violence and horror.

Consumers of these images are complicit in removing the humanity of those they showcase, continuing to dehumanize them when viewing them through the lens of those who would do evil to them.

I refused to attend the trial of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter this past summer. I did not want to see and hear the horror that was perpetrated on congregants and friends, people I prayed with every week.

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I plan to remember the victims of the shooting as whole people, not body parts scattered across a sacred space. I went into the Tree of Life building after the shooting to help my husband, who survived the attack, pack up his office for its move to a new location. Seeing the gashes the bullets made in metal lockers was enough to know the scope of the violence. I can imagine what those bullets did to humans without seeing graphic evidence. A friend who did choose to attend the trial because she lost someone she loved told me that she regretted being there because she could not unsee the brutal photos on display. Knowing it took 60 FBI agents nine days to process all the evidence at the site should indicate the severity of the damage.

To me, it dishonors those who lost their lives to focus on what was done to them as an atrocity rather than to remember their values and who they were and what they lived for. 

Our community in Pittsburgh brought a group of survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel to speak on the first night of Hanukkah. My first response was, “They don’t need to be going out and talking about the horror they experienced. They need to heal.” Healing should always be the priority.

My second response was that if they are coming here I should show them the respect of showing up to listen to what they have to say. To me, there is a qualitative difference between hearing a live person speak and seeing an image. I don’t think we should minimize what happened on Oct. 7, but I do think that the details can stay in courts of law that have jurisdiction over the appropriate punishment for the perpetrators. In Israel, those who view Hamas’ video clips are experiencing severe PTSD. The details of the violence and its brutality are part of Hamas’ arsenal. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said after seeing the 45-minute footage of Hamas brutality, “You can’t unsee it.” Maya Lecker wrote in Haaretz, “By releasing the video montage, Israel would only be playing into the hands of Hamas.”

The many images of innocent Palestinian children who have been wounded and hurt in the Gaza Strip likewise pull at our compassionate natures as human beings, as they should. But the awful images of innocent human beings injured are part of Hamas’ strategy to shift world opinion against Israel. Images are dangerous.

Shani Louk was killed at the Super Nova music festival on Oct. 7. Her half-naked corpse was taken into Gaza and filmed for display. Isn’t it more respectful to remember Ms. Louk as those who loved her did, than as a corpse?

The prophetic portion read on Hanukkah in the synagogue contains an image of the high priest and labels him an “ember plucked from the conflagration.” (Zechariah 3:2) I used to think it meant something used up and unable to be lit again. But I think now that an ember is something smoldering that can be relit and can blaze brightly once more.

So that is the question: What can people do to help an ember glow more brightly? For me, Hanukkah is a time to enjoy the light of the Hanukkah candles, particularly because the light increases by one on each of the eight nights. For me, that means a fixation on what drew light into the world out of those harmed by atrocity.

The best way to resist images of brutality — from the Holocaust, from the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting or from Hamas’ brutality in Israel on Oct. 7 — is not to look at them but focus on light in all its forms.

(Beth Kissileff is the co-editor of “Bound in the Bond of Life: Pittsburgh Writers Reflect on the Tree of Life Tragedy.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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