In my recent trip to Israel, I harkened back to an experience that took place at Yad Vashem decades ago. I was on a grant to examine the Holocaust. I toured the concentration camps of Poland and spent three weeks of study at Yad Vashem. While learning at Yad Vashem, I heard lectures and testimonies from well-known professors who wrote and researched and witnesses who had experienced firsthand the realities of those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
When I arrived in Israel a little more than a week ago, I was greeted with the revelation of the fate of the Bibas children. Once again I was reminded of the precarious nature of the future of Jewish children. That reality brought me back to an experience I had one day at Yad Vashem about 30 years ago. The speaker that day was a lady who had been captured in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943. She was a young girl, married and pregnant, when she was captured and taken to Auschwitz.
While at Auschwitz, the young lady had tried to conceal her pregnancy, but was discovered and taken to the doctor in charge of the concentration camp, Joseph Mengele, the “Angel of Death.” The young woman was fed and taken care of during her pregnancy. When she delivered the baby, Dr. Mengele assured her that she should not worry. She could rest and see the baby regularly. There was one condition. She had to tape up her chest and could not feed the baby. She quickly learned that Dr. Mengele was performing one of his medical experiments he performed on numerous Jewish children. He wanted to see how long the baby would live without food. Both the mother and one of Mengele’s nurses recognized what was happening. It was decided that the baby would be allowed to die while Mengele was away on other business. In this case the mother survived to tell the tale.
It should be rather disturbing that 80 years later Jewish children are threatened, harassed and still being killed. It is happening on college campuses, on the streets of New York, Los Angeles, and the cities of Europe and Israel. Our future as Jews is being challenged by the fanatics of Islam.
Make no mistake, this is a well-planned paradigm created over years by the coordinated efforts of Iran and its sympathizers. If college classrooms and campuses are not safe havens for Jews today, what can be predicted for the future? It is not only Iran’s war of attrition against Israel but its terrorism right here. For a time, it was easy to blame Biden, but current events demonstrate that Jews are still under attack. If we cannot fight the war in Gaza that brings the proper results, what can we expect at Barnard, Columbia and the United Nations?
Also, while on my latest trip to Israel, my grandson took me to Har Herzl to visit the graves of young Israel soldiers. An IDF soldier himself, he took me to visit the grave of his friend. These young men should not die for anything less than an eradication of the enemies who would kill Jews. How many children of the Warsaw Ghetto, how many children of Israel, and how many young people have to be at the mercy of antisemites? We put our faith in Hashem. But Hashem puts his faith in us. If we do not put enough effort to protect our youth, then the future of our people is fatally at risk. It is a challenge for each of us to carry the responsibility Hashem has given to each of us to be the light in the darkness.
