Alex Grobman’s excellent two-part series (“What Did They Know? When Did They Know? How Did They Interpret the Information?,” June 28/July 4, 2018) on the information available of the dire condition of Europe’s Jews early in the Second World War was very instructive. While the reports were sometimes fragmentary and uncertain, they gave a very clear overall picture of the dire straits the Jews were facing. Unfortunately, later events showed that the Holocaust surpassed in horror anything any sane human being could possibly have imagined.
What I would also like to see is a similar discussion of the subsequent actions of American Jewish leadership in the face of the impending doom. The common impression is of a very divided, timid and ineffective response to conditions in Europe. I think a more detailed discussion in the JLNJ would be very instructive, to complete Grobman’s historical narrative, but also because of it’s relevance to current world conditions. Let’s review events since the end of WW2.
Virtually all Jewish life in every Muslim mid-East and African country has been completely wiped out. Jews in many European countries are again increasingly under siege and attack, often with unofficial government sanction, and are facing a precarious and uncertain future. Most of the rest of the world, under the guise of the United Nations, is contributing to the demeaning of Jews by singling them out for very biased and “special treatment.” The major difference now is the existence of the state of Israel, which has fulfilled the promise of being a haven for oppressed Jews around the world. However, even Israel is constantly under siege and attack from both the Muslim and non-Muslim world, and only maintains it’s very existence by sheer armed force. Unfortunately, the hopeful sentiment after the Holocaust, “Never Again,” is rapidly turning into a different, more pessimistic slogan, “Here We Go Again.”
Besides Israel, America again is the best hope for endangered Jews, but American Jewish leadership is again asleep at the wheel. They should be shouting from the rooftops, “Gevalt Yidden!! Look around at what’s happening.” But alas, they are again divided and preoccupied with other matters. So many of them are marching and protesting against anti-Muslim discrimination, women’s rights, immigration, race relations and sex issues, that have little time left to rally their troops against the very real dangers now facing their own Jewish brethren. This lack of effective response can only lead to further deterioration in the condition of Jews worldwide. As George Santayana famously said:
“Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.”
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park
