Thank you for your March 11, 2021 article “Let’s Help the Uyghur People.” Not only did this article indicate how human rights are being destroyed in China, but it also let your readers know how others are now importantly acting on this issue.

Many of us are children of Holocaust survivors. We carry a sensitivity toward
issues that involve people whose lifestyle celebrates a belief in God, but are being tortured because of that belief. This is being done to create slave labor that China wants and needs for its economy. These actions duplicate what the Hitler regime did, as it sought world conquest. Such parallels are not to be ignored. China has moved away from world norms on many fronts and in many directions.

The following is from an article by Sophia Yan dated December 12, 2020: “There is a miniscule population of Chinese Jews in China today. There is also a ban against Judaism and pressure to renounce the Jewish faith. Anson Laytner, a retired rabbi and president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, states, ‘Asserting their desires to be connected with their Jewish heritage falls afoul of the official Chinese position on unauthorized religions.’ Kaifeng’s Jewish heritage survived dynasties, wars, natural disasters, but the goal of this Chinese Communist regime is to make sure the next generation doesn’t have any Jewish identity.

“That such a small group of Jews attract the Communist Party’s ire shows how far the crackdown has spread. Stones engraved as far back as 1489 with the community’s beliefs and ancestry have been removed from the spot where they once marked a 12th century synagogue. Hebrew signs were torn down that once marked the Teaching Torah Lane. Judaism is prohibited. Restaurant managers know that we are the Jews (the Jews do not eat pork and follow dietary laws), and they report us to the authorities. No print shop dares to help copy dog-eared Hebrew books that came to this population in the 1990’s when China was not suppressing Jewish practices.”

Silence allows such abusive practices and human rights violations to spread and deepen. Human history is replete with examples of what can happen if we ignore the plight of those people who ask for and require religious freedom. There are so many norms that Communist China has ignored or violated. It is high time we take notice. I feel encouraged that this issue is bringing people together to find ways to address the plight of the Uyghur people and all people who feel religion is central to their lives.