Holocaust Remembrance Day comes at a time in American political history where the rhetoric has been ratcheted up to new heights, and many wondering where the vitriol will lead us.
In her remarks at the Holocaust Museum, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker reminded the audience that the Holocaust is “a lesson in the power of words and language…the most extreme example of what happens when we let our hate and fear of the other shape our speech.”
There’s a children’s rhyme that says “sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” While it’s used to persuade a child to refrain from physical retaliation to name-calling, can ignoring and remaining silent about hate speech lead to unimaginable ends?
Never again.
“VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussion and opinion on these policies.” — VOA Charter
Always Remember: Never Again
Posted May 5th, 2016 at 3:31 pm (UTC-5)
Comments are closed
The Holocaust and Jewish Identity
Posted March 11th, 2016 at 11:16 am (UTC-5)
Comments are closed
The memories created are indelible. And deeply valuable. Indeed, though my own family was largely spared, the Holocaust forms an ineradicable element of my own Jewish consciousness….As Jewish practice, learning and knowledge diminish over time, my concern is that Holocaust memory is emerging as the dominant feature of Jewishness in America.
In the Age of Trump, Grim Warnings From Holocaust Survivors
Posted January 28th, 2016 at 8:48 am (UTC-5)
Comments are closed
This year’s Holocaust remembrance comes at a time when Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, retweets to his nearly 6 million followers a message from @WhiteGenocideTM based in “Jewmerica,” and a time when his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, brandishes the endorsement of a minister who says Hitler was a “hunter” sent after the […]
Remembering the Holocaust
Posted January 27th, 2016 at 1:38 pm (UTC-5)
Comments are closed
Six million Jews. That staggering estimate of Jewish people who died in the Holocaust, known as the Shoah in Hebrew, still boggles the human mind. And yet we know it happened during World War II, during the rise and rule of fascist German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. We have the photos. We have survivors’ stories. We have Hitler’s written words. We have toured the death camps in Europe. 71 years ago today, those imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious Nazi camp in southern Poland, were liberated by Soviet Troops. In case we ever forget the potential of humans to commit such a genocide – it has happened since in Rwanda and Cambodia and some say, right now in Syria – we remember the victims of the Holocaust on January 27th.
Elie Wiesel’s Great Mission on Behalf of Soviet Jews
Wiesel first traveled to the Soviet Union in 1965 as a journalist from Haaretz, on a mission to meet with Jews there, and was shocked by what he saw….”For the second time in a single generation, we are committing the error of silence,” Wiesel warned…