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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (77258)	4/8/2000 7:15:00 PM
From: Michael M	Respond to of 108807

E, I forget who posted the "letter from Ike" -- or why. Can you tell me? I do not accept your characterization of my attitude as "Big Deal." I stated in more than one message that the turning away of fleeing Jews was a "tragedy." I also asked (actually in reference to your msg to Steven), what you would have him (me) do. You did not address that. I am sorry your friend's daughter was turned out by a bomb threat. I favor the harshest penalties imaginable for bombers and bomb threateners -- regardless of who they threaten. I doubt, however, that your friend's children have rougher school days than millions of kids attending inner-city public schools. As you may have noted in the papers, kids all over the country are being murdered in their schools -- generally speaking, this is NOT connected to the victims or targets being Jewish. While I may be touched by the story of Joey the Jew, I am not more touched than by the story of Joey of Cambodia, Joey of Dresden, Joey of Hiroshima, Joey the Papist, Joey the Gypsy, Joey the child laborer or Joey the child prostitute. AAARGH! I have publicly supported more than one unpopular cause in my life, fully knowing that I might pay a high personal cost. I have rarely been disappointed. I volunteered to be in the military in the mid-sixties and I volunteered to go to Vietnam (more than once) because, at the time, I thought it was a right thing to do. I am not an unselfish person but if presented with a chance to make a difference (according to my far from perfect judgement), I am an unlikely candidate to say, "Big Deal." On the other hand, becoming deeply and personally involved in an emotional way with historical events (many of which were extremely brutal) is not something I'm likely to do. Peace - Mike

To: E who wrote (77258)	4/8/2000 9:17:00 PM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

E, as you know, I have avoided this particular emotionally charged topic. I think that there are a number of dynamics at work in this discussion. One is the question of genocide and how any society should react to it, then and now. That the ship was turned back is a disgrace in our history, that most people knew about it at the time is not clear; the outcome might have been very different in a world enjoying the Internet--providing that Caleb Carr's chilling ongoing story in Time is not realized. Another is the way that the Holocaust is depicted as a separate and special genocide attempt. Many Armenians, for the most obvious example, feel resentful that the horror of genocide has, in their view, been abducted by Jews to serve Jewish interests today rather than allowed to stand on its own as a horror for all mankind. There is random bigotry, of which antisemitism is a part, and it is deplorable and we must deal with it where ever we encounter it, as we deal with all prejudice and harmful bias. However, we must also give space to people who have, as my family was, never been in a position to discriminate until possibly 50 years ago at best (they were too busy immigrating as indentured servants), who were appalled by what happened in Germany, who gave their lives in WWII--in short, people who cannot be held accountable. To call upon their empathy as fellow himan beings is just and easily comprehensible. To call on their guilt is a joke. My lover has made some anti-Semitic comments based on his daily work experiences. I have stomped on such comments with lead boots. But dammit, E, you and I know where he's coming from! He is one of the people who would have thrown his own body in front of what happened in Germany in WWII, but the exploitation of the "victim status" gets to him--as it does to me, whose family tried to help Jews who landed here without a clue and tried to help those in Europe--even though they were new immigrants and were trying to figure out how to feed themselves. Yet they reached out from their one-room living quarters to help. There is antisemitism, but there are so many people like me to squash it. On the other hand, a girl like I gives no special advantage....