Friday, November 4, 2005
One of the authors of this Boston Globe editorial entitled, The lessons of Nuremberg, is a director and founder of something called Facing History and Ourselves. Funny thing. I'm ready about Rwanda, I'm reading about Sudan...there's some Yugoslavia in there...Mr. Pinochet makes an appearance...
There's one three-letter word that a reader might reasonably assume to be a natural to put in an appearance in an article about Nuremberg. You don't even have to go into history for the word to appear. There are, even today, criminals committing atrocities against these people. Thing is, you don't much hear the human rights and justice community getting exercised over crimes against modern-day J-E-W-S -- like say, pointing out the obvious fact that leaders of groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah should stand trial for their crimes.
Boston Globe: The lessons of Nuremberg by Martha Minow and Margot Stern Strom
You might recognize my name; I am Richard's daughter. I was also the intern at Facing History and Ourselves in charge of organizing this Nuremberg conference this summer.
I understand your comment about them leaving out crimes against modern day jews. I was suprised when i was working there to find out that they did not have anything about modern day Israel in any of their lessons. But I have come to understand their angle on this. Unfortunetly for FHAO they are a non-profit with limited funding. They are an educational company that works at middle and highschools. They do not have the luxury of being politically affiliated. I know this is a frustrating argument but it is a reality for them and for many other people. Before you complain about their neglacting to mention Islamic Jihad think about trying to raise funds for something that is already considered "too Jewish" for some schools because of holocaust ed, if they take a pro-Israel stance at as well.
It is a sad world we live in that this is a reality but it is. I hope you look into their ed prgrams which are amazingly succesful and, i think, one of the most important things we can do for the next generation.
thanks,
noa
Hi Noa,
I appreciate that FHAO is probably a good group doing important work. But that doesn't change the fact that we have an op-ed here with Nuremberg as its muse that doesn't mention Jews -- whether it's systemic and regretted even by the authors, it's something that needs to be pointed out -- maybe for the sake of the authors themselves if they really regret it. They need support. Shame on the donors who wouldn't support FHAO if it becomes "too Jewish." They certainly don't seem concerned about appearing "too African."
A couple of common themes here at this blog: I don't like to see the Holocaust turned into a generic event, and I don't like to see hand-wringing over dead Jews performed by people who won't stand up for live ones (this article doesn't even manage the hand-wringing).
Don't take it personally, I'm sure the group does good work, but my criticism of op-eds like this still stands. It's tough to read an essay recalling Nuremberg that doesn't mention the obvious -- of the past if not the present.