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April 16, 2023
Key Takeaways:
- Tuesday is Yom HaShoah, which memorializes the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators in the Shoah (the Holocaust). The Shoah is particular to the Jewish people but its lessons are universal, which is why "Never Again" means nothing unless we apply the lessons of the Shoah to current events.
- Not everyone who votes Republican approves of the antisemitism and emboldening of white supremacists that has infected the GOP at all levels, including its leadership. But that is what everyone who votes Republican is voting for, whether they like it or not.
- More mass shootings last week and no action to stop them. Nothing will change until we stop electing Republicans--this is a partisan issue whether we like it or not.
Read to the end for corrections, what you may have missed last week (including about Chicago winning the Democratic Convention, the Tennessee Three, why Clarence Thomas will escape punishment for legal and ethical violations, the abortion pill controversy, and Dr. Deborah Lipstadt), fun stuff and upcoming events.
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Hi Steve,
Tuesday is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, which memorializes the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust (Shoah) by the Nazis and their collaborators. Today the total number of Jews in the world (about 15 million) is still lower than it was in 1939.
We must never forget that the Shoah was inflicted on a particular people (Jews) by a particular people (Nazi Germany and its collaborators) at a particular time (mid-twentieth century) in a particular place (Europe). Many were complicit and share responsibility. Too many were silent.
We should not universalize the Shoah by expanding its definition to include other victims of the Nazis, some of whom helped the Nazis murder Jews. Jews were not the only victims of the Nazis, but the goal of the Nazis was genocide of the Jewish people--to murder every single Jew on the planet. The Shoah was unique. That's not to say others did not suffer horribly. But the Shoah happened to one people at one time in one place.
But if acknowledgment of the Shoah's particularity prevents us from learning universal lessons, we rob ourselves of the ability to prevent future, albeit not identical, tragedies. The world lets tragedy happen to any people powerless to stop it unless good people speak up and say no. These are political issues, and those who self-righteously say we shouldn't "politicize" the Shoah are saying we shouldn't learn from it or prevent its recurrence. It's all about politics.
If "Never Again" means never again another Shoah, and if the Shoah is unique (it is), then "Never Again" means nothing because a unique event cannot be repeated. For "Never Again" to have any meaning it must mean "Never Again" to the events that led up to the Shoah and Never Again to other instances of inhumanity to each other, and to give it meaning, we must compare events happening to today to events that happened then. Otherwise "Never Again" is nothing but a slogan.
Dr. Deborah Frip, President of Teach the Shoah Foundation, writes that "If we believe that any comparison to the Holocaust is offensive, then we will never learn the lessons of the Holocaust...The purpose of Holocaust education is to be able to make accurate and apt references to the Holocaust. We must make these comparisons, and we must use them as a call-to-action to stop bias before it leads to suffering and violence."
Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the longest-serving Jewish member of Congress, whose district comprises more Jews than probably any other district in the country said in 2019, "one of the lessons from the Holocaust is ‘Never Again’ - not only to mass murder, but also to the dehumanization of people, violations of basic rights, and assaults on our common morality. We fail to learn that lesson when we don’t call out such inhumanity right in front of us."
Some comparisons to the Holocaust, such as comparing abortion to the Holocaust, are inappropriate and offensive. Moreover, Trump is not Hitler and most Republicans are not Nazis. But there is no denying the parallels between the rise of authoritarianism in Germany and its ascendancy in the Republican Party, and we ignore those parallels at our peril. Robert Reich explains that America no longer has two parties devoted to a democratic system of self-government; the Republican Party "is careening at high velocity toward authoritarianism. OK, fascism."
The terror of Charlottesville was not simply that white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched with tiki torches chanting "Jews will not replace us," but that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, referred to them as "very fine people" and that Trump's antisemitic rhetoric did not prevent the Republican Party from nominating him for president twice. Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 nomination, but none of Trump's current or potential GOP opponents for the nomination have ever called him out for his antisemitism, nor have any Republicans in the House or Senate. We are not talking about outliers in the Republican Party. We are talking about leaders of the Republican Party. There is no equivalent in the Democratic Party.
Nathan Wolfson, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, writes that "the Holocaust did not happen all at once; it started with dehumanizing rhetoric and individual acts of hate, before progressing to organized mass murder...We must be on the lookout for early warning signs of mobilized hatred and put our full might into holding perpetrators to account."
Wolfson notes that "Last November, former president Donald Trump dined with two vocal antisemites: the rapper Ye — who tweeted he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” — and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who denies the existence of the Holocaust. Just this month, 60 Minutes aired a puff piece interview with Trump ally and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene, who now has a seat on the House Homeland Security Committee, has peddled conspiracy theories that wildfires are caused by Jewish space lasers," and on January 6, 2021, Trump supporters in DC wore gear with Nazi slogans and SS symbols.
When you vote for a political party, you get the party's entire agenda, not just the parts you might think you like. I don't think everyone who votes Republican approves of Trump's antisemitism (but he's a smart politician, and it's logical to assume he keeps engaging in antisemitism because it works for him). But if you vote Republican, you are voting for the party that refuses condemn antisemitism from its leaders and that continues to embolden white supremacy. Yom HaShoah might be a good day to reflect on your choices.
More mass shootings last week. At least five dead in Kentucky. Four shot and one dead in Washington, DC outside a funeral home (the funeral was for someone killed in a different shooting). Thanks, NRA. Thanks, Republicans. As of today, 106 days into 2023, we've experienced at least 151 mass shootings and 11,896 gun violence deaths.
Elections matter. When you vote for a political party, you get the party's entire agenda, not just the parts you might think you like. I don't think everyone who votes Republican wants gun violence. But if you vote Republican, you are voting for the party that refuses to take meaningful action to stop gun violence. You can vote accordingly or you can wait until you are personally affected. It's your choice.
Corrections. I'm entitled to my own opinions but not to my own facts, so I appreciate it when readers bring errors to my attention. No one brought any mistakes to my attention last week, so it looks like last week's newsletter was perfect.
In Case You Missed It:
- If you liked Republicans when they were banning books you'll love them now that they are defunding libraries.
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Time named Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration's Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, to its list of the 100 Most Influential People of 2023.
Tweets of the Week. Julie Zebrak and Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).
Video Clip of the Week. Every Alfred Hitchcock cameo.
Audio Clips of the Week. Leaked tape of Tennessee Republicans arguing among themselves about the vote to expel three Democrats, confirming what David French wrote about the three rules of MAGA.
And for something completely different, Bob Dylan performs the Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" for the first time in concert on April 12, 2023.
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