Monday, January 26, 2009

An Interesting Question

What's the right time to panic? Jay Nordlinger brings up this dilemma in today's Impromtus column:
What is the right time to panic? A tricky question. Panic too soon, and you’re just foolish. Panic too late, and—well, it’s too late.
He's right, after all. And when the specific topic of conversation is genocidal pogroms against Jews, which have been a more-or-less centennial event in Europe since, you know, close to forever, it's well worth concerning oneself. If you're a Jew, anyway. If you're a descendant of all those Europeans who have always managed to look the other way, well, I guess you can just keep on keepin' on.

2 comments:

Shane said...

I read in recent weeks a powerful quote I can't seem to find, that went something like this (paraphrased from memory):

"Most of us [Jews] have learned one of two lessons from the Holocaust. One is that this must never happen again. The other is that this must never happen again to us."

While I agree that the Jewish diaspora does have more to fear than most, we gotta remember to never get complacent. There's a lot of injustice in the world, and I think it's our job to fight it at every turn.

Elephantschild said...

Dear brother, perhaps it's time we got that DNA testing and either prove or set to rest those persistent rumors from Mom's side.

All joking aside, I hope there are enough survivors of the Holocaust left to warn the rest of the world.

I hope we listen to them. I fear we risk falling prey to the "it was so horrible, it can't possibly happen again" line of thinking.

But the survivors know.