How can these liberals honor Mr. Obama for championing human rights when he openly states that even in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, world, he would have allowed a mass-murdering, torture-chamber-operating tyrant to continue with business as usual?
Moreover, in the spring of 2009, even when he was already president and could have made an impact, Mr. Obama did nothing to support the Iranian people who were protesting against their oppressive government. The protesters were ultimately violently dispersed.
I have a suggestion for Mr. Spielberg. Instead of honoring a “leader” who is a complete fraud on the issue for which he is being honored, bestow the honor in memoriam on a real president who did make a global difference in human rights: Ronald Reagan.
In the 1980s, when most of Hollywood had joined the “nuclear freeze” chorus, the Reagan administration accomplished the unthinkable in less than a decade. It facilitated the tearing down of the Iron Curtain and rang the chimes of freedom in formerly oppressed Eastern Europe and Asia.
As I see it, if Mr. Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation wants to be intellectually honest on the issue of human rights, it should do a video tribute of Reagan’s finest hour. This came when, in the late spring of 1988, Reagan and wife Nancy triumphantly walked hand-in-hand through the Kremlin courtyard amid the adulation of the Russian people.
This was truly a moment in history that just a few years earlier no one could have foreseen.
It’s about time Reagan got his just accolades from the Hollywood community.
Brian J. Goldenfeld
Woodland Hills, CA
Good And Evil
Re Steven Cymbrowitz’s “My Visit to Munich – Pain and Lessons Learned” (op-ed, March 28):
Evil and unwarranted hatred are realities that exist in our world. The human being has an infinite capacity for evil that, left unchecked, can destroy the world.
The Torah tells us that the “impulse of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21). Man is not born good. He has to become good by forging his character, bending his baser instincts, and learning that there is another beside him and an Other above him.
The Holocaust shows what can become of human beings when they permit the beast within them to control them. It teaches us that we must be alert to the existence of evil, both in others and in ourselves.
Once we are aware of its reality, we can work to uproot it.
The mitzvot of the Torah are designed to help the spiritual qualities within us dominate the beast within. Further, we learn from the tragedy of the Holocaust that to be silent in the face of evil is to acquiesce in it, encourage it, and help it grow.
History teaches us that evil triumphs when good people remain silent. But when good people rise up against evil, evil will perish, and good will prevail.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
(Via E-Mail)