Or imagine telling Jews in the 1940s that despite the annihilation of six million Jews and the almost total eradication of Europe’s great Torah centers, within a couple of decades the Torah community would be flourishing as never before in a new Jewish state, uncountable yeshivas and synagogues would be built, chassidic dynasties would be reestablished, and a Jewish army would keep watch over them.
People would have thought you were a raving lunatic had you attempted to tell them any of the above. But it all came to pass, and if that’s not a miracle, then there are no miracles.
Asher Bernstein
Jerusalem
Stop Anti-Polish Revisionism
While there is much to be applauded in the Jewish Press interview with Dr Michael Berenbaum (“Poland, FDR, and the Bombing of Auschwitz,” May 1), there was also an undercurrent of again treating the Poles as perpetrators rather than victims.
It would have been better if a more complete picture had been painted. Other German-occupied countries generally collaborated in the persecution of Jews, but unlike Denmark and the other occupied countries, Poland did not surrender to or collaborate with the Nazis. Instead, the country suffered through an unimaginably brutal occupation by the two most murderous totalitarian regimes in human history – Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
While only 22 Danes have been honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, some 6,532 Poles have thus far been honored – and this despite the fact that only in Poland did the Germans mandate a death penalty for those (and their families) who provided assistance to Jews.
Denmark had a neutral neighbor, Sweden, so there was a relatively easy means of escape. And preparations could have been made. Poland, however, was surrounded by enemies and, as mentioned, was occupied not only by Germany but also – for nearly two years – by Hitler’s then-Axis partner, the Soviet Union.
Poland during World War II lost a greater percentage of its population (three million Polish Jews and three million Polish gentiles) than any other country. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum needs to refocus and stop with the anti-Polish revisionism and distortions. If the director of the FBI could so easily be misinformed by USHMM, God only knows what Joe Public comes away with.
Chris Jezewski
(Via E-Mail)
On Writing Skills And Yeshivas
I want to start off by thanking you for providing readers around the world with a beautiful newspaper, well suited for readers of all ages. I myself go back more than 30 years with The Jewish Press.
You featured an article in your March 27 issue by Professor Ronald Neal Goldman. As I am a former student of his, I found myself savoring the taste I grew accustomed to during the time I was his student. I felt like I was in his classroom once again.
Even though I am not a grammarian, I agree with Professor Goldman on most points in the article. Most importantly, how instant communication, culminating with SEND, has taken its (not it’s) toll in destroying the art of expressing oneself through writing.
There is one sentence, however, that bothered me to the core. He wrote, “I’ve learned that the inability to write cogent sentences seems to be associated with the strictly Orthodox community.” I beg to differ. I was educated at Yeshiva Ch’san Sofer – (I believe this makes me of chassidish and yeshivish lineage) – and benefited from an excellent secular studies program. Most of the students in my class got very high grades on their standardized exams, something that not every public high school can boast.