The Sages teach us that the juxtaposition in the Bible of one sentence next to another has enormous significance. Likewise, as a student of editorial policy in newspapers, I myself give meaning to the juxtaposition of articles side by side in newspapers.
Last week I found quite interesting the juxtaposition in many newspapers, including The New York Times, of:
a) articles on the brutal murders that occurred in the small Polish town of Jedwabne during the Holocaust by the non-Jewish inhabitants of the town of all the Jews in that town, and the apology, belated though it may be, by the Polish President for the acts of the Polish people during World War II, alongside
b) articles detailing the cruelty of Israel in trying to stop murderers of Jews in Israel from murdering again. What struck me as particularly poignant was the impression given by the media that Jewish life was cheap during World War II and has become cheap once again.
Imagine, there is only one place in the world where Americans can be murdered in cold blood yet the US government will not search out the murderers or offer a reward for information or even visit the homes of the families of those killed?
There is only one place in the world in which the United Nations will not only fail to condemn such acts of murder, terrorism and violence, but will give praise, glory and honor to the murderers and their leader? The report in the newspaper that Arafat told his people to ignore what he says publicly and to kill "one settler per day" gets lost amid the condemnations of Israel for razing houses used by terrorists to shoot innocent men, women and children living in the "settler" part of Israel. And Arafat the murderer is praised for "100% effort".
Do you know that the life of a "settler", who, by the way, is exactly the same as every other Jew except for where he lives, has the equivalent "lack of value" to the 6,000,000 lives that were exterminated by the Nazis, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. during the years 1939-1945? And perhaps the American President (or his Jewish henchmen, sorry, I mean Ambassadors) will apologize 46 years from now
for his failures.
And we Jews thought we were accepted onto the world stage! Ah, you may say, as some American Jewish leftists do, "our lives remain valuable, it's just the Israeli Jewish lives that are cheap". Or you may go one step further and say, as the leftists do, "even the Israeli Jewish lives remain valuable, it's just the settlers lives that are cheap".
If we are to learn one lesson from World War II, from Jedwabne, from juxtapositioning, it's the lesson that Jewish life is the same all over the world: either it has value or it doesn't. When The New York Times tells us that the murderers of Jews should be left alone, not arrested, not hunted down, left to live in peace in their homes, we must shout out that Jewish lives are valuable; at least as valuable as everyone else's lives. When we don't shout out, we give credibility to the lie.
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The author is the Chairman of American Friends of Likud , a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the Chairman of Media Watch International.
Last week I found quite interesting the juxtaposition in many newspapers, including The New York Times, of:
a) articles on the brutal murders that occurred in the small Polish town of Jedwabne during the Holocaust by the non-Jewish inhabitants of the town of all the Jews in that town, and the apology, belated though it may be, by the Polish President for the acts of the Polish people during World War II, alongside
b) articles detailing the cruelty of Israel in trying to stop murderers of Jews in Israel from murdering again. What struck me as particularly poignant was the impression given by the media that Jewish life was cheap during World War II and has become cheap once again.
Imagine, there is only one place in the world where Americans can be murdered in cold blood yet the US government will not search out the murderers or offer a reward for information or even visit the homes of the families of those killed?
There is only one place in the world in which the United Nations will not only fail to condemn such acts of murder, terrorism and violence, but will give praise, glory and honor to the murderers and their leader? The report in the newspaper that Arafat told his people to ignore what he says publicly and to kill "one settler per day" gets lost amid the condemnations of Israel for razing houses used by terrorists to shoot innocent men, women and children living in the "settler" part of Israel. And Arafat the murderer is praised for "100% effort".
Do you know that the life of a "settler", who, by the way, is exactly the same as every other Jew except for where he lives, has the equivalent "lack of value" to the 6,000,000 lives that were exterminated by the Nazis, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, etc. during the years 1939-1945? And perhaps the American President (or his Jewish henchmen, sorry, I mean Ambassadors) will apologize 46 years from now
for his failures.
And we Jews thought we were accepted onto the world stage! Ah, you may say, as some American Jewish leftists do, "our lives remain valuable, it's just the Israeli Jewish lives that are cheap". Or you may go one step further and say, as the leftists do, "even the Israeli Jewish lives remain valuable, it's just the settlers lives that are cheap".
If we are to learn one lesson from World War II, from Jedwabne, from juxtapositioning, it's the lesson that Jewish life is the same all over the world: either it has value or it doesn't. When The New York Times tells us that the murderers of Jews should be left alone, not arrested, not hunted down, left to live in peace in their homes, we must shout out that Jewish lives are valuable; at least as valuable as everyone else's lives. When we don't shout out, we give credibility to the lie.
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The author is the Chairman of American Friends of Likud , a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and the Chairman of Media Watch International.