Is It Ever Appropriate To Compare Modern Crises To The Holocaust?
Image by Forward Montage
By The Scribe June 19, 2018
In the United States, we’re currently facing a crisis: Trump’s latest policy move has resulted in thousands of children being separated from their families and kept in large cages. While it’s undeniable that the situation is terrible, there’s a debate in the Jewish community about whether or not it’s appropriate to compare the atrocities in any way to the Holocaust.
The Anti-Defamation League released a video in which children hidden during the Holocaust share just how terrible family separation policies are:
WATCH: Children separated from their parents during the Holocaust speak out about the trauma it has caused. How can anyone defend such inhumane policies? https://t.co/YjxQzAQ2s8 #FamiliesBelongTogether pic.twitter.com/QqavaIcZai
— ADL (@ADL_National) June 19, 2018
And Forward columnist Elad Nehorai says we have bigger things to worry about than the appropriate use of the term:
As a Jew, I find it much more offensive that some of my fellow Jews are more upset about Holocaust comparisons than about the actual atrocities happening in our country.
— Elad Nehorai (@PopChassid) June 18, 2018
But there are some who find the comparisons to the Holocaust offensive, or just a bad idea:
One of the many reasons Holocaust analogies are a bad idea is that they let the bigots turn the debate into one over whether the analogy is correct, when the policies are in fact evil *regardless* of whether they are anything like the Holocaust. https://t.co/tfh78gcnfv
— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) June 19, 2018
What do you think?
Is it ever appropriate to compare modern crises to the Holocaust?
— The Forward (@jdforward) June 19, 2018
Have more to say? Email us.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
