When “Remembering” is a Euphemism for Passively Allowing History to Repeat Itself
Today is officially a day of Holocaust remembrance
BS”D
This morning, I read a substack post from a Rabbi in New Jersey that I know, and I knew that I had to share it with you.
Two things stood out for me as critical:
The ways in which the government is getting trusted community authorities to endorse and push for COVID vaccination in their respective communities.
The terrifying fact that almost everyone will automatically follow directions given by authority figures. (See the behavioral experiment that Rabbi Finkelstein quotes.)
Please see his important message, written particularly for Yom Hashoah.
Once I’m sharing his insights, I want to also include a crucial segment he wrote a little while ago, which was an eye opener for me. I was horrified to discover that in 1905 the Supreme Court ruled that a state can basically force people to vaccinate, (get a shot or pay a large fine), and in 1927, that ruling was used as a precedent to allow forced sterilization of “imbeciles”. The 1927 ruling was then actually used as a defense by Nazi SS head Otto Hoffman when he was on trial in Nuremberg after WW2.
I put Part 2 first, in case you don’t have much time, because it’s the more critical part.
“Never Again” requires research and introspection to discover the truth, and then brave action, not cowardly mouthing of platitudes and following the crowds and institutions who blindly follow the authority figures.
Let’s use this day to pray to the One G-d to save humanity, and to try to educate more people about the truth.
Thank you, Brucha, for sharing the Rabbi’s writing & within it, his warnings from history.
I wish I wasn’t already familiar with Milgram authority obedience, Asch conformity, Stanford prison experiment & the use of the “nudge unit” advising UK government right now.
Oh, it’s happening again, alright.
That “never again?”
Yes, that. Everywhere, right now.