A Passage to Hungary — memories of a year in Budapest
California Dreamin’ — a hitchhiker’s guide to Torah Observance
Shylock in Jerusalem — Shakespearean scholarship with an unexpected twist
Virtual Unreality — post open-heart surgery reflections
The Private Life of Miss America — modesty and pop-culture
The Mystical Power of Amuka — a memoir of journeying toward marriage
A Novel Idea — excerpts from Under the Sun
Torah Ideals 
#1 by Julius Blank on April 29, 2010 - 2:27 pm
On your recent article in the JWR on”Why Jews Are Liberals”, I have often asked the same question and have yet to get a coherent answer.
I am also curious about your remark that FDR did not intervene on behalf of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. I am not a great fan nor a detractor of FDR, he was always a mixed bag to me . I was 7 when he was first elected, so I lived through his Presidency. It is true that the US did essentially nothing to give help to refugees. He did however send many hundreds of thousands of GI’s to Europe to liberate the continent from the Nazis. I know this from first hand experience. There are many cemeteries in Europe with tens of thousands of GI’s who paid for this along with many more thousands that came home with scars visible and not visible. The great majority of these were not Jews. How can you say that he did nothing?
A group recently came back from Europe where they visited some of the death camps at a memorial service. I heard of not one who visited an American cemetery to place one flower on GI headstone.
Why is that?
#2 by torahideals on April 29, 2010 - 4:14 pm
FDR sent in the troops for America, not for the Jews. Yes, Jews do owe America gratitude for defeating Hitler, but all that was done was in America’s own interest, and the diverting of even a single bombing mission might have destroyed the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz and saved countless lives. Then there were the Jews turned away from America (and almost everywhere else) who had no place to go and perished.
The purpose of many Jewish trips to Europe is specifically to honor and mourn the victims of the Holocaust. Budgets and schedules are tight, and many important sights have to be overlooked. This should not be interpreted in any way as a slight against the GIs who gave their lives for freedom and liberty. Every one of them has our eternal respect and admiration.