Sorry for the drive-by, I know it's been a while...
We had an assembly this morning, where a parent talked about the documentary he was making about his grandparents, who were Unitarian Universalists who (along with a network of others) saved hundreds of families from France from Nazi persecution. It's an interesting story, but I was a little annoyed when he emphasized that his grandparents were only the second and third Americans to be declared "Righteous Among The Nations" by the State of Israel (out of over 20,000 so honored). According to Wikipedia:
In secular usage, the term is used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust in order to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
So apparently, only three Americans risked their lives in this way. It's as though those other hundreds of thousands don't count, because they were (say it with me ominously now) military, and, well, war's bad, mmkay?
I dunno, maybe I'm being overly sensitive. It's happened before.
We had an assembly this morning, where a parent talked about the documentary he was making about his grandparents, who were Unitarian Universalists who (along with a network of others) saved hundreds of families from France from Nazi persecution. It's an interesting story, but I was a little annoyed when he emphasized that his grandparents were only the second and third Americans to be declared "Righteous Among The Nations" by the State of Israel (out of over 20,000 so honored). According to Wikipedia:
In secular usage, the term is used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust in order to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
So apparently, only three Americans risked their lives in this way. It's as though those other hundreds of thousands don't count, because they were (say it with me ominously now) military, and, well, war's bad, mmkay?
I dunno, maybe I'm being overly sensitive. It's happened before.
posted by Matt | 9:49 AM
1 Comments:
Meh--it's rhetoric. Hyperbole.
The thing that I've never understood, on a personal level, is why I should be impressed with you about what your ancestors did. THEY were successful; YOU--not so much. But if you like to try and ride the coattails of others (because you find life meaning out of it), then far be it from me to impede your fruitless pursuit of happiness.
I guess I had this while growing up to a certain extent. There was a pecking order relative to the perceived wealth of parents. So Billy in Mrs. Smith's class is "rich". And even in the second grade--I wondered, "Billy's not rich. Billy ain't done jack. His dad did. So what's the big deal?"
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