An Apology to Jews
I thought about this question: how were we so blind about the left?
I knew about antisemitism. I learned how prevalent it was. I saw it with my own eyes. Whether it was the 70-year-old billionaire saying, "Hitler wasn't wrong," or my high school friends saying if the Jewish team plays basketball in an oven, the Jews will win because they have the home court, or people saying - "well, the Jews deserved it because they killed Christ and called this curse on them!"
I knew about the hate. I started tracking it in the USA in 1998. And it scared me. But no one else saw it, and I am not Jewish. So I thought - maybe I am insane. My non-Jewish friends were irritated and said - "stop worrying!" Typically, right after I told them that their comments were anti-semitic - "I am too sensitive!"And then I was told, Israel is safe! The Jews are safe there! And I thought it was okay; at least Israel is safe.
And so I looked around and thought, these SJW and DEI, maybe they are the ones who I could ally with. And so I did. And then THEY turned on us. And I realized they didn't turn on us. They were always against us. I just chose to delude myself. And I asked why. Why was I choosing to ignore and not see? How could I have been so foolish?
What has always troubled me about the Holocaust is that the Jews did not flee. Why didn't they run? Why did they let this happen? I was angry at them for dying. I was so sad at their extermination. I wanted to think it would have been different if I had been there. And that was wrong of me. And we all cope with horror in good and bad ways.
I wondered - how did the folks in Babi Yar get slaughtered? What happened? Were they ignorant? And I now know, they could never imagine that evil.
There is a man named Shabetai Kabili who thought that Nazis would not kill the Jews of Ioannina. And while others insisted they should flee, he convinced the Jews to stay. And they died.
At the beginning of March 1944, a census was held in the city, after which the Germans imprisoned four of the leaders of the Jewish community. The arrested leaders managed to smuggle a letter out of prison, calling for the Jews to flee the city, but the deputy head of the community, Shabetai Kabeli, claimed that the Germans would not harm the Jews, so long as the Jews provided them with money and supplies. Kabeli went to parents whose sons had fled the city to join the underground, and convinced them to persuade their sons to return, claiming they were in fact collaborating with the Communist underground, thereby endangering the entire community. Only a very few Jews fled into the mountains, among them the four members of the Matsa family. Others obtained false papers, with the help of Greeks such as Father Athanasius, and succeeded in joining the partisans or reaching Athens. Some Christian residents of Ioannina hid Jews in their homes. Some of the leaders of the Jewish community dug a tunnel under the old synagogue in the ancient Jewish quarter, in which they buried all the Torah scrolls, the ornamental curtains, and the ritual items.
We ask ourselves what we would do in a similar situation, I now know. And that knowledge is humbling.
When Oct 7th happened, I was so angry at myself. I called my father-in-law to apologize for the antisemitism. He was confused. And I don't blame him. I was apologizing for knowing the evil and believing it didn't exist. I was a fool. And in my foolishness enabled evil. And that is something I will have to carry with me to my grave.