Thursday, May 18, 2017

Mr. President: Do Not Do a Drive-by

President Trump:
I know that presidential visits are jam packed with meetings and events, and that there are many demands on your time.  Reports are that you are scheduled to spend 15 minutes visiting Yad Vashem.  I do not know if this is due to scheduling demands or to your personal inclinations.
In any event, if that is all the time you have to devote to learning about and paying respects to the slaughter of six millions Jews and millions of non-Jews, as well as to the plan to completely destroy the Jewish people and their religion and culture, I request that you not visit.
It is impossible to have a serious visit in 15 minutes.  Everyone knows that.  It is an insult to those who were murdered and to those that survived the unspeakable torture of the Holocaust to do a drive-by visit to the solemn ground that is Yad Vashem.  It violates its sanctity.  It would be akin to dropping by Arlington National Cemetery for a photo op on your way to a meeting..
If you cannot make a serious visit to Yad Vashem that devotes appropriate time for and pays proper respect to the history and memory of the millions who lost their lives during the Holocaust, it would be better for you not to go at all.
(Originally published in The Times of Israel)


11 comments:

  1. This is absolutely right on.

    Thanks.

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  2. Thank you for this “Random Thoughts” post. Yad Vashem is not a place for a photo. It is a place for contemplation and reflection…and yes, for education.

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  3. You can’t expect anything approaching humanity or consciousness from Trump. He doesn’t really grasp the outrage that racism and anti-Semitism and the acts surrounding them have been. As a longtime New Yorker, I tried to explain to people who don’t live here just how vile this man is. A lot of my friends got it. A few of them didn’t. It was painful to watch so many people ignore the naked truth about this man and put him in the White House.

    Unless Congress takes action, we’re screwed.

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  4. Right on. Yad Vashem is a powerful experience. Trump badly needs to have that experience. But 15 minutes is an insult.

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  5. Well said and well deserved!

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  6. Absolutely right. With Trump I am not surprised.

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  7. I’ve been following the Trump Administration fairly carefully - but only in the popular (or unpopular) press. Based on what I’ve observed, Mr. Trump is a much better friend to Israel than the previous occupant of the White House (for sure) and he may rank among the best friends among Presidents.

    Please consider that the glass is half full (or 15 minutes full), and it is a compliment that he comes to Israel. I don’t think a short visit diminishes the feelings of the President.

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  8. Look at the big picture and the president's overwhelmingly support for the Jewish people and being so strikingly different than his predecessor. Snapshots are not the big picture, but I guess anti trump is in vogue.

    We need to see the positives. The PM (and foreign ministry) were involved with the trip planning. Are they complaining.

    We should be jumping for joy that his first trip is to Israel and he didn't ignore Israel like Obama did in lieu of his Arab country visit. The schedulers may not have totally understood the significance of Yad Vashem. This may be changed after all. Let's see.

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  9. You can’t expect anything approaching humanity or consciousness from Trump. He doesn’t really grasp the outrage that racism and anti-Semitism and the acts surrounding them have been. As a longtime New Yorker, I tried to explain to people who don’t live here just how vile this man is. A lot of my friends got it. A few of them didn’t. It was painful to watch so many people ignore the naked truth about this man and put him in the White House.

    Unless Congress takes action, we’re screwed.

    ReplyDelete