Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: Frum's Mishagas Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/frums_mishagas#9428 Post contents: When I lived in West Germany 30 years ago, and worked at a German university, I remember meeting many German students and scholars who had studied for a time at American universities, where Jews really are not a minority group (and I'm glad of that!) These students would tell me how some Jewish professors born in the USA treated them like trash. Yet when these students met German Jews living in the USA or teaching at an American University -- many of whom lost family members and friends in the Nazi genocide, all of whom had to flee for their lives -- the German students were treated kindly, as if they were fellow countrymen. "Oh, you're from Essen? I used to live there. Is such and such still there? How I wish I could walk down the street again and get a sausage, or really good bread, and outstanding beer" etc. etc. These students (all too young to have had anything to do with the genocide or Nazi Germany) were not surprised at the first reaction, and many considered it understandable. They were astonished at the 2nd. Guilt is not inherited, folks. Guilt is committed by an individual, and he alone must answer for it. The rest of us have the duty to see to it that such crimes, and the attitudes and ideas that foster these crimes, don't happen again. Sent at: 2008 07 06