The Blogs: Dear Arnold

Dear Mr. Schwarzenegger — I feel your pain.

Thank you for your leadership and compassion, many of us were sickened to see what happened on Capitol Hill a couple days ago, the loss of life, human decency and values. We all believe that America must unify and strive for better, for the sake of American’s, social values, and for the world, i get the Kristallnacht comparison as a powerful metaphor, as uncomfortable as it may be, at least for me.

On Kristallnacht, Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps. Estimates of fatalities caused by the attacks have varied. Early reports estimated that 91 Jews had been murdered.

Modern analysis of German scholarly sources puts the figure much higher; when deaths from post-arrest maltreatment and subsequent suicides are included, the death toll reaches the hundreds, with Richard J. Evans estimating 638 deaths by suicide. Kristallnacht was the prelude to the Final Solution and the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust, which actually happened.

Love & light from Israel.