Elie Wiesel Already Restless in His Grave

By Allen Schmertzler.

 

 

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A perplexing question for Sigmund Freud was “when is a cigar not a cigar?” Or, “when is a small hand not a hand?” The easy answer is it depends on the overt flavor of the content. This is similar to, “when is something obscene and offensive?” The easy answer is “you know it when you see it!”

For Donald Trump and his clueless groupies a perplexing question is, “when is a 6-pointed star not a 5-pointed star?” Or, perhaps more to the point, “when is the use of a 6-pointed star offensively anti-Semitic?” The easy answer is “when David Duke drools over it because Donald Trump tweets it.”

All is not well in the kingdom. A lowly-rated Reality TV star has usurped politics with sickening suckering and fraudulent sound biting. Our electorate favors raw sewage over calibrated facts and seems to loath educational application to this election discourse. It’s about applying education, stupid! Sheriffs do not wear 6-pointed stars and the declaration that they do is sloppy, disrespectful and dangerously irresponsible. Heaven help America if we do not elect leaders passionately committed to education. There can be no other check against the mainstreaming of Trumpism huckstering. Even if the maligned use of a red Star of David paired with an anti-Hillary Clinton tweet was “innocent,” the vendors of this imagery from Trumpland, have disqualified themselves as being too insensitive and ignorant to inhabit the White House.

This tawdry episode of a new low in our 2016 election cycle sadly parallels the loss to the world of the gifted teacher, Nobel Peace recipient and Holocaust-Nazi hunter, Elie Wiesel. In my own twisted way, I find relief that Mr. Wiesel passed before he had to suffer and witness yet another anti-Semitic metamorphic atrocity of the yellow Star of David emerging as a red star with “corrupt Hillary” awash in money.

Elie Wiesel, identified by his tattoo “A-7713” emerged as a 16 year-old survivor of Nazi genocide. He dedicated his life to compiling a preponderance of evidence to educate the world about the Holocaust to “Never Forget” and “Never Again.” His passing personifies the passing of another generation’s first-hand knowledge in the awful experiences of the worst behaviors of humanity. The shoveled earth is still settling on his burial site, as his soul must be convulsing over his inability to be a “first responder” to siren against this latest propaganda assault on Jews. Who better to educate us by fact-checking this hubris?

Lucky for Republicans that Donald Trump has a loyal Orthodox Jewish son-in-law who can explain away such insensitive indiscretions by vouching for “man-baby’s” bona-fide affection for Jewish people, and who doesn’t appear publicly at least to have any Jewish guilt over this “gelt”-6-pointed star issue. Elie Wiesel may be dead, and many may be too calloused or ignorant to care about petty tweeting issues, but a cigar in one small hand and a tweet of hatred in the other by an ambitious narcissistic huckster will always stink, and require education to nourish understanding why. Thank you Elie Wiesel for opening my mind and I do hope you can rest in peace.

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