IN THEORY:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently sparked a debate in his country when he revised the school curriculum, making every fifth-grader this fall learn the life story of one of the 11,000 French children killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Some psychiatrists and educators are worried that requiring students to identify with a specific victim may traumatize them. Do you think it’s appropriate for children of that age to learn about the Holocaust by identifying so closely with its victims?

Definitely! In a politically correct, multicultural world, anti-Semitism is the last acceptable prejudice. The truth must be taught to everyone, regardless of age.

Facts are available to anyone, but history exists only if it is taught and learned by students in schools worldwide. Then life has meaning, the truth must be heard by all, regardless of age. One thought is etched in our minds of 65 years ago.

The torture and the death of 6 million lives cries out from their graves. Jews have been taunted, beaten, terrorized blown up, shot, disabled for life and murdered. Synagogues have been torched, cemeteries vandalized. Too many intellectuals have minimized and denied these criminal acts.

How can we stop the demonization and scapegoating of Jews that is taking place all day, every day around the world?

Who or what can loosen the madness that has gripped the world and threatens to annihilate the Jews and the Western World? The purpose of civilization is to remember, teach and learn from the past.

Then we can fix the world, ridding it especially of our habits of constantly doing evil against our neighbors. Future generations must learn from us, and we from our parents. To ignore the crime of the murder of Jews in the countries the crime was committed is disgraceful! The lessons of the Holocaust must be taught in these European countries today and in future generations.

Rabbi Marc Rubenstein

Temple Isaiah

Newport Beach

For modern youth caught in the accelerating pace of change, last year is ancient history, and 65 years ago is an eternity. Obsolescence and disposability dominate our cultural responses, applying not only to electronics but to human beings. Given what an author called “the ever expanding empire of amnesia,” will the 6 million Jews suffer a second death — that of being forgotten?

Viewing black-and-white footage of mounds of corpses, or reading of mass deportations and executions, makes little impact. Encouraging young people to relate to an individual takes an abstraction and gives it an identity, a biography. The student learns of a person very much like him or her who dreamed of, and should have been allowed to pursue, a bright future.

Stalin noted that “one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” For students to truly understand a past that is more recent than they realize, and to prepare for a future that will require their recognizing evil, they must learn not about statistics but about tragedies.

Rabbi Mark Miller

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach

In a proper democracy not even the highest elected official of the land should be allowed to make significant decisions as a whim based on unfounded beliefs.

Their job is to run the whole government and to see that the various government functions, such as education, have well-functioning departments staffed by competent professional personnel where such detailed decisions are made after careful consideration.

In the United States the current office of the president has tried — and to some extent succeeded in — usurping power to the extent that they can virtually ignore Congress. The use of such ploys as signing statements and presidential directives needs to be severely limited.

There is supposed to be a balance of power, and Congress should either approve or block all proposals from the president’s office.

Sarkozy is following Bush’s lead by pushing for his particular beliefs without the needed reviews. It is time for the citizens of both France and America to demand that our supposed democracies actually function as democracies.

Jerry Parks

Member

Humanist Assn. of Orange County