Scott Turow Quotes
I grew up on the north side of Chicago, in West Rogers Park, an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood. When I was 13, my parents moved to Winnetka, Illinois, an upper class, WASPy suburb where Jews - as well as Blacks and Catholics - were unwelcome on many blocks. I suffered the spiritual equivalent of whiplash.
Churchill drafted this article when there was rampant anti-Semitism in Germany but the world had not yet learned of the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism was also present in many other European countries, England and even the United States. The thrust of Churchill’s article was that if Jews would assimilate more easily, this would mitigate anti-Semitism. This was at a time when cultural pluralism was much less common, even in America and minorities were expected to adopt the customs, practices and culture of the majorities. Ironically, Jews were more assimilated in Germany than in any other country and that is where the anti-Semitism reached its zenith. Churchill published thousands of articles and it is not known why he chose never to publish this one. He was not Prime Minister at the time but was observing Germany with alarm.
Ernestine Louise Polowsky
The Turks had massacred the vast majority of their Armenian population, and treated the Greeks badly killing and them many of them from territories the Ottoman Turks had conquered. Jews fared better but were 2nd class citizens. Bristol was the American State Department’s senior official and was very “understanding” of the murders and ethnic cleansing despite the fact that President Wilson and most American politicians were very opposed to the Turkish massacres. See {620614} and {620599} . Two factors makes this quotation very significant. First, at the time the State Department was not really under the control of either the President or the Congress. It was not rare for the Department to have its own policies and implement them. This began to change in WWII and FDR exercised much more control than previous presidents since Theodore Roosevelt. The second factor is that there were many racists throughout the State Department—Bristol was only one. There was little concern for minorities’ welfare and the emphasis was on commerce. See {620600} Even in Truman’s administration, the President had massive opposition from the State Department for his policy of recognizing the State of Israel. Today, this kind of racism in the State Department is very rare, and human rights has been one of their major concerns. There were many changes in 75 years.
See {619709}. Ever since the Jews were ejected from their nation by the Romans, there have been some Jews and non-Jews who believed that the refusal of other nations to allow Jews citizenship inhibited their assimilation and was God’s way of maintaining the Jews as a distinct people so that they may fulfill Biblical prophesy and return to the Land of Israel. Stiles was a leading historian of his day and specialized in ancient Biblical history. Most people however, and most Jews, do not hold with this theory.
At the time, most of the world did not believe that the Germans were literally serious in their anti-Semitic rhetoric. It was assumed that this kind of talk was just populist rhetoric to get votes and maintain power. The main lesson of Nazi Germany is when leaders of a country, threaten the existence of another country or a people, they must be taken seriously, and not just as politicians being populists and pandering to an ignorant, biased public.
Scott Frederick Turow is an American author and lawyer. Turow has written 11 fiction and three nonfiction books, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies. Films have been based on several of his books.
