Letter to the Editor

By Sam Devinki

In response to the editorial in the March 28 issue of The Chronicle, “Caught in the Middle,” the writer writes very eloquently, and the answers to her questions are quite simple.

1. A great part of the world hates Jews.
2. Hamas is not just male combatants. Hamas includes females and teenagers. Palestinians in Gaza cheer whenever a Jew is killed. Palestinians’ children are taught from the age of five that the Jews are the enemy and must be destroyed.
3. Hamas does not want a two state solution. Hamas wants a one state solution which does not include Israel.

Israel must do whatever it takes to preserve its existence, even though sometimes the results are not pretty. If there had been an Israel in 1939, my family would have not lost almost 100 members who were murdered. My grandparents and my aunts and uncles may not have gone into the gas chambers and ovens of Treblinka and Auschwitz.

Back in the 1970s, my mother, Maria Devinki, of blessed memory, who was a Holocaust survivor, said, “You wait, what happened in Germany will someday happen in this country.”

We all know history repeats itself. What I have seen over the last six months on our college campuses and around this country makes me even more thankful for the State of lsrael. This is Germany in 1934 and 1935. I love Israel, but I sincerely hope it does not become the last haven for the Jews of this country.

Am Yisrael Chai!

Sam Devinki is Vice President and Honorary President for Life of Kehilath Israel Synagogue. He serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and received the Wings of Memory Leadership Award for the Midwest Region by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.