The lessons of history

By Ginny Segaloff, Chair of CJD Kristallnacht Committee

Eighty-three years after Kristallnacht, what have we learned?

This is the topic that Rabbi Micah Greenstein will address at the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County’s annual Kristallnacht Commemorative Service. This year’s commemoration will take place on Zoom Sunday, Nov. 7 at 3 p.m.

What lessons were not learned from history? What fostered man’s inhumanity to man, laying the groundwork for the events that caused Kristallnacht and that still occur in today’s world?

Perhaps the answer to this question lies in the question itself, that is, in the “learning.” The learning is where we need to be looking for the answers and solutions to the fear, mistrust, anger, lies, ignorance, bigotry, chaos, pain and other forces fostering and creating events in history that dehumanized all of mankind.

The learning of history is not just about the past, because history is presently being made for the future. The learning must be relevant to today’s events and society, and it must also look to the past, “from whence it came.” For in the history, lies the question, the answer and the future.

Therefore, our purpose in presenting this annual program commemorating Kristallnacht is as much educational as it is honoring and remembering.

We know the question. What we need to learn is how to implement and integrate the answers, thus creating the solutions.

So, 83 years after Kristallnacht, what have we learned? Find out on Nov. 7.