From the Editor Mar/Apr 2016
Have you ever watched a TV show that asks simple questions to the so-called man on the street? Usually, it’s hilarious. Some of the answers are so ridiculous you can hardly believe people are that ignorant.
For example, comedian Jay Leno once asked someone, “Who was the first president of the United States?” The guy replied, “Benjamin Franklin” instead of George Washington.
He asked another, “Who was the first man on the moon?” When a woman correctly said “Armstrong,” he asked for a first name, to which she replied, “Louis.” Louis was the jazz musician; Neil was the astronaut.
Not all man-on-the-street segments are funny, though. In 2013, author Rhonda Fink-Whitman took a video camera to colleges in America to see what students knew about the Holocaust. The answers she got weren’t much better than the ones Jay Leno received.
When she asked, “What was the Holocaust?” one student said it was something that happened to African Americans. Another said it happened 300 years ago. Many didn’t know who Hitler was, who the Allies were, or what concentration camps were.
“You can’t blame the kids,” said Fink-Whitman, whose mother was a Holocaust survivor. “Nobody’s teaching it to them. By the time they get to college, they should know a thing or two about the Holocaust and other genocides so when the plague of denial creeps onto their campus they’re armed and ready with the truth.”
An exception was when she interviewed students from New Jersey. Why? Because New Jersey is one of only five states that mandate Holocaust education for grades 6 through 12. The others are Florida, Illinois, California, and New York.
As Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, this issue of Israel My Glory is dedicated to a subject today’s world should know more about. The atrocities that an educated, cultured society like Germany committed prove the heart of man “is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9). The only cure is true faith in Messiah Jesus, who changes hearts.
If you live somewhere that does not have Holocaust education, you might want to pray about contacting your officials. Teaching the truth about World War II should be a priority everywhere because ignorance is dangerous.
Waiting for His appearing,
Lorna Simcox
Editor-in-Chief
