A plea for tolerance and education
THE DESERT SUN EDITORIAL BOARD • JUNE 6, 2010
The revelation of the “Beat the Jew” game has revealed an ugly underbelly of Coachella Valley youth we never thought we would see here.
The problem goes far beyond La Quinta High School. Desert Sun reporters have found that students have drawn swastikas on desks, walls and their own skin. There are wannabe skinheads in our midst and students who tell crude, anti-Semitic jokes.
This has to stop. The way to make it stop is through education — at home and in the classroom.
The Desert Sun calls on our three local school districts to put a stronger emphasis on education about the Holocaust, a combination of the Greek words for “whole” and “burnt.” Our children need to know that it was real and it was awful beyond description. They need to know that 6 million European Jews died in the genocide.
Look at the photograph on this page. That fellow in the middle row, seventh from the left, is Elie Wiesel, who would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He is perhaps the most famous
This April 16, 1945 photo shows inmates of the Nazi German KZ Buchenwald inside their barrack, a few days after U.S troops of the 80th Division liberated this concentration camp near Weimar. The young man seventh from left in the middle row bunk is Elie Wiesel, who would later become an author and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. (Associated Press file photo)