Fay Dicker
Lakewood, NJ
Survivor’s Perspective On The Crisis With ISIS
When I was liberated from the camps I hoped I was entering a brand new world –one that had learned from the past and would forge ahead with visions of peace, brotherhood, respect, and decency.
If I may paraphrase the words of Dickens, I had survived the worst of times and was optimistic that I would see the best of times.
For a time after liberation I did see great things, including wonderful opportunities for Jews the world over.
We came to America and were privileged to live and grow in this great land. I witnessed miracles.
I never thought that after my wartime experience I would be able to produce children but miraculously I did. My husband and I were blessed to raise three daughters in a Torah home and they gave us grandchildren and great-grandchildren, all Torah observant and yeshiva educated. Hashem helped us succeed in business as well.
Baruch Hashem, there are many stories similar to ours that attest to how so many of us were able to overcome the past and create new lives.
I really thought the worst was behind us. When asked to autograph my book A Vow Fulfilled, I would use the phrase “Never Again.” I thought that was the truth.
Imagine my horror, then, over teenage children being kidnapped from a bus stop in Israel and shot; my horror over miles and miles of tunnels built under Gaza to facilitate murderous attacks on Jews in their homes in Israel; my horror over innocent Palestinians being told by Hamas to remain in their homes during Israeli air strikes so Israel would be blamed for killing civilians.
How can it be that less than seven decades after the end of World War II the world once again has sunk to the depths of depravity? Where are the world leaders as Islamist extremism continues to spread? The president of the United States has shown no leadership. Thirteen years after 9/11 and even after the beheadings of American citizens by ISIS terrorists, he admitted he still had no strategy.
It was only when his lack of a strategy in dealing with ISIS proved politically unpopular that he addressed the nation on the threat posed by that terror organization.
Our Torah warns us that in every generation there will arise an enemy such as our biblical ancestors faced in the desert. The ugly face of that enemy – Amalek –has resurfaced throughout our history, and today it is ISIS.
We are commanded to obliterate Amalek. It is up to those of us who survived the period – not so long ago – when the world went insane to insist that our nightmare not repeat itself. ISIS must be destroyed.
Fran Laufer
(Via E-Mail)
Editor’s Note: Mrs. Laufer is founding president of Rivkah Laufer Bikur Cholim.