For You Yourselves Were Foreigners
I've led four trips to the Holy Land over the last few years, and each time I have had the opportunity to visit Israel's moving and inspiring Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem. The name Yad Vasehem comes from the prophet Isaiah chapter 56:4-5. The verse reads, "I will give them in My house and in My walls a yad veshem (a place to memorialize their deeds), and thus their name." One of the many things about Yad Vashem that wounds my spirit deeply is an exhibit of all of the countries of the world that either actively participated in the Holocaust, or who passively participated because of their general antipathy toward Jews. The United States is among the latter group of nations. In fact, one of the darkest moments in U.S. History during the World War II era was the sad tale of the refugee ship, the St. Louis . The U.S. government refused to receive nearly 600 Jewish refugees from Germany, who were on the St. Louis , and who fled that co...
