Well, the NYT
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Even free to dress up like a girl, if that’s your thing
It is seen as divisive by the NYT’s readers and staff; that’s hardly news, and the Time’s timing in running the story on the July 4th weekend is typical. It’s ironic, though, that the reporter here, one Sarah Maslin Nir, is herself the daughter of a refugee, Ukrainian Holocaust survivor Yehuda Nir, who escaped the Nazis and eventually made his way to America, where he practiced psychiatry, wrote a book about his childhood terror, and raised a family of ungrateful, spoiled children.
Here’s how Sarah Nir’s father spent his childhood years:
Yehuda Nir was nine years old when his father was shot dead by German soldiers in a mass execution of Jewish men in their Polish town. Yehuda, along with his mother and teenage sister, escaped with the aid of false documents. It was 1941--the Holocaust was gaining a grim momentum. The family plunged into what would be four long, harrowing years disguised as Catholics. Never knowing if each day of hiding in the open would be his last, Yehuda was often forced to separate from his mother and sister, live on dogs and mice, hide in sewers, and live in utter chaos.
From what I can glean from Sarah’s bio, she grew up a pampered child of Manhattan, she and her siblings went to fine (expensive, anyway) private schools, and have done very well in their father’s adopted land. No mention of them eating rats or hiding in NYC sewers.
It’ll never happen, but it’d be nice if every once in a while, now and then, our nation-haters would reflect on what America has provided to people from across the world, including their own families, and just shut up, briefly.
The Fourth of July might be an apt time to do that.
