Look beyond poor analogy

We join with Jewish voices throughout our nation and around the world, who share the Trump administration’s abhorrence of the Assad regime, and welcome the willingness to take action to alleviate the suffering resulting from the heart-wrenching conflict in Syria.

Making historical comparisons to the Third Reich is something to be done only after careful consideration of the complex circumstances where crimes against humanity have taken place.

We Jews don’t presume to have exclusive control as to when and how such parallels are drawn. The pressing question of the hour, however, isn’t that of how appropriate a given analogy may or may not be.

The humanitarian disaster taking place before our eyes, calls upon us as Americans to answer the question of what it means to live up to our responsibility as a democratic nation blessed to be in a position to respond to this carnage that has claimed far too many lives already.

What story do we want to be able to tell our children and grandchildren about the way we responded to this terrible chapter in world history?

This story was originally published April 12, 2017 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Look beyond poor analogy."