William Howard Taft, the 27th president of the United States, once said " Anti-semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America." I agree with President Taft because the United States is supposed to be known for its diversity and freedom. Common issues such as anti-semitism and racism are showing the world that we are not so true to our policies, which is not a good reputation to have. As global leaders, each and everyone of us should refute prejudice opinions and stand up for the independence that America is supposed to offer.
According to the 2010 census, there is approximately 6.5 million Jews in America. Coincidently, that is roughly the same number of Jews that lost their lives in the Holocaust in the 1940's. This is only about 1.9% of the population of the United States. Mark Twain once said "...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race...He [the Jew] is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and had done it with his hands tied behind him." What Mark Twain is trying to say in this quote is that the contributions of the Jewish people should be valued more, accounting for the small population and the hatred they have had to face while contributing. This is something to consider while thinking about anti-semitism in the future.
Although I usually spend most of my time criticizing you, I guess you get a break with this post haha. I really like how you used Mark Twain through out your argument, it really justifies your points. I never realized how small of a population Jews make up, I always thought it was still pretty close to christianity. Over all a very interesting argument, I like it.
ReplyDeleteYour post immediately piqued my interest with the quote from Taft, because I'm enormously nerdy. From there, you were able to carry my interest over to the subject of anti-Semitism, and I loved the quote from Mark Twain. The only thing I would have liked to see would be more explicit use of something we worked on in class, like syllogism or analogies. But apart from that, great work!
ReplyDeleteI'm digging the Jewish pride in this post! I think it's really interesting that you use that Mark Twain quote to prompt people to think about how wrong anti-semitism is. It's true that for .2% of the world's population we have such a huge impact!
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