Anti-Semitism
Dear Editor: This week at the City and Borough Assembly meeting, several people spoke under persons to be heard. Three of them used references to the Holocaust. Two compared giving vaccines to people in our community to the atrocities of the Holocaust, and one accused Assembly member Thor Christianson of being a “Nazi.”
These people demonstrated their lack of historical knowledge but also an insensitive anti-Semitism sentiment that is growing in the United States. As a Jewish woman I was deeply disturbed by these references.
These analogies show a gross and deep misunderstanding of the Holocaust by comparing it to a major and important public health effort to stop a pandemic. The Holocaust was a state-sponsored persecution and systematic murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. They believed that the Germans belonged to a race that was superior to all others. During the Nazi era, the German authorities also killed and persecuted other groups because of their perceived racial inferiority, including people with disabilities, Poles, Romas, Russians, Black people, communists, socialists, and homosexuals.
I don’t agree with opinions expounded Tuesday night under persons to be heard, but I know these people are free to express themselves at an open meeting in the United States. Perhaps they did not mean to come across as anti-Semitic, but in context of the rise of anti-Semitism around the nation and particularly in Alaska, I cannot remain silent on their egregious analogies. The Holocaust teaches us that heinous actions can follow intolerant and dangerous words. There is a clear need to remind our community members of the true nature of the Holocaust, seek out the root cause for anti-Semitism, racism, and discrimination, and be mindful of the language we use. Sincerely,
Lisa Busch, Sitka
Eskatel Thank You
Dear Editor: Baikal-Alaska Expedition (B-AE) leader and Iskatel Captain Anatoly Kazakevich and Iskatel crew member Andrey Gridnev asked me to convey a very sincere and hearty Спасибо! – thank you! – to the Sentinel’s Garland Kennedy for his Oct. 26 article on Gridnev’s visit to Sitka and his Zoom chat with Kazakevitch, “Russian Sailor Plans for Voyage Home.”
The conversation continued after Garland left the chat for his next assignment, and one thing in particular was discussed, decided upon, and determined to be acted upon:
In addition to actively seeking Alaskans for Iskatel’s return voyage to Irkutsk, Siberia, as crew, the B-AE will organize, orchestrate and operate a changing-at-every-port-stop-along-the-way escort flotilla of Alaskan boats – sailboats, power boats, commercial, charter and private fishing and recreational boats, rowboats, kayaks, canoes, sailboards, whatever – to accompany Iskatel from Sitka all the way south, then north, then west to the international border between Siberia and Alaska; and then, for some, beyond. Perhaps even all the way to Irkutsk.
The intent is to have that escort flotilla with Iskatel from Sitka all the way south to Ketchikan, then north to Petersburg and Juneau, then after stops in Chatham and Icy Straits and Cross Sound, out and on up to Yakutat, then north to Whittier, Cordova and Seward, then south to Homer, Kodiak and False Pass, and, ultimately north again to Nome. With stops in the communities all along the way. And then west.
For the moment, we’re calling it a ‘‘Flotilla For Friendship, Cooperation, and, Above All, Peace’’ between the peoples of Alaska and Siberia (and perhaps even the peoples – and especially the governments – of the Federation of Russia and the United States of America).
(Note: The idea for that came from the flotilla of small fishing and pleasure boats that escorted a Russian submarine back to international waters after it had run aground off the coast of a small New England fishing village in the 1966 movie ‘‘The Яussians Are Coming, The Яussians Are Coming.’’ You can get a hint of that escort at 3:16 of the official trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqPgUennGtg .)
With Cold War II kicking in and America confronting “another Sputnik moment” and all that that implies and promises based on what happened after the last one, politicians and their pundits and propagandists will no doubt do everything in their power to make any kind of citizen-to-citizen contact and cooperation between Americans and Russians (especially Alaskans and Siberians) difficult, if not impossible
And that is exactly why the Baikal-Alaska expedition is so very critically important at this time. For it can and will demonstrate to the governments of America and Russia and their media that contact and cooperation between the peoples of Russia and America is very possible, very doable, and very likely to succeed, particularly if those governments would simply get and stay out of the way, and let it happen.
Jeff Moebus, Sitka
