And in the meantime, back in New York and New Jersey and North Carolina, people in my family bask in the comfortable fantasy that all this talk from Islam is really nothing at all, that the real problem is the right-wing Republicans who want to take away birth control pills and install a theocratic rule forcing kids to pray in school, as well as prevent loving gay people from marrying each other.
I understand now why the Old Testament is filled with images of prophets standing outside the walls of the city, while the people inside lead their lives and ignore the signs in front of their faces. The modern equivalent is the Jew who consistently votes for the left while ignoring the savages who bray about killing them in genocidal fury. I love my relatives, but I also fear for their lives. I am most afraid that they will not understand their error until it is too late - which, in fact, it might be already.
God help us.
I think of Herr Frank, Anna’s father. The Good German who thought he could wait out Hitler, that he was safe in tolerant Holland. Then his fellow Germans came for his family and killed them all. The most “civilized”people in the world fellow under the spell of a wicked dwarf, and put the most efficient killing machine in the world at his disposal, and he was blind to his peril.