Apr 29, 2020

As seen in CNN: The Japanese American hero who saved my family

Excerpt from CNN.com

Five years ago, two friends texted me cryptically asking if I knew a Larry Lubetzky from Mexico. Yes, I replied. He was my uncle. They were seated in the audience as Susumu Ito, then 96 years old, projected a postcard from my uncle on a screen.

Ito had been invited by the US-Japan Council and the American Jewish Committee Asia Pacific Institute to share his experience during the liberation of Dachau as part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The 75th Anniversary on Wednesday of the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic is ravaging lives and livelihoods across our world while division, hatred and authoritarianism are thriving…

Read more on CNN.com

 

A postcard sent from Larry Lubetzky to Susumu Ito

COVID-19          Empathy

More from Daniel

The Media Is Over-Covering Divisiveness. It’s Going to Destroy Us

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In 2000, President Clinton hosted a peace conference at Camp David that gave many hope for peace in Gaza; but a few months later, the Second Intifada, a major Palestinian uprising against Israel, began. Having been working in the region for decades to found and build PeaceWorks, a company that used market forces to foster peace between neighbors in the Middle East, I was confused and depressed by the news. On Western television, I saw pictures of ruthless violence and terrorism from Palestinians, giving me the impression, at least initially, that the moderates I knew had succumbed to extreme ways. But when I went to talk to my Palestinian friends, and they showed me what they were seeing on the television, I was shocked:. Their news programs depicted all Israelis as merciless killers.

On both sides of the conflict, the news media seemed like it exclusively published stories portraying the worst of the other side, characterizing all Palestinians or Israelis as hateful enemies. It turned out that my friends hadn’t changed at all; they just weren’t the ones the media were showing. And in portraying things falsely in such a negative light, the media fed the conflict rather than helping resolve it.

We Americans are now facing this same problem, with potentially devastating repercussions for our democracy and our ability to lead the free world.

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