by Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
SYOSSET, NEW YORK
THE Yiddish word for “I’m sorry” is “antshuldigt.” Hello. My name is Marjorie. Please don’t confuse me with Congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG), the American politician, businesswoman, and the woman who is serving as the U. S. representative for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. She’s 47; I’m 83.
Everybody is apologizing these days: Lin-Manual Miranda apologized to those saying the new film adaptation of his heavily Latinx “In the Heights” downplays Afro-Latinos in favor of fighter-skinned performers. And model/cookbook author, Chrissy Teigen has apologized to one of her past victims for being a cyberbully. She was “truly ashamed” of her “awful, awful” tweets from 2011 to 2012 in which she trolled then teenager glamour model Courtney Stodden.
On Monday, June 14, 2021, Marjorie Greene apologized for “Offensive” Holocaust comparison, for comparing COVID face masks to the horrors of the Holocaust. (She lashed out at Nancy Pelosi for a requirement that House members wear face masks until all members are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.) Here’s Greene’s quote: “You know we can look back at a time in history where people were told to wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second-class citizens, so much so that they were put in trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany, and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about.” Such “narishkeit”—foolishness, nonsense!
She said, “I’m truly sorry for offending people with remarks about the Holocaust. There’s no comparison and there never ever will be.” This apology comes more than three weeks after appearing on a conservative podcast and comparing COVID-19 safety requirements to “a time and history where people were told to wear a gold star.”
This is important: When Greene was 19 she visited the site of Auschwitz Concentration Camp in what during World War II was Nazi-occupied Poland. She said, “It isn’t like I learned about it today,” she said of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews and huge numbers of other people were killed.”
Her statements have been so racist that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell earlier called her “looney lies” a “cancer” on the GOP. And The Atlantic Journal-Constitution carried this headline: THE JOLT: WHAT MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE DID NOT APOLOGIZE FOR.
Rep. Brad Schneider said he would introduce a resolution in the House this week to censure Greene. Schneider said, “I believe that words matter and that they have consequences. Elected officials, and especially members of Congress, have a great responsibility to carefully measure our words and be as precise as possible when we communicate.”
Wolf Blitzer wrote: “And I’m the son of Holocaust survivors, and all four of my grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust, and two of them at Auschwitz. I never knew any of my grandparents. My parents did survive. They were young and strong and came to the United States, and started a new life after World War II in beautiful Buffalo, New York, and had this great opportunity.”
Marjorie Greene also refused to reveal whether she’s had the COVID vaccine as she launched a bid to fire Dr. Fauci. Earlier in a press briefing, Ms. Greene announced her plans for a bill to reduce Dr. Fauci’s salary to 0. She also announced her “Fire Fauci Act,” which is meant to force Dr. Fauci out of his job.
This remark was almost as poorly worded as one made by Dan Quayle: “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in THIS century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.” He also said, “The future will be better tomorrow.”
Apologizing is hard work. Everett L. Worthington, a psychologist who studies forgiveness, says there are basically four ways people respond to forgiveness:
- Yes, I forgive you.
- I need more time.
- I can make a decision to forgive you, but I’m still very hurt.
- No. There’s nothing you can do to ever make it right. I don’t forgive you.”
[source: My Jewish Learning]
Morris Glass (1927-2017) who spent six years in concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dauchau, said, “Nothing that happened in the last 70-some years is compared to the Holocaust. Believe me, believe me.” And Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor/ Nobel Laureate, said,
“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”
NO, Marjorie Taylor Greene, this Marjorie doesn’t forgive you!