Editorial: Not going gently into that good night

In 1951, Dylan Thomas published his famous poem, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” Intended for his dying father (or at least reputed to be), the poem is a sustained plea to make the most out of life, no matter how late.

“Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

This week we saw two different spectacles of not going gentle into that good night, one on a local level and the other on a national level.

In our cover story, we profiled Harold Wohl and the Beth Sholom Daf Yomi shuir. The story was a positive and inspiring one; about busy men who make time in their day to arise early and learn a two-sided page of Talmud. The story was a small one, but we thought it conveyed a larger idea about what it means to make a commitment. Wohl was a great character, a man in his early 90s with the vigor and hope that would make a man 20 years his junior jealous.

The other story, which we did not cover, was about Helen Thomas. The famous Hearst columnist unceremoniously resigned months ago after candidly telling a rabbi and his son that the “Israelis should get the hell out of Palestine and “go home” to “Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else.”

The fallout for Thomas’s comment was immediate and she apologized and resigned her seat in the White House press room. If there was any doubt of the fallaciousness of her apology it came on Dec. 3 at a conference held by Arab Detroit.
“Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street, are owned by the Zioinists,” Thomas told a crowd of about 300 that responded with a standing ovation.

Putting aside the very unpleasant fact that an organization in America would applaud these brazen anti-Semitic words (replace Zionist with Jew and you’ve got every anti-Semitic canard since Nazi Germany), what is more upsetting is who Helen Thomas is. Thomas was one of the pioneer female journalists. The first one to work in the White House, a woman who lived through World War II and the Civil Rights movement. You would think she would know better to understand what hate is.