This Memorial Day, we remember the storied 1945 eulogy preached by Lieutenant Roland Gittelsohn, a United States Marine chaplain, for American casualties at Iwo Jima. Noting the racial, social, and religious diversity of the fallen, Rabbi Gittelsohn observed: “Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudice. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.”
Some decades earlier, Roman Catholic theologian G.K. Chesterton wrote: “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes – our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead… All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father.”
For American Jews, the legacy of memory this holiday weekend is two-fold. May we transcend our differences by rejecting hate… and may we gratefully embrace tradition by – at the very least – granting our ancestors a vote as we chart our own course forward.
(Rabbi Joseph H. Prouser is the rabbi of Temple Emanuel of North Jersey and the National Chaplain of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting.)
This Memorial Day, we remember the storied 1945 eulogy preached by Lieutenant Roland Gittelsohn, a United States Marine chaplain, for American casualties at Iwo Jima. Noting the racial, social, and religious diversity of the fallen, Rabbi Gittelsohn observed: “Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudice. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.”