It is not always easy being Jewish at a school where it seems like practically everybody is, in some sense, Catholic. Imagine being in a 200-person auditorium when the teacher asks everyone to raise their hand if they are not Catholic. Imagine the shock when you find that yours is the only hand up. It is for this reason that I am not going to stay silent and feel the need to respond to Dan Allen's Jan. 31 response, "Play Doesn't Protect Women." It is one thing to voice your displeasure about the "Vagina Monologues," but to compare it to Nazi Germany is inappropriate and uncalled for.
First off, I am not going to sit here and claim to be the most faithful Jew, for I do not speak much Hebrew, and I will be the first to laugh at a Jewish joke. But I find it very difficult to sit around and let Allen trivialize an event that killed thousands of my ancestors. There are many events of mass murder that can be compared to the tragic events of the Holocaust, but you chose to compare it to a play. I recognize it is a controversial play, but once again I stress that it is a play.
You claim that you are helping to protect our Catholic mission here at Notre Dame by voicing your displeasure over this play, yet you choose to compare it to the Holocaust in which the Jewish religion was nearly wiped out. This was an event where Jews saw their friends and families murdered simply because they were Jewish. So here is my advice, if you want to be entertained or want to be a part of "The Vagina Monologues," - be my guest, for it is your right. As for you, Allen, I suggest you take some time out of your life to read "The Diary of Anne Frank," take a trip to the Holocaust Museum and rethink what you wrote.
Brian Seremet
Sophomore
O'Neill Hall
Feb. 1
