Ethics After the Holocaust
The University of Oregon sponsored a conference from May 5-8, 1996 entitled,
"Ethics After the Holocaust." Scholars from all over the world gathered in Eugene, Oregon to discuss the philosophical implications of the Holocaust. This symposium recognized the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Jewish concentration camps.
One of the presenters, Rabbi Ira Stone from Philadelphia, has a niece who attends Rosevelt Middle School. Through our personal contact with his niece, Elena Stone, members of the Peace Process 2001 team were able to interview Rabbi Stone.
Elena: So how do you connect the "Ethics After the Holocaust" Conference to the Peace Process 2001 project?
R. Stone: Well, the "Ethics After the Holocaust" Conference wants first of all to witness--to bring to people's minds--the events of the Holocaust, and to challenge people to think about how we can be good in a world in which an event such as the Holocaust took place. [This] is a really difficult question in the philosophical tradition of western culture.
Susan: Then how can we be good?
R. Stone: Our way of framing the answer to that question is primarily by suggesting that we see ourselves not as isolated individuals but as people who come into ourselves by depending on others. Therefore we have a responsibility to others, so to put it simply we ask people to think of their responsibity to the other person before they think of their responsibility to themselves. To put it more radically, they can only think of their responsibility to themselves by thinking of their responsibility to others.
Sally: Why did you become a rabbi?
R. Stone: I became a rabbi when I was very involved in the 1960's in political and social actions protests and concerns. [I] found them to be unfulfilling and wanted--and discovered, really, that everything that I was trying to do in that field I could do within a much larger and much less selfish context as a religious person, and as a religious leader. I began to rediscover my own religious roots and...discover for the first time that all my values came out of those roots and that I needed those values to nurture those roots into the future.
Sally: What is your response to our project and how do you think you can further Peace Process 2001?
R. Stone: Yes, I think that the Peace Process 2001 project is really exciting. I think the notion, first of all, of raising the issue of peace is a serious issue. Peace is something that I think people in the past looked at in the same way they tended to look at childraising--something everybody had to do but nobody ever told you how to do it. I think learning how to make peace--how to raise peace up as a goal and as a subject of concern is a very important, and at this point a desperately needed, lesson for our children who live in a culture that otherwise raises up war and violence. That's why I think it's wonderful and I hope that I will be able to take some of these ideas back to Philadelphia and maybe suggest to some school groups that I have contact with that they participate either directly or some other way.
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