In today’s America, we are witnessing incomprehensible, daily examples of cruelty and depravity affecting us all.

How can it be that:

• So many people are OK with the grabbing of legal U.S. citizens off the streets and sending them to camps, in unknown destinations, without due process?
• Millions of Americans will soon be forced to give up their health insurance — due to 70% increases — in order to put food on the table, thereby putting hospitals and urgent care centers under more strain when they start getting flooded by desperate parents with sick children?
• Absurd wealth and a chilling absence of empathy are now the norm, accepted by many in government, major businesses and media companies?
• The president is keen to abandon our U.S. postwar reputation as a reliable European ally to, instead, align with a ruthless dictator, throwing a sovereign nation under the bus?

As we celebrate this season of light and miracles, according to our individual traditions, we must hope that our country will again celebrate its precious diversity; hope that health insurance will be affordable for everyone; and that there will be a day when no child goes hungry.

To quote Victor Frankl, one of the most eloquent Holocaust survivors: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

We must believe that most Americans will soon choose to bring to an end to this utterly shameful chapter in American history.

Ineke Schair
Freeport