In pursuit of a gentler society

(Editor's note: Tuckahoe Middle School seventh-grade English students recently wrote editorials designed to persuade Henrico citizens to read, listen to or watch a story or book that reflected their individual cultures, as a way to help others better understand them. This is one of those editorials; click here to read others.)

I believe that everyone in our community should have to read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Number the Stars is a book written about the Holocaust from the perspective of an non-Jewish child. This can teach us all tolerance and educate people on the Holocaust in our communities. We need to teach acceptance and grace to all people in our communities including people of religions other than ours.

Over the recent years and months and throughout the past couple of weeks we have seen a rise in Anti-Semitic events. We have all seen the news and we all know what has happened. Think about it, stabbings on Hanukkah in Monsey, murders on Passover in Pomway, anti-semitic vandalism in Boise, kosher grocery store shooting in Jersey City, and finally 11 people killed in Pittsburgh for peacefully worshipping. The list could go on forever, because anti-semitism has gone on forever. You can look at anti-semitic evenst from back before the Common Era. Anti-Semitism has gone on for too long and I believe that this generation of people can change that.

The reason that I picked Number the Stars is because unlike other books it shows that Jews and other religions can coexist in peace. The main character in the book is actually Christian, but she accepts her friend and religion never gets in the way. This is the sort of attitude that we need to approach religion and all diversity with. If we approach people and religion with an open mind we can preach tolerance of all types of people.

There is no reason that synagogues and places of worship should be considered dangerous. They should be safe spaces to accept all people. If we work as a community to build interfaith bonds then we can stop this 10,000 year pattern of discrimination. This is why I chose Number the Stars as the book that everyone should read, because it takes everyone to make a gentler more tolerant society.