I cannot shake this feeling that the president of the United States cannot be moved by artifacts intended to stir the human soul.
Donald Trump has departed Israel. He made the usual stops at the Western Wall, called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then visited Yad Vashem, the Israelis’ memorial to the Holocaust.
He left a short note in the remembrance book at the museum on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
It was brief. HeĀ wrote of being there among “friends” and finished with “never forget.”
Yad Vashem is a stirring reminder of just how cruel human beings can be toward one another. I wrote about my own visit there in June 2009 and about the visit that the president’s immediate predecessor, Barack Obama, made there in 2013.
https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/03/yad-vashem-stands-as-testament-to-human-cruelty/
I don’t know whatĀ strikes Donald Trump’s heart, what makes it beat a little more quickly. I cannot pretend to understand this billionaire’s thinking and what moves him deeply. He once said famously that he’s never asked for God’s forgiveness. Goodness, gracious.
That is what sticks my craw today as I watch the president travel through and then exit the Holy Land en route to his next stop: a visit in the Vatican with the head of the Catholic Church.
I concluded my own blog post about PresidentĀ Obama’s visit to Yad Vashem this way: “Indeed, a tour of Yad Vashem ought to be required of every head of state who takes an oath to preserve the peace.”
At least Donald Trump went there. I hope — I pray — it moved him.