Night Justice

muddy waters

PHOTO PROMPT © Dale Rogerson

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They dragged her into the dank forest, foul water and mud clinging to her.

“You still believe that advocating for genocide is a matter of context?”

“There’s a difference between allowing hateful speech and advocating for the act of genocide.” She remained smug even as a prisoner.

He sneered. “There is no redemption for you. For the rest of your life, each night there is only the dream. Step beyond those trees. Tonight, you are Jüdin. The next, Nazi. Go.”

The woman slogged through the mud trembling with cold. There was a clearing beyond the trees and a sign. Auschwitz.

It’s Wednesday and once again time to participate in Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ 5 January 2024 edition of Friday Fictioneers. The idea is to use the image above as the inspiration for crafting a poem or short story no longer than 100 words. My word count is exactly 100.

Truth be told, I wrote this story last night while I was in bed unable to sleep. By now, most of you have read the story of former Harvard President Claudine Gay. In early December 2023, Gay testified before a Congressional committee, stating that calls for Jewish genocide by Harvard activists did not violate the university’s policies against hate speech. She wasn’t the only ivy league administrator to say so, indicating that this disgraceful behavior is not isolated to one person or one institution.

Dr. Gay has resigned as President but is still on the Harvard faculty and retains her $900,000 a year salary, so she has been demoted in title only.

It’s frustrating when people in positions of high influence are allowed to blatantly advocate for heinous words and actions without even the slightest consequence. I believe there is an ultimate judgment all of us will face and we will be called into account for every thing we have said and done in our lives. Not a comfortable prospect to be sure.

I doubt Dr. Gay believes such a thing as she continues to deny any wrongdoing either in her testimony or relative to the overwhelming evidence of her plagiarism. I certainly have no ability to affect people like her…except in my imagination.

gay

Claudine Gay. Photo credit Will Oliver/EPA

Think of it. What if Dr. Gay were, by some unseen and powerful authority, condemned to live her life in her dreams each night, alternating between a Jewish woman, a prisoner in one of Hitler’s death camps, and the role of one of the brutal Nazi guards? Would she learn humility even then?

I’m sorry if this is an uncomfortable topic and no doubt some of you reading this will disagree with me. However, for as long as human beings have been writing fiction, we have been commenting on the state of humanity. This is part of that sad state.

According to Google “Jüdin” is the German feminine word for “Jew.”

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.

32 thoughts on “Night Justice”

  1. To be clear, Gay did not adocate for genocide or even for violence against Jews. These were her words “Calls for violence or genocide against the Jewish community, or any religious or ethnic group are vile, they have no place at Harvard,”

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  2. Well-written story, James. I don’t usually read the footnotes – especially when they are three times the length of the FF! However, this time, it caught my eye. What bugs me, is when they resign from one position but maintain another and retain their salary? Really? Shows one of the many things that are wrong in this world.

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  4. Dear James,

    Now wouldn’t that be an eye opener for her? Reminds me of a TZ episode where a war criminal was forced to revisit the camp and the ghosts of his victims. Somehow, before you epilogue, I knew who “she” was. Well done. I’ve been horrified as this story has unfolded. You can’t say that a call for genocide is misconduct???? Thank you for this story.

    Shalom,

    Rochelle

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    • You’re welcome, Rochelle. This isn’t a story you enjoy so much as need to experience. At least for me, it also brought up how I face the consequences of my actions, both good and bad. For her and for us, we sometimes need a refining fire to purge us of our impurities. Yes, I intentionally gave my tale a Twilight Zone “feel.”

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  5. The truth and blame for the present situation, in my humble opinion, lies with the UN_ they failed to give both parties equal say and importantly listen. !948/49. No wonder, the UN is a toothless talking shop.

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  8. James, I have to give you a nod for having the courage to address this topic. I read her entire resignation letter, which was FULL of other people’s words not duly cited. It was almost laughable. It’s too bad she remains an esteemed professor who will continue to influence our youth.

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  11. I can’t recall the source of it, but at least one scifi vehicle has been used to depict a scenario in which a convicted prisoner was subjected to re-education in an artificial world induced into his or her own mind. The passage of time was also controlled in the construct, allowing the prisoner to experience years of such “imprisonment” in a much shorted period of real time externally. Thus, rehabilitation could be accomplished more quickly than would be possible in real time or real life. The prisoner could then be returned to society a changed person with a much improved outlook. The danger of such re-educational tools is, of course, one of ensuring that those who apply them are properly monitored not to abuse them, and ensuring the benevolence of the principles guiding their application. But certainly such tools could be beneficially applied to demonstrate to folks like Ms.Gay the consequences of their beliefs on a personal level. Such a tool might also show better alternatives, once the original errors had been acknowledged by a repentant subject. The control of dreams would thus be a powerful tool of redemption.

    Of course, some might suggest that cinema is itself a simulation of dreams in which alternative scenarios and values may be explored. Science fiction has been producing such tales for quite some time, even without cinematic assistance. But storytelling alone requires voluntary cooperation. Enforced re-education is quite another matter.

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    • Any prison system is at least in theory enforced re-education. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Jewish concept of Hell considered enforced education and in the vast majority of cases, to be temporary, the person to be released once they’ve been refined?

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      • Judaism concerns itself with behavior here and now, and not with notions of the afterlife. The “hell” you’re describing is more like the Catholic notion of Purgatory. But Judaism has also entertained speculations about the ” ‘Olam ha-ba “, the world to come, and envisioned that repentance, correction, and learning to do better could continue within it. The biblical archetype of “hell”, however, is represented by “gei hinnom”, or “Gehenna”, which was a refuse dump in a valley just south of Jerusalem’s walls, where there was no end to the ongoing decay, stench, and ultimate composting or dissolution of organic matter. The archetype thereby represents utter destruction, though by a slow unpleasant process. It doesn’t include any image of correction or recovery. On the other hand, there is the notion that every neshama belongs to its Creator and must return to Him to be judged. The jury is still out regarding the results of that evaluation, and it will remain so as long as there is any hope of repentance and redemption — which brings us back to focusing on this life. As for how HaShem plans to deal with corrupted neshamot in the world to come, the possibilities seem to reduce to a stark choice between utter destruction of evil that refuses to be redeemed or inescapable uncomfortable self-awareness of any remaining shortcomings which one would be only too anxious to correct and be rid of. Such an uncomfortable prospect ought to be more than sufficient motivation to repent as soon as possible while flesh-and-blood existence still provides a certain insulation from the full awareness of what HaShem can see about us. Repentance, of course, is cited repeatedly in the Yom Kippur liturgy as mitigating the harshness of any impending decree of judgment.

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  14. Well, you certainly opened up a can of worms, James! I’ve been following this case and find the whole situation repulsive …. not just her words but the fact that she received nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
    Thanks for having the guts to speak your mind; I agree with everything you said.
    Great writing, James.

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