First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller

When I was a child attending Hebrew School in New York in the late 1960's, in addition to learning to read and write Hebrew, studying Jewish heritage and spiritual practices, and practicing the melodies of prayer in the Torah, we also learned a lot about the Holocaust.

Through films, photographs, and stories, each of us had etched in our minds the horrors of people being rounded up, taken away from their homes, brutalized, tortured, raped and killed.

Because our elders wanted us to remember, and never let things like that happen again, to ANYONE, despite the trauma that it might cause to children so young, we were exposed to atrocities that no child should even have to imagine.

That's why, when I read the newspapers this week, my skin crawls and my blood boils, and I wonder how we can sit idly by.

I think people will be surprised to learn a central reason the four members of the Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT4) were in Iraq. It raises questions about whether the kidnappers are jihadists or something even worse.