Thread by @huntersmomma7

“ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴜʀᴇꜱᴛ ᴅᴇᴍᴏᴄʀᴀᴄʏ” - ᴇɪɢʜᴛʏ ʏᴇᴀʀꜱ ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ

Marines—this was your Rabbi
He buried your brothers on Iwo Jima.
80 years ago, he delivered a eulogy that became legend. It was delivered at Tony Stein’s memorial at Iwo Jima before his remains were later moved back to Ohio.

I prompted @ChatGPTapp to ask what Rabbi Gittelsohn might say to America today.

In memory of Cpl. Tony Stein—Jewish son of Ohio, Medal of Honor and Purple Heart recipient on Jewish American Heritage Month.
(Thread 🧵 below 👇🏻 )
@USMC
#USMC #SemperFi #IwoJima #TonyStein #WWII #HonorTheFallen #JewishAmericanHeritageMonth
#NeverForget #MarineCorps
#JewishPride #JewishVeterans #80YearsLater #ThisIsAmerica #StandAgainstHate
1/7

Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn:

“Here we stand—not on the ash of Iwo Jima, but in the rubble of a different kind. Not physical ruins, but moral ones. Eighty years ago, I spoke on sacred ground, among the graves of young Americans who gave everything for a dream—a dream of unity, of brotherhood, of a ‘purest democracy.’
Protestant and Catholic.
Jewish and Muslim.
Black and White.
Rich and poor.
They died as equals, and I believed their sacrifice might heal the divisions of the living.
I was wrong.
Or perhaps just early.

Today I speak not to the dead, but to the weary living.
I see your faces, buried in screens, narrowed in mistrust.
I hear the low hum of conspiracy rising once more.
The lies are familiar. They have changed only in font, not in function.
Once, the Jew was a moneylender in a pamphlet.
Now he is a meme.
Once, hatred marched with boots. Now it grins in Ye’s summer anthem—mocking six million Jews, and forgetting the fifty million more lost in that same war.

And we—we who buried the dead, who stood silent on blood-soaked earth—must now raise our voices again.

Do you think I do not see the despair? The rising costs, the shrinking hope, the resentment of those told they’re privileged while they feel invisible?

I see it in the angry young men who feel cheated by a world that promised opportunity and delivered ridicule. I see it in the students who chant slogans they barely understand, who celebrate violence with hashtags, believing it to be justice.
2/7

But let me tell you something eternal:
No hatred ever brought healing.
No scapegoat ever ended suffering.
And no grave ever asked for more war.

I served in a war that tore the world apart.
I watched friends die to protect strangers.
I held men who could no longer speak, but whose blood whispered something holier than any sermon: “We are one.”

You don’t have to believe in God to know this is true. Biology will confirm it—99.9% the same, we are.
And yet that 0.1%?
We use it to divide ourselves into tribes, to justify our cruelty, to mask our fear.

We were warned.
Over and over.
By the smoke of Auschwitz.
By the trains that never came back.
By the numbers tattooed on flesh.
By the cries from gas chambers that echoed through history.
By the lynching tree.
By Sarajevo. Rwanda. Darfur. 9/11.
And now, by October 7.

Still, we chant. Still, we blame. Still, we march in circles of rage, convinced the “other” is the cause of our pain.

I tell you now—if the blood of Iwo Jima cannot humble us, what will?

I will not romanticize unity.
It is not a utopia. It is a discipline.
A labor. You cannot buy it with slogans. You must build it in silence, in discomfort, in the quiet act of listening to someone you’ve been told to hate.
3/7

So speak—to the stranger.
To the outcast. To the neighbor whose vote you detest.
Speak not to correct, but to connect.
If the dead could rise from Iwo Jima’s soil, they would not ask for statues. They would not ask for flags.

They would ask us only this:
‘Did our sacrifice teach you anything?’

Make no mistake: we have failed them. But we can still try again.
Let this be our vow—not to the fallen, but to the future:
We will not let hate wear our face.
We will not be foot soldiers for the old lies, repackaged for modern eyes.
We will not let our children inherit a world that teaches them to fear what is different, instead of understanding it.

Tony Stein died storming a beach for the same freedom being questioned today.

His parents emigrated to America escaping antisemitism.

He fought for the right of this nation to live in debate, not in bloodshed.
To protest, not to persecute.
To critique without dehumanizing.
To disagree without destruction.

And so I say to you now:
Put down your rage.
Pick up your responsibility.
Hold your country accountable—not with hatred, but with hope.
And when you see the old poison rise again, call it what it is: a betrayal of everything the fallen once dreamed.

May their memory shame our silence.
May their blood stir our courage.
And may we finally build a world worthy of their sacrifice.

Amen.
4/7

If this moved you, share it.
We must not let the sacrifice of men like Tony Stein and so, so, so many others be erased or distorted.
We are not 100 tribes.
We are one flag. 🇺🇸
#NeverForgetIt
#NeverForgetThem

If you want to know more about the history of this original speech and read an excerpt, keep scrolling.
5/7

When the Battle of Iwo Jima ended, 5th Marine Division’s Protestant Chaplain, Warren Cuthriel asked Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn to deliver a sermon at the nondenominational dedication ceremony.

The other chaplains expressed concerns a Jewish Rabbi would be delivering the dedication sermon at a mostly Christian cemetery. Gittelsohn spared his friend any embarrassment and did not deliver his sermon during the dedication, but instead to his Jewish congregation at their own ceremony.
6/7

However, Cpt. Cuthriel forwarded a copy of the Rabbi’s sermon to those above him and when it reached more receptive eyes, the power and depth of his words quickly spread across the nation.

Newspapers printed the sermon in its entirety. Radio announcers read it in entirety on air.

This is an excerpt and it became US Marines’ words to live by:

If you want to read in entirety:
nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/g…
7/7

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