Bill H, you brought in the St Louis knowing next to nothing about it (I know the extent of your ignorance because I have read and heard the accounts of people who were on the voyage - most of whom have been traced - and have met some of them). And this comment Happily the U S has come a long way (even if all of the world has not) is preposterous and smug, except in the most narrow sense that the US is now a nation that is led by the nose by its most vociferous lobbies.

Rabbi Sol, should you not be spelling "monestary" as "monastery" as some others have done in this thread?