Continuity of Evil

Drawing on her family's Holocaust legacy and her own experiences, the author points out how trauma and oppression repeat through history--where a nation of Jews, once victims, in turn became oppressors of Palestinians in a cycle of suffering that erases shared humanity.

The book explores how various "others," including Indigenous Americans, Africans, Palestinians, and immigrants have all been portrayed as savages, criminals, or terrorists, forcibly displaced, and stripped of dignity. European settlers in Africa, Australia, the Americas, and Asia, including the Middle East, believed themselves entitled to take Indigenous lands and resources, destroying cultures they saw as inferior. The consequences of that worldview persist today, echoed by the current U.S. president and his followers. Yet, as the author notes, resilient Indigenous cultures have survived and are regaining recognition and respect.

The author laments that too many people, through unthinking obedience to power, perpetuate harm to others and to the planet itself. She sees this moral cowardice and lack of reflection on the consequences of our actions as a great danger.

Bright, whimsical drawings bring moments of hope and humanity to these difficult truths.