Over 30,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in Gaza, including over 12,000 children in retaliation for the deadly terrorist attack made by Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed over 1,200 Israelis, with an additional 240 taken hostage. Is there any difference between the two killings?

The Jews were murdered for no apparent current cause. It was an out-and-out terrorist attack. No warning. No nothing. The Gazans were killed in retaliation for the terrorist attack. Would you, the average American, reciprocate if any member of your family had been murdered by such a terrorist attack? What if it had been your entire family that was murdered?

How about a question to all you college folk and many others that apparently has never before been brought to your mind. What does the term “never again” refer to and how does it pertain to Jews and the Jewish state?

But first, answer truthfully: How many of you learn-ed college students and others really know about the Holocaust? For you accounting or finance majors, what is the significance of the number 6,000,000? For those of you not into numbers, that’s six million. Does that number have anything to do with a war, for instance like World War II?

The Holocaust is defined as the murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. This was systematic genocide. Did the Holocaust really happen? Did World War II really happen? Did tens of millions, other than Jews, also die? How about the 400,000 Americans in the military whose lives were taken plus another 600,000 wounded?

What do I personally know about the war and the Holocaust? Growing up, both children and young adults were inundated by movies, especially on this new popular medium called television, about World War II and the Nazis. We knew that we were the good guys and we won. It even hit home.

When I was a little boy, two or three years of age, way back between 1944 and 1945, living in an apartment building on New York City’s Lower East Side, I remember on certain nights, I could hear men from outside in the street yelling “blackout, lights out” as a precaution in case the enemy would attempt to bomb us by plane.

My mother had a friend who had a tattooed number on his arm. During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners had tattoos branded on their arms, but this was done at only one location, the Auschwitz concentration camp complex. Why don’t you ask your parents if they knew anyone who sported a tattoo on their arms? It was not a fashion statement

Regarding “never again,” it justifies acts of reprisals against terrorism in the name of fighting antisemitism. Words mean little without backing them up with action.

Dear College Boys and Girls, so many of you don’t know much about many things and you don’t even know what you don’t know. You think you’re smart? You should be, especially if you’re in college.

Therefore, I suggest you do do some research on the Holocaust and you might begin to understand why many Jews are paranoid, knowing that so many people would like to see them destroyed.

Even if you weren’t around when the Holocaust happened, you should know your history. It did happen. Six million! What a horrific number. So is 1,200, the number of Jews killed by Hamas terrorists. That could have been the sign of “The Beginning.”

Never again! Let’s make sure that history is not repeated. Numbers do count.

Alvin Goldberg

Great Neck