This Thanksgiving, I’m thinking about Passover and how the way we choose to remember the past can shape the present and the future.
I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, a town known for its leftist politics. But those commitments belie the troubling legacy of its namesake, Lord Jeffrey Amherst. In the postscript to a 1763 letter, Amherst notoriously advocated for biological warfare against the indigenous population in North America, encouraging a military colleague to use smallpox-contaminated blankets “to extirpate this execrable race.” That legacy casts a long shadow, especially around Thanksgiving.
