I'm interviewing Vera Sharav this week!
Any questions for this free-thinking Holocaust survivor?
Later this week, I will interview none other than Vera Sharav for Post-Woke #74 (going live on Monday, March 20).
Here’s some background on her:
Vera Sharav is a former librarian. She’s diminutive and refined, partial to pearls, classical music, and ballet. But she’s also a streetfighter: one of the most effective and passionate — some would say extreme — advocates for the rights of medical research subjects in the US.
Sharav has exposed experiments testing HIV drugs on toddlers in New York’s foster care system and helped scuttle government research that would have paid low-income Florida families $970 to test their children’s exposure to household pesticides.
She helped pressure the National Institutes of Mental Health to rewrite protocols on dozens of psychiatric studies to better protect patients. And her relentless advocacy was key to forcing US drug regulators to warn about the suicide risk that antidepressants pose to teenagers.
Vera is also part of the last generation of Holocaust survivors. She gave a speech at the 75th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code in Nuremberg, where she warned us: “If we are to avert another Holocaust, we must identify ominous current parallels before they poison the fabric of society.”
Most recently, Vera completed a five-part docuseries called Never Again Goes Global. Here is a short trailer for episode one:
So…is there something, in particular, you want me to ask her?
Mickey - I have a question for Vera.
I grew up Jewish in the Deep South in the 1950s and 60s. Not only was the horror of the Holocaust talked about all of the time but we were also witnessing the waning days of the Jim Crow 100 year apartheid that followed the Civil War. There was so much bigotry and hatred. Whenever I try to make reference to this time we are in and compare it with the atrocities that occurred back then, my family and numerous friends say I’m disrespectful of the victims of that time. Do you have any advice on how to help them see that these two eras are not so different?
Good for you👍 A great woman! It is important for us to hear and learn from experience!
Under the guise of "Palestinian freedom", we had 9 groups at UC Berkley create " Jewish free zones". This has been a growing and alarming trend. We also have parents who criticize school boards, Catholics who are pro-life, people criticizing government in general called domestic terrorists and put on watch lists and even arrested. The first part has been going on forever. The second a new addition under Biden.
What are her thoughts?