Forced out of their countries due to war, persecution, natural disasters or human injustice; refugees are displaced people, many left with no personal help or reference as to where to seek help. On September 17, 2016 author Nicholas Kristof published an article with the New York Times questioning whether “You would hide a Jew from a Nazis?” The author approaches his argument deploying the appeal to logic by giving many reasons on how a few people volunteered to help the Jews escape the Nazis, even though the author implies on the use of logic appeal Kristof lacked the main point of his argument. Kristof begins building his credibility by stating strong claims of facts by giving reputable sources, citing convincing facts, statistics and successful utilizing the appeal to logos. “Unto the breach stepped a 33-year-old woman from Massachusetts named Martha Sharp….” Kristof begins his article by mentioning a heroic family who risked their lives to save as many Jews as they could possibly help. This greatly strengthens the author’s appeals to authority because he is persuading the audience at the very beginning of his article, this brings out the appeal to pathos because only a single family was willing to go behind enemy lines to help. “And left their two small children behind in Wellesley, Mass.”
Furthermore, Kristof emphasis on how they left their two young children which is almost impossible for any family to leave their kids behind to put themselves in danger to help others. Kristof utilizes significant amounts of logos appeal. This article is full of many facts, statistics and logical progression of ideas; the use of logos works in the author’s favor because it confirms his credibility to the audience with facts and how effective those facts were towards his main goal. One of my main concern in his diction is the excessive usage of logos; even though this works in his favor, lots of statistics and numbers might be boring or unpersuasive to the readers. Also, Kristof could’ve had used the “Sob Story” tactic to really imply his pathos. The biggest concern is lack of the appeal to emotion, Kristof puts on a great story on how successful each individual who was helping the Jews; nevertheless, I’m sure lots of people lost their lives trying to do so. “Take Poland, where some Poles responded to Nazi occupation by murdering Jews, while the Polish resistance (including, I’m proud to say, my father’s family) fought back and tried to wake the world’s conscience. One Pole, Witold Pilecki, sneaked into Auschwitz to gather intelligence and alert the world to what was happening.” (Kristof 2016)
The author includes this little insertion to boost his credibility way more than people could imagine. First; he starts with introducing a specific country and how they responded to the Nazis; in this occasion, the Poles weren’t collaborating with the Nazis. This gives the author a standing point because then why would Kristof add this lines to the articles. Furthermore; Kristof includes his father’s family, this tells the readers that the author is on the side of Jews automatically. By reading this simple paragraph, it’s fair to infer the author’s standpoint about the article which plays an even bigger role later on. “The Sharps’ story is a reminder that in the last great refugee crisis, in the 1930s and ’40s, the United States denied visas to most Jews. We feared the economic burden and worried that their ranks might include spies. It was the Nazis who committed genocide, but the U.S. and other countries also bear moral responsibility for refusing to help desperate people.”
This piece of writing would be considered biased against the United States. Kristof decided to pick a top big country that refused refuge to the Jews, well many people understand that the Holocaust happened during world war with lots of countries involved in it. The author decides to use such a big country against Jews; the only issues raising questions is that first, any other country could have been in the place of the United States, the united states didn’t start fighting the Germanys until it was later in the war, and lastly from the United States it was understood that the Holocaust wasn’t found out until the US army actually got to one of the camps. This would raise two quick issues; first at the beginning, the United States didn’t have an issue with German, so it would make sense to Americans to keep it that way; secondly, what if the United States really didn’t know what exactly was going on with Mass Murdering of Jews. The author chooses a really biased choice here with using America to look like the bad country which also on the American Perspective maybe that was the best option.
This article would be even more beneficial if his focus was the people who attempted to hide the Jews and lost their lives doing so than the people who were successful. The author relies heavily on success, which encourages the readers persuasively to some extent but generally speaking, I think that it would really be more beneficial if the author mentioned an equal amount of people that got killed. This would raise awareness among the readers because of those innocent lives that were lost trying to save other people. It would also strongly agree with the appeal to emotion because when people are killed saving others can get really persuasive. “Would I hide a Jew?” My biggest concern of the overall writing is the fact that the author chose to write about the Jews. It’s very unethical to kill people because of their race, religion etc…
Being a refugee myself, running from war, resettlement to other countries all this I’ve experienced and I think that the author should have generalized his main focus not just on Jews but also other people who are getting killed in various places of the world. I’d definitely hide a Jew, I’d hide any refuges seeking any rescue. So I’m questioning the author choice of “People!” This is a global issue concerning refugees and finding what countries they are going to flee to seeking refuge. The fact that the author chooses a particular group of people really makes me aggregated because I’m sure they are lots of conflicts going on in the world and should also be put into consideration. In conclusion; Nicholas Kristof writes a very persuasive article arguing the issues of helping refugees seeking refuge in other countries. Kristof uses most of the persuasive appeals to convince his audience quite thoroughly even though he relies on logic, numbers, and statistics; his argument is well convincing.
Although Kristof offers persuasive arguments and makes good points rooted in reasonable premises, with effective appeals to widely help-values, his argument eventually gets less persuasive for a few reasons. First; his tone: the overall tone of the article is not very concerning and not very encouraging to the audience. Secondly; the excessive use of logos, yes numbers are fairly convincing but lots of numbers could be unpersuasive. Lastly; talking about the “Jews.” This is a huge issue because it’s biased and loses a significant amount of leaders especially to those who have experienced different types of refugees or some type of inhuman justice to a different group of people. Due to all this weakness in Kristof’s argument I’ve concluded that the overall article is not persuasive.
Work Cited
- Kristof, Nicholas. “Would You Hide a Jew From the Nazis?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/opinion/sunday/would-you-hide-a-jew-from-the-nazis.html.
