The issue I am writing about here is not the Holocaust Revisionists' ad from a few weeks ago, but the Jewish community itself. I relate the placement of this ad to a couple of other events that have managed to unite the Jewish people at Penn State and the surrounding community.

I am referring to the time someone drew a swastika on the door of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity's house two years ago and the time Leonard Jefferies, a professor at New York University, was in the press for allegedly making a series of anti-Semitic remarks. Although the university attempted to remove him from his position, he still remains there.

I relate all these because they are drastic displays of anti-Semitism that result in the coming together of the entire Jewish community at Penn State to argue and debate the issue and to give their Judaism a little more thought.

At first, I was upset that it should take something like this to spark Jewish people's interests. I realize that, regardless of the reason, there is Jewish interest out there right now.

I support the view that the publication of the Holocaust ad was a good thing because it made us realize that the issues concerning Jews worldwide today are taking place here, in our own community, and they affect us directly.

My goal is to see some of the Jewish people who have been affected in any way by the ads or the response it has provoked at any of the weekly Shabbat services on Friday night and Saturday morning.

My goal is to hear Jewish people on campus talking about the Middle East peace process or Michael Shmerkin, the only Jewish figure skater in the 1994 Winter Olympics representing Israel.

My goal is for everybody on campus, Jews and non-Jews alike, students and faculty, to see Schindler's List and to visit the photography exhibit on display in the HUB Gallery on the Warsaw Ghetto. Think about what is going on around the world today and how all of it relates.

Take this opportunity to actually visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. with Hillel in April and draw your own conclusion. And keep writing letters to the The Daily Collegian and the Centre Daily Times. Get involved.

Anti-Semitism is a big issue right now. But don't let it become less of an issue in two weeks or a month. While this incident is slowly becoming a thing of the past here, it is not a thing of the past in Germany, Russia or Israel. This is something we should all think about. Don't let it scare us. Let it motivate us -- all of us.