IEditors, writers, and entrepreneurs have our “rabbis” to inspire us, as American Book Award-winner and former Time critic Michael Walsh, one of my mentors (the luckiest among us have several), calls our personal and professional predecessors.     

Still, we’re far from omniscient and often unsure, as the compilation of this eighth issue proved.  Our choice of cover stories (with its accompanying graphics and pull quotes) petrified me.  

I was surprised, then flattered, to find my own confidence bolstered from the highest echelons of the magazine industry.  During our interview (which begins on page 64), David Granger, Editor-in-Chief of Esquire, the world’s most steadfast men’s literary-and-lifestyle magazine, said that “usefulness and humor…earn the right to tell your big stories.” 

But a question pierces the heart of that happy theory: when have you earned that right?  When is it more than hubris?  It took a compelling body of work before Steven Spielberg earned the right to produce Schindler’s List; likewise Yaacov Agam, the Israeli kinetic sculptor who created the New Orleans Holocaust Memorial. 

We had published only seven issues of Citizen Culture before the Holocaust landed in my lap, and I was faced with the dire responsibility of representing one of recorded history’s most heinous crimes.  The mantle was a weighty but essential one, because we are the country’s first magazine for Young Professionals, and we Young Professionals have something to shout at the rooftops: 
            We shall NEVER forget.
            Not Congo.
            Not Darfur.
            Not Germany, nor Poland, nor Romania, nor Austria, nor Hungary.
            Not Israel, or Palestine.
            Not Kashmir.
            Not Kent State.
            Not Kosovo.
            Not Kurdistan.
            Not New York City.
            Not Rwanda.
            Not Somalia.
            Not the Soviet Union (see page 74)
            Not Tienanmen Square.
            Not Vietnam.

*          *          *         

Recently, a reporter asked me what I think of the accusation that my generation believes itself “entitled,” in need of dues-paying.  I took offense to the comment, which shows an absolute lack of understanding that my colleagues and I may be young, but we have inherited our parents’ scars and, indeed, surpassed their drive.  We have learned, and we have regretted. 
           
We have applauded a Pope who apologized, and demanded integrity from our leaders. Our comics—the Jon Stewarts and Bill Mahers*—aren’t masters of schtick, but rather, purveyors of stark political commentary whose mockery expresses Young Professionals’ exasperation with a decrepit status quo. We rocked the vote, and will rise again, and again, with intellectually informed perspectives.
           
Young Professionals are neither stupid nor passive—we want both sides now, and are ever seeking Truth.  (It is no coincidence that the extended anti-smoking ad campaign called “Truth” has been one of the most successful in recent years.)  Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Greens: the power of the ‘blog is the power to speak and be heard.  We believe in the sanctity of the First Amendment: “no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise therefore…or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
           
We knew that if we were to present a subject so emotional and significant as the Holocaust, we would be hypocritical to deny that there are those who protest its significance, or indeed, that it happened at all.  Which is not to say I agree.  Still, it is the right of the reader alone to conclude the truth, and Citizen Culture is—as we’ve said often before—merely your mouthpiece.  Our sole hope can be to maintain the integrity of our journalistic backbone, and thus to earn the right to carry the burden of memorials like the one that begins on page 25.

Admiringly yours,