Many innocent people have suffered from every war. There comes a time when the memories are not so fresh as to be impossible to joke about. Certainly, we can make jokes about Ghengis Kahn or Alexander the Great's campaigns.

While the Holocaust is certainly much too recent to be able to joke about it in good taste, there was another, earlier, attempt at a Holocaust. It was in Persia and many innocent people did, indeed, die -- and most of these were Jews.

Yet, Judaism as a religion today jokes about that. In fact, the holiday that notes it, Purim, is marked with jokes, drinking, and Halloween-type costumes.

The Civil War ended in 1865 -- that was 148 years ago. Nobody who lived through Sherman's march on Georgia is alive today. I doubt that any of their children are alive today. Some, but not many, of their grandchildren are.

My grandfather was a bootlegger during Prohibition. He never talked about it to us. My father did not discuss it much (nor the fact that my grandfather was related to Bugsy Seigel). I have no problem in talking about it at all. Both of my children, who are also descended from a famous Hebrew journalist/satirist, barely mentioned him in their school "family tree" reports but went on at length about their bootlegger great-grandfather and Bugsy.