In the wake of the 70th anniversary of Kristalnacht, one might ask oneself, is there anything left to learn about the Shoah? Is there anything left to learn from the Shoah?
Well, thanks to information gleaned from postings on a couple of different internet message boards, I can assure you the answer is yes.
According to the highly reputable British tabloid The Sun, the long-believed rumor that Hitler was monorchic has been confirmed by his doctor’s priest’s diary. The Brits are particularly overjoyed at this revelation as it lends credence to their charming folksong “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball.” (The link above includes a fascinating sidebar detailing variations in the lyrics to the ditty.)
In related news, a Los Angeles area figure skating troupe has out Mel Brooks’ed Mel himself by putting The Producers on ice. See below. If you want to skip straight to the skating Nazis, that part starts around 4:30.
My conscience requires me to cap this with Brooks’s quote about his original intent with The Producers: “Rhetoric does not get you anywhere, because Hitler and Mussolini are just as good at rhetoric. But if you can bring these people down with comedy, they stand no chance. “
Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice…..
“Baptism of a Jewish Holocaust victim and then merely removing that name from the database is just not acceptable,” said Michel, whose parents died at Auschwitz. He spoke on the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Nazi-incited riots against Jews.
“We ask you to respect us and our Judaism just as we respect your religion,” Michel said in a statement released ahead of the news conference. “We ask you to leave our six million Jews, all victims of the Holocaust, alone, they suffered enough.”
Michel said talks with Mormon leaders, held as recently as last week, have ended. He said his group will not sue, and that “the only thing left, therefore, is to turn to the court of public opinion.”
In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.
“We don’t think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines,” Wickman said. “If our work for the dead is properly understood … it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It’s merely a freewill offering.”
Let me get this straight-ish. Israel Gutman of Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Institute is annoyed that a memorial monument to a group that suffered in the Holocaust isn’t appropriate because… it implies that they suffered as much as the Jews? I must be missing a step in his logic.
The monument, unveiled earlier this week in Berlin, is “half a block from the iconic Brandenburg Gate and across the street from Germany’s national memorial to Jewish victims of the Holocaust.” But how do we get from close geographic proximity to “we suffered more than you?” The monuments are of different designs, sizes, and construction. The new monument includes an explanation of the suffering faced by homosexuals under the Third Reich.
In my opinion, the monument is long overdue (though, so too are the monuments to the Romas, physically disabled, twins… and any other group that was systematically targeted by the Nazis). The issue here should be that Germany is still recognizing and apologizing for atrocities from 65+ years ago. And Yad Vashem should be applauding them for those efforts - not quibbling over the degree of the persecution.
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day (or, if you’re in Israel, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day). Israel takes the day quite seriously, at least officially. Restaurants and “places of entertainment” are supposed to be closed by law. Many Israeli TV channels are only broadcasting a still picture of a candle or an Israeli flag and a message that “broadcasts will resume after the end of Holocaust memorial day.” Other channels are showing Holocaust-related programming.
This morning at 10:00, the air raid/Shabbat siren sounded for two minutes, as usual. As usual, traffic came to a halt, people got out of their cars and stood at attention, passersby stood still, and everyone on the bus stood up. At my intersection, though, the taxis continued to zoom through, weaving around stopped cars, and the construction workers kept working, while the garbage collectors paused. On a friends’ corner the taxis stopped. I wonder whether the difference has to do with capitalism or the drivers’ degree of identification with the Jewish narrative or something else.
As another friend commented, it is also disturbing– though powerful– that the mode of remembering Holocaust victims here is via an air raid siren. Last night’s official government ceremony at Yad Vashem also had military undertones strewn throughout. The ceremony began with the entrance of a military honor guard with large guns. Throughout the ceremony they were told either to stand at attention with their guns or to stand at ease. The constant commands about shifting guns back and forth felt odd, distracting, and out of place.
Other parts of the ceremony were moving, particularly the stories told about six particular survivors who were present. The accompanying pictures were powerful, and I learned a number of things I hadn’t known before (including the fact that there were Nazi camps in Norway). I was especially struck by the fact that the oldest of the survivors was only 13 when the Holocaust began. This means that in very little time there will be no more survivors. I wonder what that will mean for the way in which Israel commemorates the day.
In some deep way, parts of American Judaism are still paralyzed by fear and still suffering from holocaust induced post-traumatic-stress. Going to day school I felt it, and being the grandson of survivors I know the narratives in a deeply personal way. We often hear that things seemed just fine in Germany before the Nuremberg Laws. Of course, everything wasn’t fine and all it took was an economic disaster to bring long-held hate to the surface in the form of blame. In some ways, our country today, looks a bit similar. Beset by enormous economic trouble we don’t yet know how our fellow countrymen will respond. A we-are-never-safe Jew might worry that– between all the Jewish Wall Street tycoons and Greenspan presiding over the run-up that resulted in collapse–rosy days might not be ahead. I don’t buy that analysis but at the same time I know how deep the narrative runs and re-runs. That is why it was so heartening to read Obama’s speech on race given earlier today (I hope to watch later, at home). An amazing excerpt from the speech on the flip:
Here is an excerpt:
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.†This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
Though the vision doesn’t talk about Jews specifically it fights against the idea that minorities should be constantly on edge that one day, when the shit hits the fan, and the problems are great, that the “real Americans” will behave like the “real Germans”. It says that we are all, together, the “real America.” My grandfather recently passed away but this is the sentiment, the dream, he was chasing when he fled Dachau, a place where he could be a real citizen. It is beautiful to hear a major candidate offer such an inclusive message (and mean it). This articulation of what America truly is and what politics should be about is, to borrow a phrase, very good for the Jews.
It’s been reported that Shimon Peres has met with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It seems that Peres is now considering starting a Facebook profile of his own. Why? This is what he told a group representing more than 60 countries, who gathered at Yad Vashem for an international youth conference about the Holocaust:
“Anti-Semitism is a disease of everyone. Persecuting minorities, discrimination, xenophobia and violence exist in many countries in the world.
“You have the opportunity to teach your friends about the memory of the Holocaust so that these horrors will never be forgotten and will never be repeated.
“You can fight anti-Semitism using social networks, like Facebook.”
I know that Facebook has the causes application, and that messages can be sent to members of groups and events en masse, but as these are voluntary initiatives - you don’t have to join a group, cause, event that you disagree with, I don’t think that Facebook will be the most effective tool for countering anti-Semitism. Besides, would you want to be Peres’ friend?
Update: according to CNN: “It is an awful and disgusting lie,” Smith said in a statement Monday provided by his publicist. “It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet,” read the statement.
What I want to know, now, is what he actually did say. I suppose we’ll never know.
OK, so everyone in the world must now know that actor Will Smith was in the Scottish press, who quoted him saying, “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today. I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming. I wake up every day full of hope, positive that every day is going to be better than yesterday. And I’m looking to infect people with my positivity. I think I can start an epidemic.”
I’ve gotten a dozen emails about this, and I’ve seen it reported in an assortment of blogs, and what I want to say is: STOP! More »
On Thursday October 18, 2007, NYU’s Bronfman Center hosted “Orthodox Paradox: A Debate on Jewish Values,†a panel presentation featuring Shmuley Boteach, Michael Steinhardt, and Noah Feldman, three controversial men with profoundly different conceptions of what Jewish values are and why they matter.
Before diving into the debate myself (don’t worry, you’re getting more than just a summary here), here’s some biographical information about each of the panelists:
Shmuley Boteach (the rebbe) is an Orthodox rabbi, educator, and author who considers himself “America’s Rabbi.†Host of the television show “Shalom in the Home,†on TLC Shmuley is the founder of the Jewish Values Network, a television network created to share Jewish values with the world.
Michael Steinhardt (the king, he has referred to himself jokingly as David HaMelech) is one of the most-well known Jewish philanthropists, having donated over $125 million to Jewish causes. Steinhardt was instrumental in creating Birthright Israel and the Jewish Campus Service Corps, as well as The Makor/Steinhardt 92nd Street Y. Steinhardt’s philanthropy is directed through The Jewish Life Network, his foundation, and focuses on “major projects that revitalize American Jewish life.â€
Noah Feldman (the scholar) is a Rhodes scholar, author and Professor of Law at Harvard University. He helped to draft the first Iraq constitution, and much of his work focuses on the intersection of religion and politics. In the summer of 2007, Feldman published a controversial article in the New York Times called “Orthodox Paradox†in which he provided a scathing critique of the Modern Orthodoxy community in Boston in claiming that he and his non-Jewish wife were intentionally removed from a photo of Maimonides alumni. More »
The son of a good family who stole apples from a cart did not become a thief overnight. The deed has its roots in previous generations. Perhaps his very pious grandfather hid behind the bimah of the synagogue in the name of humility, but the act contained a trace of deception (geneivas daas) because he was acting more pious than he really was. His scholarly son went a step further and “stole” chiddushei Torah from other scholars by reciting them in his own name. The grandson, in turn, became an apple thief.
–Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the Alter of Slabodka
***
If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.
Last week the BBC uncovered evidence of President George W. Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush’s involvement in a 1933 plot to overthrow FDR in a famous coup that would have replaced American democracy with a fascist dictatorship. The coup was the subject of the acclaimed 1973 book The Plot to Seize the White House.
Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen.
The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.
The BBC’s revelation is compounded by the fact that Bush and his partner E. Roland Harriman served as allies of Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist who financed Hitler’s ascent to power and the Nazi war machine. Bush and Harriman’s bank, the Union Banking Corp., was seized under the Trading With The Enemy Act in 1942. Harriman was also a major financial contributor to the American eugenics movement, which advocated, among other things, the forced sterilization of non-white Americans.
The current president’s policies seem to be an extension of his grandfather’s thinking. Bush’s latest string of Executive Orders are so disconcertingly undemocratic and un-American that even the Right-wing is growing leery. Last week, Bush signed an order that would enable him to seize the financial assets of anti-war activists. And in his most troubling move to date, on May 9, Bush signed an order that states that in the event of another terror attack on U.S. soil, the legislative and judicial branches of government would become subservient to the executive. This move is precisely how Hitler concretized his power following the Reichstag fire.
Of course, this is not to say that Bush is a genocidal maniac, but rather that his policies pose an existential threat to American democracy.
Welcome to the new fascist era, kids.
Don’t say we never warned you.
[Update 7/29 10:15PM]
From: Daniel Sieradski
Subject: Question on Godwin’s Law
Date: July 29, 2007 3:59:52 PM EDT
To: Mike Godwin
Hi Mike,
My name is Dan Sieradski and I’m the editor-in-chief of Jewschool.com [...] I contacted you once before, I believe, with regards to a panel I had attempted to put together that explored the question “when is it okay to call someone a Nazi.”
Sadly, it never came together. Nonetheless, this issue is still pertinent, especially now with Bush’s passage of an executive order on May 9 that would make the legislative and judicial branches of government subservient to the executive in the event of another terror attack on U.S. soil. (Details here.) As you may be aware, following the Reichstag fire, this is precisely the procedure Hitler used to concretize his power.
I was just wondering if you could offer a perfunctory statement to my readers on this matter, seeing as how that, in response to making a comparison between these two policies, I have been accused of violating, well, your law.
The question is, essentially, why is it out of bounds to draw comparisons between specific policies of the Hitler and Bush regimes that achieve the exact same ends (in this case, eradicating constitutional checks and balances and enshrining the authority of the executive)?
I’ve CC’d Rabbi Dr. Michael Berenbaum, former director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, who has taken the position that it is never acceptable to draw comparisons to Hitler, and who on this subject, I also invite to offer his thoughts.
___
Daniel “Mobius” Sieradski
***
From: Mike Godwin
Subject: Re: Question on Godwin’s Law
Date: July 29, 2007 8:04:36 PM EDT
To: Daniel Sieradski
Hi, Daniel.
I get requests like yours from time to time, and my best answer has been to refrain from telling anyone whether it’s appropriate to cite or invoke Godwin’s Law (which, like any other 17-year-old, tends to operate independently from what its parent may dictate).
I will say that I crafted Godwin’s Law with an eye to keeping the memory of the Holocaust and other horrors of the Nazi era alive and in perspective — I was worried that the overuse of Nazi comparisons would trivialize a historical effort that we’d do better to remember in all its magnitude and detail.
That said, I have watched the progress of the Bush Administration with great fear and trembling, and of course I disapprove of many and perhaps most of its policies.
–Mike
Alright kids — question: How can we uphold the credo of “never again” if we view the Holocaust as a singularly unique event to which there can be no parallels ever drawn? How do we learn the lessons of the Shoah if we cannot refer to history in order to identify consistencies between history and current events, particularly when such comparisons may serve as a warning signal that may help us evade another tragedy? And with regards to the politicization of the Shoah, why is it acceptable to make comparisons between Ahmadinejad and Hitler, but not between Bush and Hitler? Discuss.
                                     Â
We often cite Isaiah 60:3 which talks about non-jews being attracted to us as we act as a light unto the nations. I wonder if this is what Yishiyahu was talking about:
“Jewish style†restaurants are serving up platters of pirogis, klezmer bands are playing plaintive Oriental melodies, derelict synagogues are gradually being restored. Every June, a festival of Jewish culture here draws thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. The only thing missing, really, are Jews.
“It’s a way to pay homage to the people who lived here, who contributed so much to Polish culture,†said Janusz Makuch, founder and director of the annual festival and himself the son of a Catholic family.
Poland’s Jewish community fell on hard times during the Holocaust:
Probably about 70 percent of the world’s European Jews, or Ashkenazi, can trace their ancestry to Poland — thanks to a 14th-century king, Casimir III, the Great, who drew Jewish settlers from across Europe with his vow to protect them as “people of the king.†But there are only 10,000 self-described Jews living today in this country of 39 million.
The article goes on to address where the Jewish cultural revival among polish gentiles came from.
Sometime in the 1970s, as a generation born under Communism came of age, people began to look back with longing to the days when Poland was less gray, less monocultural. They found inspiration in the period between the world wars, which was the Poland of the Jews….
The revival of Jewish culture is, in its way, a progressive counterpoint to a conservative nationalist strain in Polish politics that still espouses anti-Semitic views. Some people see it as a generation’s effort to rise above the country’s dark past in order to convincingly condemn it.
It is fascinating to think of cultural appropriation as a progressive response to nativist, nationalist authoritarianism. It makes a lot of sense but it must be weird to show up at a mock Hasidic wedding or their Festival of Jewish Culture and be the only Jew.
This year, the festival had almost 200 events, including concerts and lectures and workshops in everything from Hebrew calligraphy to cooking. More than 20,000 people attended, few of whom were Jewish.
That 20,000 people, Jews or not, show up for a festival of Jewish culture really is an amazing thing. Is it because Poland has such deep wounds to heal? Perhaps because it’s mostly free? Because klezmer is similar to other traditional Polish music? Frankly, I have no idea.
Wow, Kurt Waldheim- that name takes me back to sixth grade. I hoped assumed he was burning in a hell he theoretically believed in dead already. Check out this story about his life. Best parts: the writer of the obit refers to Waldheim’s lying about his service in the Nazi officer corps as his ”economy with the truth.” Also, during his tenure as Austrian president he was unwelcome in most parts of the world and he took virtually no official state trips to other countries- except to the Vatican (twice) and unspecified “Arab countries.”
In response to Subliminal (Kobi Shimoni) and Miri Ben Ari’s god-awful Holocaust memorial track, godfather of Jerusalem hip-hop and Corner Prophets frontman Sagol 59 decided to throw down his own track, “Shoah Business,” which — despite not being intended as a “dis” track — skewers Shimoni for his disgraceful lyrical exploitation of the Holocaust.
Full coverage, with Subliminal’s response, available in Hebrew only from Yediot Ahranot, here.
As Jews worldwide honored on Monday the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust, a 75-year-old survivor sacrificed his life to save his students in Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech College that left 32 dead and over two dozen wounded.
Professor Liviu Librescu, 76, threw himself in front of the shooter, who had attempted to enter his classroom. The Israeli mechanics and engineering lecturer was shot to death, “but all the students lived - because of him,” Virginia Tech student Asael Arad - also an Israeli - told Army Radio.
Several of Librescu’s other students sent e-mails to his wife, Marlena, telling of how he blocked the gunman’s way and saved their lives, said the son, Joe.
“My father blocked the doorway with his body and asked the students to flee,” Joe Librescu said in a telephone interview from his home outside of Tel Aviv. “Students started opening windows and jumping out.”
May his memory, and the memories of all those who were tragically taken from this world, be forever a blessing.
Hundreds of Holocaust survivors, students and members of youth movements gathered Monday in front of the Knesset to protest against Israel’s neglect of Holocaust survivors, many of whom are in a dire financial situation.
The rally came as Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday with memorials at the Knesset and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority.
[...] A representative of the treasury told a special Knesset hearing concerning survivors’ financial situation on Sunday that some 180,000 Israeli Holocaust survivors do not receive any form of assistance from the state.
[...] “Israel has a moral and financial obligation to the survivors, and time in this particular case is of the essence,” [Welfare Minister Isaac] Herzog said. He added that the “dire condition of the survivors casts a shadow on Israeli society.”
Several members of the Meretz Youth movement protested outside the Interior Ministry in Jerusalem Monday evening against what they said was Israel’s unfair treatment of refugees from Darfur.
The demonstrators, who purposely chose Holocaust Memorial Day to voice their protest, said Israel should be the first to welcome the refugees.
“On a day when the country unites in the memory of the six million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust, we say that Israel must keep its doors open to the Darfur refugees, despite the fact that we have no diplomatic relations with Sudan,†Meretz Youth chairman Uri Zacki told Ynet.
Watching Subliminal’s new video, released today in conjunction with Yom Hashoah, I couldn’t help but ask the same question.
Isn’t one mediocre Jewish MC’s exploitative Holocaust tome enough? Or did we need one just for the Israeli market as well?
Don’t get me wrong, I think hip-hop can be an effective educational vehicle. But this track is just contrite and awful. And don’t even get me started on the video.
Students said a three-week lesson that assigned students the roles of Germans and Jews during the Holocaust got out of hand when some students took the role-playing too far.
The exercise in the Waxahachie Ninth Grade Academy school’s Advanced Placement Geography course was meant to bring home the reality of intolerance during the Holocaust, school officials said.
The point of the class was “learning about the problems of intolerance and the problems of discrimination and helping kids understand what some people went through to change the world,” Principal John L. Aune told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KTVT.
Students and teachers said the students tagged as Jews were forced to stand against the wall as those portraying Germans passed by in the hallway. The Jewish students were also the last to eat lunch and had to pick up everyone’s garbage, the station reported.
Some students said the exercise got out of hand when the German students spat on or hit the Jewish students.
After dyeing her hair a brassy blond, Rachel insinuates herself into the superdashing Nazi’s confidences and, soon enough, his bedroom. It takes just one glance at the top of her head with its creeping dark roots for Müntze to guess the truth. Grasping her naked breasts in her hands, Rachel pleads her case with Shakespearean gravitas, “Hath not a Jew, er, eyes?â€
Yowza! In truth, Rachel — now called Ellis — asks of her breasts and then her hips, “Are these Jewish?†Seduced by the pertness of her argument or perhaps that of her physicality, attractively framed by black garters and stockings, Müntze answers her question silently but firmly.
A New Jersey man charged Saturday with attacking Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel at a San Francisco hotel earlier this month was a “lone wolf” who had also stalked the Nobel laureate in Florida, authorities said.
Police found 22-year-old Eric Hunt at a mental health treatment center in Belle Mead, N.J., where he had sought treatment within the past week for undisclosed reasons. He remained jailed Saturday night in Somerville, N.J.
Hunt faces charges of attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, elder abuse, stalking, battery and committing a hate crime. San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris pledged to vigorously prosecute what she called “horrible, outrageous crimes” by “someone who traveled here” to target Wiesel on Feb. 1.
Last week the BBC uncovered evidence of President George W. Bush’s grandfather 
I wonder who thought this was a good idea: