Dov Hikind, Holocaust Denier
Why is Dov Hikind such a shmuck?
I’ll admit that I was amused by his grandstanding in the New York State Assembly, waving his chumash around above his head and yelling about the gays destroying civilization.
But suppressing the memory of Holocaust victims? That’s pretty low, and not funny at all.
According to the New York Post, Jewish Brooklyn’s second-favorite shanda is currently venting his indignation at a plan recently approved by City officials and the NYC Parks Department to add prominent elements commemorating the persecution and murder of “homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled, political prisoners and Roma and Sinti Gypsies” to the public Holocaust Memorial in Sheepshead Bay.
From the horse’s mouth:
“To include these other groups diminishes their memory… These people are not in the same category as Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust… It is so vastly different. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims.”
Always with the snappy response, Gawker points out, “No, you certainly cannot, especially if you’re a real dick.”
It’s a fact. Eleven million people were systematically killed by Hitler and his Nazi regime in Europe in the mid-twentieth century. Six million were Jews who were victims of a special, all-inclusive, genocidal rage that was meticulously cultivated and undertaken by Nazi Germany, from early propaganda to the gas chambers, and which succeeded beyond all nightmares. But the other five million were there in the camps too. They were stripped of their rights under the same legal blasphemy, were imprisoned by the same fascist government, labored to death over their own graves, shot by the same death squads, and burned in the same ovens, because they too were considered sub-human in Germany. You can’t take that away from them. And unless victimhood is a brightly-colored plastic toy, and you’re a four-year-old, I can’t imagine why you’d want to.
It’s a city memorial on city land. If Dov Hikind (D-Kahanistan) wants a Jews-only memorial, he should build it in his garage.
I cannot express my response to this without using words that are inappropriate to post on a Jewish blog. @#$%^&*(O)DQWE%^&*(OP!WOER!!!!!! This makes me so so angry.
It’s a city memorial on city land. If Dov Hikind (D-Kahanistan) wants a Jews-only memorial, he should build it in his garage.
On that note, I recently looked at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial in Riverside Park for the first time after someone told me about it (though I’ve biked past it many times without knowing what it was), and was a bit shocked at the text: it’s also dedicated to “the 6,000,000 Jews of Europe Martyred in the Cause of Human Liberty.” This was eye-opening, because it helped me realize that this sort of absurd rhetoric didn’t begin on 9/11. (Neither the victims of the Holocaust nor the victims of 9/11 had any choice in the matter, and their deaths did not advance “the cause of human liberty” one bit.)
The six million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust, is a rough and outdated estimate. It is based on an estimate given by SS officer Adolf Eichmann, this estimate was presented as evidence used to convict him of war crimes. The evidence was supported by a report, that Adolf Eichmann submitted to Heinrich Himmler, at some point during the course fo the war.
The political powers of the time (1945) were more concerned with getting a conviction, and in justifying the ravages of war, than they were with detail and accuracy. Of those victims counted, and admitted into that evidence, only persons listed on actual death camp extermination records (dead lists) were allowed into evidence. This evidential count of 1945, eventually became the known historical victim total.
In the Nazi aftermath and its war crime tribunal fall out, only Zionist motivated politicians, aggressively represented and pushed for a (Jewish) victim death toll accounting. Any estimate at that time, was premature and highly inaccurate. A rush to judgment, if you will.
As of May, 2009, an additional 57 mass graves, containing holocaust victims, were discovered and unearthed,in the Ukraine. If witness testimony accounts stand, as have those that unearthed the mass graves in the Ukraine, then there are hundreds, possibly thousands more of these mass graves, located in now extinct Jewish and Gypsy villages, throughout the (only now open for inspection) former Soviet controlled countries.
The actual death toll will never be known, even if all victim remains could be found, and finally indisputably positively identified, and DNA matched to their surviving families. The official estimate has been upgraded to stand between 17 – 25 million victims. The actual human toll of the Nazi Holocaust across Europe, is possibly double or triple that.
In my extended family alone, there are over 400 missing and unaccounted for family members, representing all holocaust victim groups, in all fascist afflicted countries. They are STILL missing. This same unofficial missing and unaccounted list, repeats itself in many other families,countless times!
What strikes Jewish holocaust victims above all others is, that on the death camp records submitted at that tribunal, the people who were systematically exterminated without question, over 80% of the dead listed, were Jews.
Over the years there have been repeated attempts,to purposely deny, minimize and exclude certain groups from the holocaust suffering and victim count. In a sense, to deny the ravages of the holocaust for one group, is the same as denying it for the Jews. Doing so dishonors and diminishes ALL the victims, and discredits and denies the Holocaust itself.
Worst yet, it silences and discredits, the “other” witnesses.
In the end, ALL holocaust victims are equally dead and gone. Generations of their surviving families have been irreparably damaged, and financially ruined, regardless of race, ethnicity, culture or religion.
A whole century of people and their families, devoured!
But bacht!
Wow, BZ. Thanks for the info, I had never heard of that memorial and the inscription makes no sense whatsoever. If it’s a memorial of the Warsaw Ghetto, why is it dedicated to 6 million people? Surely not all 6 mil Jews killed were from the Warsaw Ghetto? And of course the absurdity of calling them “martyrs for the cause of human liberty” (um, what?)
No matter what you think of Hikind’s ideas, here you have another example of an Ortho guy equated as a dick with the Gawker quote that Chilul Who used and of course there are no cries from all the Jewschool leftists against attacking the person instead of just his ideas. And the D-Kahanistan label attempts to catch tens of thousands if not many more all as ultra crazy. Real nice total lack of fairness from the usual rabbit eating kibbutznick crowd.
To Kishkeman –
Though I agree with you that it is unfair to typecast large groups of people based on one man I do wonder how there can be such a difference between insulting or attacking a person’s ideas and their character. After all, our actions are very often based off of our ideas and both are windows into who we are as people. Can you really compartimentalize a person like this? What then is the definition of a dick if not a person that is willing to dismiss others’ suffering so easily? I’m just asking.
Also, I do find it a bit interesting that you seem so angry about the perceived painting of all Ortho jews with the same broad brush stroke, and yet freely do so yourself when describing “leftists”.
Kishkeman, that policy applies only to comments on our site (read the fine print before clicking “submit”), not to the Gawker.
Kishkeman, two things… one, I’m pretty sure Gawker called him a dick because of his ideas, not his personality. second, what does in mean that people are “rabbit eaters”? And I can’t say this enough (so I guess three things) A BLOG IS NOT A NEWSPAPER!!! Blogs are to spout opinions, so there is no need for fairness, and CERTAINLY no need for balance. If you Google “Jewschool” you’ll see the byline for the website is “Progressive Jewish views on religion, politics and culture.” Nowhere does Jewschool claim to represent all Jews, all progressives, or be fair, balanced or anything other than to provide progressive Jewish views on religion, politics and culture. You want fair and balanced? I hear Fox News has it…
Kishkeman – the “(D-Kahanistan)” was an easy joke was directed against the man himself, not his district. While I have met a few Kahanists in my years in central/western Brooklyn, I wouldn’t presume to accuse the whole population of being Kachniks. I hope this clears that up.
Justin – “rabbit eaters” are sorta like “pork eaters”, but snacking on a different animal specifically outlawed in the Torah for consumption. It’s an old epithet against the secularists in Israel.
I second the complaint against Kishkeman that he gets upset when orthodox sectors get painted in one brush, while he bemoans the “usual rabbit eating kibbutznick crowd.”
I have *never* eaten a rabbit. And for hell’s sake, I’ve *certainly* never lived on a kibbutz.
Nowhere does Jewschool claim to represent all Jews, all progressives, or be fair, balanced or anything other than to provide progressive Jewish views on religion, politics and culture. You want fair and balanced? I hear Fox News has it…
Apparantly, I’ve been barking up the wrong tree here.
Kol tuv.
So, to conclude…
Hikind’s still a total ass-hat.
This is the best, funniest post I’ve seen on Jewschool. And I’m not often taken with praise for liberal Jewish bloggers.
The history is complex: more complex than most people have the energy to give due.
On one hand, Jews were not the only victims. On the other hand, the Jewish situation was unique.
It’s important to note that Jews were not the only victims of the Nazi killing machine, for a number of reasons: To honor those who were murdered, out of solidarity with all who have experienced oppression, out of a scholarly and legal interest in historical accuracy, and also an understanding all the different things that National-Socialism hated.
One can do these things and still understand that the Jewish situation was unique, in that Jews were the only one of these groups who were targeted for complete annihilation– neither converts, nor the children of converts were to survive, mischlings were to be sterilized if they were to live.
By contrast, even in the case of the Roma who saw losses of a comparable scale, there were plans for establishing reservations for “pure-Aryan” Roma who wished to pursue a traditional existence, and assimilated Roma were permitted membership in the Nazi party (there was even the strange case all Gypsy SS unit.)
Homosexuals were often oppressed in the Third Reich, not out of a particularly violent strain of homophobia in Germany, but because the Reich just happened to celebrate violence– in fact, given how the Nazis treated people they didn’t like, it would just be weird to not have that many kiled. However, for the most part, gays and lesbians were just expected to stay in the closet or return to the closet if they couldn’t be discrete enough not to get arrested– very few prisoners wore the pink triangle badge. Most homosexuals who died in the camps or the ghettos or in massacres were murdered for being Jewish, not for being gay.
Jehovah’s Witnesses were targeted because their religion, which is pacifistic, and somewhat anti-statist is antithetical to fascism. The problem was ideological– like political dissidents, they had a choice. But the fact is that we need to honor those who had the courage of their convictions to be anti-fascists in a fascist society who could have had it far easier had they had no convictions.
Honoring all the victims however, if we do so honestly, takes nothing away from our own people’s sufferings, so yes, Dov Hikind is a putz.
This is something I don’t understand – why people ever feel the need to go through the other victims of the Holocaust, explaining why they were targeted differently to Jews. The inference is, surely, that they suffered differently and not as much. They were not targeted in the same ‘complete’ way, and so their suffering was less (and Ian you’re wrong about the Roma).
The problem with this mode of thinking is not that it could take away ‘from our own people’s suffering’ but rather that in making these types of comparisons you’re trying to take away from their suffering. There’s simply no need for such comparisons to be made, and the only reason that I can identify that they are made is to prove that Jews suffered the most. And that’s not comparative – that’s competitive.
sssssssssssssnap.
Jordy-
My interest is just relating the best information that I can get from scholars. That’s it. It’s entirely possible that the scholarship I rely upon has been superceded by more recent scholarship.
Monuments and memorials are about symbolism. History is about making sense of all the evidence that we can find. They aren’t the same thing. I support these memorials but I don’t support rewriting history in a manner that contradicts evidence.
Now, much of what I did relate about the Nazi persecution of the Roma was a surprise to me when I first learned about it– but it does reveal a lot about how the Nazis defined “Aryan.” Keep in mind, the Roma speak an Aryan language and originate from Northern India– but they were still despised. This creates an ambiguity in the Nazi imagination. As a consequence the Nazis separated them into “good” Roma that lived and “bad” Roma (the vast majority) that they sought to murder.
It is PUBLIC MONEY and a PUBLIC PARK. FOR THE PUBLIC. Jewish people can fund and build whatever memorials they like privately. The money funding this is coming from all walks of NYC. Therefore, all people should be memorialized.
I am not Jewish. I found this site based on a search for the article. This sort of exclusionary behavior by an elected official plays into many of the racist stereotypes about Jewish people, as far being “chosen” and above non-Jews. It also plays into the victim card and exploitation of the holocaust perception. Every single non Jewish friend of mine, finds his position reprehensible.
Stalin killed 20 million.
Mao killed 50 million.
America was built on the backs of African slaves, for which there is not even ANY memorial for.