Liberals are bad for the Jews and always have been...

Unless you have been living under a rock you know that the media and the Internet are awash with articles about attacks on and responses from Jews on the "left" [sometimes called "progressives"] who have been criticized or attacked [depends on your point of view] for their comments about Israel. Some of these folks have questioned Israel's right to exist [funny they don't question any other country's right... but that's for another time].

This kind of interchange, which has been going on for a long time in the Jewish community has fostered a sentiment that anyone who takes a left of center view is, ipso facto, bad for the Jews. They are bad and have always been bad.

Now I don't deny that the preponderance of vicious attacks on Israel and its right to exist currently come from the left. In fact, some of the critiques by these same groups and/or individuals [among them many Jews] have morphed into overt antisemitism. That's a given. But that should not result in a re-writing of history.

All this was by way of introduction to an interesting interchange of emails i hae recently had with a young man who is studying for the rabbinate. I was a bit hard on him [email produces that tendency in me] but I hate to see history being manipulated to reaffirm one's contemporary conclusions.

February 25, 2007
Dear Professor Lipstadt,
I am a student working toward Rabbinic ordination at a Yeshiva in Israel, and am also interested in Holocaust research. I would like to compare some of the editorials and media of the left and far left in America during the 30s (downplaying the threat of Hitler) with the current barrage of far-left media denouncing the Israel lobby and downplaying the threat posed by Iran.

Are there any books or articles in particular that you recommend on the editorial and media coverage in the period immediately preceding (and during) the Holocaust?

Thank you very much for any help that you can provide.
Sincerely,
Jon

February 25, 2007
Dear Jon:
You have it backwards. In the 1930s the group that played down the threat Hitler posed came from the right. The "liberal" media were way out front in calling Americans' attention to the Nazi threat.

You may not like the left now but don't engage in fictional history.
Deborah E. Lipstadt

February 26, 2007
Dear Jon:
I have been thinking about your request for information.

I was wondering if someone had told you the "liberal" media in the 1930s had played down the Hitler threat or if you had just assumed that was the case.

It's a strange claim for anyone to make. As bad as FDR might have been, I can assure that had a Republican been in office it would have been even worse. Anyway, your thesis intrigues me and I was wondering from where it originated.
Thanks,
Deborah E. Lipstadt

February 27, 2007
Dear Professor,
The idea was simply a hypothesis, an assumption that I was making without ever having read or seen any work on the media of the period.

I am not a historian nor a political analyst, but I just find the rants of the far-left media to be so unbelievable. The stretches that these people are willing to make - e.g. "He never said the Holocaust didn't happen - he merely said that it is blown way out of proportion", or "Ahmadinejad never said that he wanted to destroy Israel - He just said that the Zionist regime is a logical contradiction which will not last much longer - expressing the way he sees reality, not a personal desire".

The idea hit me that there must have been columnists who wrote the same thing in the 30s about Hitler - "He never said that his goal is the domination of Europe" or "He may be passing laws which seem anti-semitic, but we have no reason to think that the Jews are in any real danger, as Hitler has made no explicit threats to their existence."

Even the majority of the Jews in Europe did not believe that Hitler would exterminate them until their predicament was already too dire. So I ran some searches online to see what was being written in the media in the 30s and early 40s

I'm not as interested in what the Americans were being told from a factual standpoint, but in how the information was being presented, and the public opinions that were generated as a result. Did the media downplay concentration camps?

I'll admit I didn't put so much time into the endeavor, but I wasn't able to find much after a preliminary search. Your name came up a few times, so I figured that you might be able to provide me with an accurate text or two.

The fact is, you know better than most that for every accurate (or at least truth-seeking) work on the Holocaust, many fraudulent and revisionist (in the rewrite falsely sense of the term) works abound.

I don't plan on engaging in "fictional history." That's precisely why I asked you for an appropriate starting point.

Thanks again.
-Jon

February 27, 2007
Dear Jon:
First of all look at my book Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust. It will give you tons of information.

It will show you how the liberal and left media were the ones pushing for a strong response to Hitler, for open immigration, and for help to the Jews. In fact, if you give me your mailing address, I will be happy to send it to you.

I am glad that you turned to me. That was wise, i.e. to go to someone who has worked on the period.

What prompted me to say you were engaging in “fictional history,” was your assumption off the bat that if some [and they are very very few] far left folks are looking to exonerate Ahmadinejad; it must have been the same thing in the 1930s and 1940s.

What I heard – and you will forgive me for making assumptions but I think the evidence I was basing it on was pretty strong – in your query was an apriori conclusion that liberal/left = bad for the Jews.

That is a sentiment that prevails in many Jewish quarters and it is simplistic, especially when applied to history.

I hope this explains my reaction. And I hope you will reflect on your assumptions. I do not know if you are headed for the pulpit but it can be a bully pulpit indeed and I am reminded of the Rabbinic teaching: hachamim heza’aru b’devrachem. [Scholars be careful with your words. DEL]

Yours,
Deborah Lipstadt

p.s. In the interests of full disclosure, let me tell you that I plan to post our exchange of emails on my blog. I will, of course, not mention your name.

February 27, 2007
Dear Jonathan:
Since I ended my last email to you with caution, hachamim heza’aru b’devrachem I thought I should write and say that if my straightforward style in any way offended you or might cause you to refrain from asking for scholarly advice in the future, then I am very sorry.

I probably could have said the same thing in a more constructive fashion [I do, however, stand behind the content 100%] but you obviously pushed a button in me. I get queries such as yours all the time and yours was the straw…

In any case, keep asking before you reach your conclusions,
Deborah Lipstadt