UK Schools Drop Teaching the Holocaust: A False Story Persists

There is a video slide show making the rounds that begins by talking about Dwight D. Eisenhower's comments on the liberation of the camps. Then it proceeds to condemning the UK's cessation of the teaching of the Holocaust.

One would think that people who are Internet savvy would have heard that this is a rumor that is untrue. Yet somehow it does not seem to sink in. I have blogged about this a lot

I don't doubt that there are schools where teaching the Holocaust is done in the most cursory fashion, if at all. But this is NOT the same thing as the UK officially dropping the Holocaust from its curriculum.

There are enough things to worry about and to protest against. We don't need to create false ones.

Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Racism: Engages in Antisemitism

Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Racism includes an article on Zionism which is deeply antisemitic in the most classic fashion. It is written by Noel Ignatiev, a name which might ring a bell for some readers. The article presents Zionism as a form of Jewish racism and repeats all the old canards from the 1970s.

Some of the shortcomings and rather outrageous aspects of this story are encapsulated by the letter the American Jewish Committee (AJC) wrote to Macmillan. Among the points made by the AJC and other critics are.

1. No other form of nationalism is included in the three-volume encyclopedia. Only Jewish nationalism is addressed. That should immediately raise a red flag.

2. Noel Ignatiev has absolutely no track record of scholarship in Middle Eastern or Jewish studies. He has described Zionism as an "ideology of race" and scandalously promotes the canard of Zionist-Nazi "collaboration." This is hardly an impartial article on Zionism in what is supposed to be reference work.

3. In fact Ignatiev wrote a very similar article which appear on Counterpunch, a site known for its anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism [opposition to the existence of the Jewish state not just to its policies].

4. Apparently when the AJCommittee contacted Macmillan for an explanation John Hartwell Moore, the encyclopedia’s Editor in Chief, defended the entry by arguing that Jewish nationalism is racist because it’s Jewish.

5. In his earlier statements and in the article conflates Zionism and Nazism. Ignatiev claims that Zionism “shared the [Nazi] belief that the Jews were a racial community based on blood.” This. of course, is complete balderdash, if not worse. Zionism says nothing about Jews being a racial community based on blood. This is Nazi talk and has nothing to do with Zionism.

6. Since the author is known as a propagandist -- not a scholar -- opposed to Zionism. As Brian Henry, a Canadian author, has asked "If the editor concerned chose Ignatiev because of his prejudices, how many other entries in the encyclopedia might reflect the editor’s political agenda?"

There is an excellent in depth critique of this whole shameful episode here.

Israel and Obama: Interesting perspective on getting it wrong

Israelis, it turns out, were overwhelmingly supportive of Obama's election. Why then were early reports of pro-McCain support so off the mark? Read about it here.

More Racism in the Georgia Senatorial Campaign: Saxby Chambliss does it again

When I reported on Saxby Chambliss' overt racism in the closing days of the campaign [his statement that the "other folks" are voting, i.e. African Americans], one could have dismissed it as a slip of the tongue.

But the fact that he absolutely meant it was made clear by some of the things he said on Fox News in the aftermath of the election. Note his juxtaposition of "minority voters" with "our people." [You can watch the clip here.]

COLMES: Why do you think you’ve been unable…[to] close the deal with the people of Georgia in terms of what happened on Election Day?

CHAMBLISS: Well, listen, we have, for the first time in the history the our state, a 30-day advanced vote period, and let’s give the Obama people credit. They did a good job of getting out their vote early.

There was a high percentage of minority vote, and I am tickled to death that as many Georgians as did examined their right to vote. That’s what make our election process the envy of the whole free world, but we weren’t able to get enough of our folks out on Election Day.

No comment necessary. Except maybe to Georgia voters: vote.

The Mormons are at it Again: Posthumous conversions of Holocaust victims

Years ago I went with Ernie Michel, an Auschwitz survivor, to meet with Sen. Orrin Hatch. Hatch had stepped in to tell Michel that the Mormon church would not continue converting Holocaust victims who had died in camps.

[The reason I was there was because Hatch had said that he wanted to pass a Congressional resolution affirming that the Holocaust happened as a response to deniers. I had told Michel, when I learned of this, that I did not think it was a good idea. "We don't have resolutions affirming that World War II happened."

Michel agreed and asked me to come with him to Hatch to explain why there should not be such a resolution. He was convinced and then decided to enter a new resoluiton commemorating the Holocaust. A signed copy of that resolution hangs in my office today.]

At the meeting, Hatch again told Michel that there would not be more conversions.

Well now, twelver years later, it seems that they are going on anyway. [Read Jerusalem Post article on this here.] Michel has given up the fight. He has been waging it far long than is necessary.

One could say: "Who cares what the Mormons do? What difference does it make?" In normal circumstances that might make sense but if it were my relatives who were killed because they were Jews I would be livid to learn that someone had ex post facto converted them to antoher religion.

When is someone in the Mormon chruch going to figure out how religiously insensitive this is. It is a blackeye for the church. Have they no shame? Haven't these people suffered enough already?

Obama's Victory: Excellent perspective on the European reaction

Andrei Markovits of the University of Michigan has an excellent piece on the European reaction to Obama's election in the Huffington Post.

He points out that the Europeans are busy congratulating themselves because Obama is more like them than like America.

They are using their pious happiness over his election to hide their own racism and racial inequity. In what European country would an Obama ever have a chance of being elected head of state???

The McPalin Legacy: hate, divisiveness, and exaggerated fears

I am sure many people heard John McCain's conciliatory words on Tuesday night. They were gracious, uplifting, unifying, and all that the McCain many people were attracted to in 2000 represented. Bravo to him.

But that one speech does not wipe out two months of divisive rhetoric, especially about the socialism we must fear from an Obama presidency.

Today's NY Times reports on an surge in gun sales. Many people have been convinced that Obama will take away their guns. Here's what one gun dealer said:

“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,” added Mr. Pruett, a former radio personality, of President-elect Barack Obama.

On the day before the election I heard another person proclaim that he would not vote for Obama because he is too close to communism.

As I have said often on this blog, there were many legitimate reasons for some people to oppose Obama. But the fact that he is a socialist or communist leaning is NOT one of them.

This is a legacy of John McCain and his sidekick, Sarah Palin's rhetoric.

Jewish tradition teaches: hachamim hizaharu b'devreichem, wise people be careful with your words. Well I would not call politicians necessarily wise but I think the verse is really directed at people who are leaders, i.e. people to whom others look up to....

This is part of their legacy. They and we will have to live with it.

Dutch Megaship Named after Nazi: Someone was asleep at the Helm

How did the Dutch government let this happen? Haaretz reports that a mega ship will be named after the prominent Nazi industrialist and Waffen-SS officer Pieter Schelte.

It's offensive to the Dutch, much less to lots of other people, particularly to those who were persecuted and murdered by the Third Reich.

Seems that his son Edward Heerema, who is the president of the offshore giant which is building the mega ship, Allseas made the decision.

Shouldn't someone have caught on sooner.

And has the son no sense of decency?

Ironically all he has done is call lots of attention to his father's misdeeds.

The investigative journalist Ton Biesemaat, who exposed the affair, said he found this "characteristic of the passivity and moral decline in Dutch society," and of a "desire to forget" inconvenient truths about Dutch collaboration with the Nazis in WWII.

As I have often said, while the deniers are very dangerous, those who simply want to ignore inconvenient history are far more dangerous.....

Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss: Open Racism in the Closing Days

I did not think I would be blogging any more about politics before election day. But I just read something that made me fume. That's putting it mildly.

Saxby Chambliss, who "represents" Georgia in the US Senate, told his supporters according to Politico.com, regarding the tightening race he faces, that in the early voting "the other folks are voting."

The "other folks" are, of course, African Americans. This is disgusting and its scary.

Here's what he told the NYTimes:

"There has always been a rush to the polls by African-Americans early," he said at the square in Covington, a quick stop on a bus tour as the campaign entered its final week. He predicted the crowds of early voters would motivate Republicans to turn out. "It has also got our side energized, they see what is happening," he said.

David Irving Invited to be on Celebrity Big Brother: Has someone lost their mind?

The London based reality show, Celebrity Big Brother, apparently seriously considered having David Irving on the show.

This is beyond belief.

Response to Deniers

There is a moving and straightforward response to deniers on this site.

The essence is contained in the following paragraph.

We saw the Germans take our family and friends. We saw them being put on to the trains marked Auschwitz and Sobibor. After the war we returned to our places of origin hoping that other members of our families and friends would do the same. The vast majority never returned. So if the Shoah is a myth then where are those people?

Don Krausz, Dutch Holocaust Survivor

American Spectator's Jay Homnick calls my endorsement of Obama: "an atrocity"

You can read it here.

I got another email saying that I may be a "traitor to my own people."

Hmm....

Is Blaming the Bankers for the Crisis Like Blaming the Jews?

Ha'aretz carries an important story, one that confirms some of what I feel has been in the air for the last month or so....

A leading German economist said the criticism of bankers about the world financial crisis is similar to Germany's anti-Semitism in the 1930s. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Munich-based Ifo economic research institute, told the newspaper Tagesspiegel:

In every crisis, people look for someone to blame, for scapegoats" .... Even in the global economic crisis of 1929, no one wanted to believe in an anonymous system failure. Then it hit Jews in Germany, today it is managers."

Sinn was trying to defend the bankers -- whom I believe actually deserve a big chunk of the responsibility -- by using the Holocaust as a defense. [See my previous post for a different example of trying to get a "free ride" on the back of the Holocaust. This is just as distasteful.]

As the central organization of German Jews pointed out, last time it checked the bankers were not being beaten in the street, placed in camps, or anything else like that. In fact, some of them were getting nice parachutes as they left their firms in shambles.

Ironically, his comments evoked something else in me. Seems to me that for some people "the bankers" is a shorthand for "the Jews" as is use of the term "Wall Street."

Unfair Criticism of Sarah Palin: Sexism that should not be ignored

edited 2:40 p.m.

I think Sarah Palin has injected into this campaign a really ugly strain [Joe Six-Pack, real America, socialism, countries that are free, palling around with terrorists etc.].

However I also think she is being given an unfair shake when it comes to her clothing expenditures. She did not buy these clothes, the RNC did. [Those staffers have deaf ears... in short they should be fired.]

And let's face it, no one comments on Obama's clearly expensive suits [I would bet a whole lot higher than $1500] or McCain's Ferragamo shoes. Though they do comment on Cindy McCain's very expensive outfits.

[In case you had any doubts, I think spending this kind of money is obscene and politically brain dead. ]

Today McCain folks called Palin a "diva." If she were a man they would have said: "He has his own ideas on how things should be done. He shows read leadership. etc. etc."

When men are assertive, women are aggressive. And it does not matter if their politics are red or blue....

Brava to CNN's Campbell Brown and ABC/NPR's Cokie Roberts [this morning on ABC's This Week] for calling attention to this sexism. This morning Brown addressed the clothing issue.

There is lots to criticize her about. But not on these issues.

However women -- blue and red -- who remain silent about the sexism directed at her will lose their right to complain about sexism directed at candidates they support.

Fair is fair.

Using the Holocaust to scare Jews and get votes

You may have already heard about the email sent to 75,000 Jewish voters that if they vote for Obama they risk a second Holocaust. According to the RNC, this was an unauthorized email sent out by a low level staffer. Read the news release here

The staffer claims that he was authorized to send it out.

I doubt that it went very high up the chain of authority in the RNC because someone would have stopped it and said this is beneath contempt. But what it does show is that some people think that all you have to do is mention the Holocaust and Jews lose their brains.

We saw the same thing when McCain and Palin both referred to a "second Holocaust" in reference to Iran having nuclear weapons. Believe me, the last thing I want is Iran to have such weapons. And as readers of this blog know, I am no fan of Ahmadinejad.

However all these references to the Holocaust are distasteful and are something that should be opposed. You can express absolute opposition to Ahmadinejad having a bomb without linking it to the Holocaust.

It simplifies what the Holocaust truly was and it makes it sound like all you are doing is fishing for Jewish votes.

I acknowledge that it was Jewish leaders who first began to speak of a second Holocaust and to compare these times to 1939. So, on some level, it is hard to just skewer the McPalin team.

The situation may be bad but cheap comparisons to the Holocaust are out of place

McCain on "the health of the mother": Mocking Women in Crisis

How come almost no one seems to have noticed that during the last debate McCain mocked pregnant women as he put the term "health of the mother" in air quotes? Watch it here

My tradition makes the life of the mother paramount. It believes that her life takes precedence over the fetus. The definition of that depends on the situation. There are black hatted Orthodox rabbis who allow abortion in the case of a Tay Saks or other genetic diseases because they know this will be devastating to the life of the mother. [A Tay Saks baby spends much of its short life crying in pain.]

McCain obviously believes this is a loophole that heartless mothers have been using this to allow late term abortion on demand. [It is as suddenly in their seventh month these women decide: "Oops, I just realized that I don't really want this baby... I am going to go find me an abortion... and "Oh yes, my health is in danger." Oh those conniving pregnant liberal women!]

This is what he said:

Again…just again, an example of the eloquence of Senator Obama, health (indicates air quotes) of the mother. You know that’s been stretched by the pro-abortion movement to mean almost anything.

I shuddered as I thought McCain might be making the decision as to what constitutes the life of the mother.... this from a man who threw aside his first wife, when he discovered, upon returning from Vietnam, that she had gained weight, shrunk a few inches, looked old, and was handicapped [from a terrible car accident].

One last point on Obama's supposed eloquence: McCain had obviously been coached to make fun of Obama's eloquence. Now, I may have a somewhat higher standard for eloquence than many Americans -- it comes with my profession and is not always a good thing -- but talking about "the life of the mother" does not strike me as an example of "eloquence."... Senator McCain where are your standards???

A Comment from an Obama oponent

Check out Howard's comment on the preceding post. Here it is:

Obama has been relentless in seducing America's youth, and controlling the media. What's next? ... teaching our children to turn their parents in to the Gestapo? These tactics have been used before ... and, they're right out of the Nazi and Islamic/madrassa play books. Wake up America ... the price of freedom is eternal vigilance

Gestapo?

Nazi and Islamic playbook?

It's a perfect example of the type of responses I have been getting.

Alan Dershowitz tells me he has also been getting these off the wall responses to his Obama piece in the Forward and in the Jerusalem Post

Do these people have any idea how insane they sound???

Reactions to my Obama oped: Some Jews for McCain are Losing It

[edited Monday, October 20, 3:11 a.m.]

I published the oped in the preceding post and it has obviously set some of the pro-McCain Jews' teeth on edge.

I have been inundated with emails that are replete with all sorts of idiocy. They are, by and large, too stupid to recount.

There is a sense of real hysteria in them.

There may be good reasons to support McCain but these people are off the wall.

I have been told that Obama is:

pro-Muslim
anti-American
pro-Farrakhan [that Farrakhan is a close associate of Obama]
anti-Israel
a Manchurian candidate [this from a nameless person who was described as a top U.S. analyst in DC... ]

I have been told that I

have spun and skewed
engaged in major distortions.
shown a lack of critical scholarship
offered arguments with no intellectual credibility [all of the above came with no examples of how I did so... just the charges]
am a self-hating liberal Jew
don't know Jewish law

Then today these folks really hit bottom: they sent an email out contending that the O people form with their two hands [it is akin to the three fingers people used to hold aloft as a sign of support for George W.] is the same as a Hitler salute.....

This is hardly worth comment... are they suggesting that Obama and Hitler were in cahoots? Maybe they don't know that Hitler had been dead 15 years when Obama was born.... that neo-Nazis are behind his campaign???

Finally, many of these emails repeat [in exactly the same language... as if it came out of a mimeograph machine... if you remember what that is] that I told people to vote for Obama because he is Black.

Give me a break. Anyone who can read that into my last paragraph smells to me like a latent racist or maybe like someone who can't read.

Jews have prospered in this country in countless and unimaginable ways. America has given us tremendous opportunities. While no one should vote for Barack Obama because he is black, the fact that a black man is a nominee for the highest office in the land constitutes an affirmation of the fact that at long last, some of the final barriers of discrimination are crumbling. For Jews it is yet another reminder of the blessings this country has offered them and other minorities.

I wonder if these folks will say the same thing about Gen. Powell's statement this morning on Meet the Press

And I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud--not just African-Americans, but all Americans--that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world.

What has happened to John McCain in this campaign is sad. He is a dim reflection of what he used to be. And these supporters of his do not do him proud. [Note: I say "these" supporters of his. I am not saying this about all his supporters.]

Now back to writing my book

Supporting Obama: As an American, a Jew, and a Woman

---

From the JTA:

Op-Ed: Learning to love Obama after Clinton's defeat

Deborah E. Lipstadt

Deborah Lipstadt, a leading Holocaust scholar and Hillary Clinton supporter, explains why she now is unabashedly backing Barack Obama.

Published: 10/10/2008

ATLANTA (JTA) -- I am one of those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. I was a Hillary supporter. I did not support Senator Clinton because she was a woman but because I liked her policies and record. But as is often the case in life, my hopes were not to be. Once that became clear I sat on the sidelines, watching and wondering. Now I am firmly in the Obama/Biden camp. I have been both pushed and pulled in that direction. I am there as an American, a woman and a Jew.

John McCain is a firm pro-lifer, having voted against choice more than 120 times in his career. His running mate opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest. While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with these beliefs, I object to having someone's personal views forced upon everyone else when it entails such a private family matter.

Furthermore, this view potentially conflicts with Jewish law, which holds that when there is a threat to the life of the mother, her life takes precedence over that of her fetus -- and leaves abortion decisions up to a woman and the rabbi with whom she consults. Many traditional rabbis take into consideration the issue of mental stress on the mother, permitting abortions in the case of Tay-Sachs and other genetic diseases.

Were McCain and Sarah Palin to write their pro-life beliefs into law, their policy could create both a direct obstacle to Jewish law and severe invasions into our private lives.

McCain's views on abortion are not, however, my primary reason for not supporting him. I find myself diverging with him on a far broader array of issues.

The Torah repeatedly instructs us to care for the "widow, orphan, poor, and the stranger." It is fundamental to Judaism that those who are blessed with "more" have an obligation -- not a choice -- to help those who have less. Taking care of the needy in Jewish tradition constitutes doing tzedaka, not charity. There is a world of difference between the two.

The root of charity is "caras," as in dear -- caress, care. The root of tzedaka is justice. Jewish law prefers that people give charity lovingly and kindly. But Jewish law teaches, even if you don't care to give, that you are obligated to do so. How then could I support McCain, who has voted against the minimum wage at least 10 times? How could I support someone who believes in the privatization of Social Security? Can you imagine what would be happening today as the economy lurches toward implosion to people who depended on private Social Security accounts? Social Security is a contract a society makes with its citizens: We will help you when you are old and needy.

How could I support a candidate, McCain, whose health-care program would leave millions uninsured and tax the health insurance benefits we now receive from our employers? How could I support someone who supports more tax cuts for the very wealthy and almost nothing for the middle class or the poor?

And then, of course, there is Israel, to which so many of us are deeply and viscerally connected. Groups of Jews who oppose Barack Obama want to strike fear into people's hearts on this issue. Why else would I regularly receive e-mails from them -- I like to know what the other side is saying -- referring to BHO, as in Barrack Hussein Obama?

Obama's record has earned him praise from AIPAC and Israeli leaders, as well as condemnation from Palestinian leaders. The recently defunct, solidly pro-Israel New York Sun declared in an editorial earlier this year: "Mr. Obama's commitment to Israel, as he has articulated it so far in his campaign, is quite moving and a tribute to the broad, bipartisan support that the Jewish state has in America."

Moreover, the paper noted, "he has chosen to put himself on the record in terms that Israel's friends in America, at least those not motivated by pure political partisanship, can warmly welcome."

Leaders in Israel -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- do not fear Obama's commitment to Israel. Israeli leaders from Ehud Barak to Benjamin Netanyahu were impressed by Obama. Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader, told the Jerusalem Post that he was "impressed with Obama's understanding of the Iranian threat and that they both agreed that a nuclear Iran was unacceptable." Netanyahu also said that he and Obama agreed on the importance of "preventing a nuclear Tehran" and that "when it came to stopping Iran there were no politics."

What about the famous "experience" conundrum? Obama's familiarity with the issues has impressed many people, including the veteran journalist David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post. Horowitz compared his recent interviews with President Bush and Senators McCain and Obama.

When he met a few months ago with Bush in the Oval Office, the president -- who at this point is "presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be" -- brought with him "no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview," Horowitz wrote.

On his whirlwind visit to Israel, "McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview" and "looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction."

Horowitz's meeting with Obama was markedly different. Obama "spoke with only a single aide in his hotel room." (The aide's only contribution was to suggest that Obama and Horowitz switch seats, so the Post photographer would have better lighting.)

Obama did not lack for Middle East advisers. Dennis Ross, President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Middle East and one who is widely respected for his knowledge and commitment to a secure peace settlement, and Daniel Kurtzer, the former ambassador to Israel and Yeshiva University graduate and its former dean, were "hovering in the vicinity," Horowitz wrote, but they were not in the room. Horowitz observed that Obama "knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel, and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects."

Contrast that with Sarah Palin's rote repetition three times during the Charlie Gibson interview of precisely the same phrase about Israel that "We can't second-guess Israel." Is that all she has to say? Can she only speak in sound bites? Does she have any knowledge of the nuances of the situation?

The same thing happened in the vice-presidential debate. Palin spewed a lot of talking points -- two-state solution, no second Holocaust, embassy in Jerusalem -- but demonstrated no real familiarity with the situation.

I firmly believe that those who know the history and nuances of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the track record of the different players cannot help but come down on the side of a safe and secure Israel. But in order to help broker a real peace, they must know much more than rote talking points.

Many Jews, myself included, were deeply disturbed by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's most controversial comments, but there is nothing in Obama's record to indicate that he adheres to Wright's views. I was glad to hear Obama forcefully and publicly denounce them.

Contrast that with Palin, who sat in her church while a Jews for Jesus leader, David Brickner, preached that terrorism in Israel is God's "judgment" against Jews for failing to accept Jesus? Maybe she said nothing because she did not understand the implication's of Brickner's words, but that would be even more disturbing.

When Palin first ran for mayor of Wasilla, she did so as the town's "first Christian mayor." What does that have to do with being mayor? Is this someone you want a heartbeat away from America's oldest president, a man who has had multiple bouts with cancer?

Lest someone assume that I am contemptuous of her deep religious commitment, let me stress that it is the contrary. In my work and life I find myself more comfortable with those who are deeply committed to their faith -- whatever that faith may be -- than those who are totally unconnected and, even worse, contemptuous of those who are. I just don't want them imposing their faith on me.

Finally, let's talk about the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of many people's election ballots. Jews have prospered in this country in countless and unimaginable ways. America has given us tremendous opportunities. While no one should vote for Barack Obama because he is black, the fact that a black man is a nominee for the highest office in the land constitutes an affirmation of the fact that at long last, some of the final barriers of discrimination are crumbling. For Jews it is yet another reminder of the blessings this country has offered them and other minorities.

For me, the choice is clear.

I am back

Well I have been quiet for quite a while. Deniers were hoping that I was ill. Actually I have been busy working on a new book and have been directing all my energies towards that. But a number of things have happened which I cannot ignore.

Those posts will follow shortly.

Monitoring "Bad" Internet Sites without Boosting their Google Ranking

Given the concerns I raised in the previous post about boosting the ranking of Holocaust denial [and other racist and/or antisemitic sites] if you go and look at them, I received the following suggestion from an Internet savvy person:

You expressed concern about raising the site's Google ranking by linking to it. There are a couple of ways to avoid doing that. First is the rel="nofollow" tag:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html

If you don't want to mess with HTML, you can simply use www.tinyURL.com to generate an indirect link to the website in question. this technique has the added bonus over the "nofollow" tag of preventing the owner of the site from telling where any additional traffic is being referred from as well as preventing Google from viewing your use of the link as an incoming link that adds to the website's Google ranking.

Holocaust Denial on the Internet

Edited June 5: 2: 17 p.m.

Though I don't usually call attention to Holocaust denial sites, I recently came across a site one which exemplifies deniers' attempts to parade themselves as legitimate academics. It would be easy for a student... and maybe even some professors to be bamboozled by this ad.

I put it here as a cautionary note.

Addendum:
A number of people have pointed out that if we send people to the site it will only raise its Google profile. Therefore I would urge you NOT to go to it.

But what you can do is contact Career Builders[ jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com] and tell them they are supporting such a site. Urge them to drop their advertising from it.

Profile of Anthony Julius

My UK lawyer, Anthony Julius, was profiled by the Times of London. It's well worth reading.

Father Pfleger Blames Everyone But Himself

In an interview with the Chicago Sun Times Father Pfleger dug himself in a bit deeper. He explained that he thought the church's video system was down and there was no live streaming of his talk and, therefore, he felt freer to say what he wished:

"They told me it was down," ....Their live streaming had been down all day, and they didn't know whether it was back up. . . . I regret the dramatization that I was naive enough to believe was just going to be kept among that church."

Excuse me, that made it OK to engage in racism and sexism??? Because you did not think anyone would see....

Then, once again avoiding the opportunity to say "What I did was terrible," he, not surprisingly blames America.

"This is a dangerous time in America, the freest country in the world," Pfleger says, "where you have to whisper your thoughts."

This guy still does not seem to get it.

Antisemitism in the UK: The Academic Union [UCU] is Back at it Again

The union of academics and professors in the UK, the UCU, which last year tried to initiate a boycott of Israeli academics but was prevented from doing so by its own lawyers which told it that it was illegal, is trying to do the same thing again but in a trickier mode.

On May 28th it pas Motion 25 which called for a number of boycott initiatives. Anthony Julius, my solicitor and someone who has done a tremendous amount to fight UK antisemitism, is representing a number of members of the UCU who consider Motion 25 to be both a boycott motion and to be antisemitic.

His excellent [no surprise here], reasoned [ditto], and well argued [ditto] letter to the UCU can be found here.

Anyone who is concerned about this issue and who doesn't understand why these actions by groups such as the UCU are not just virulently anti-Israel but actually antisemitic should read this letter.

Flash from Ahmadinejad: Israel is Doomed and Zionists Behind Food Shortages..

[edited 7:20 a.m.]

Prior to leaving for the UN Food Conference in Rome Iranian President Ahmadinejad said that Israel was doomed with or without Iranian action. He predicted that Israel be wiped away. See the video here.

Last year when Ahmadinejad said Israel should be wiped off the face of the map, a number of people insisted that that was not what he said, despite the fact that the home page of the Iranian president had that quote up on it.

Now at the UN conference in Rome he has said that in would be in the interests of Western Europe if Israel did not exist and he has blamed the food crisis on Zionists.

Quite a guy.

Hillary Clinton and the Negative Reviews of Sex and the City: The Same Failure to Understand

So this weekend I joined 10s of 1000 of other women and went to see Sex and the City. I have been on the phone talking to women who went and hearing their assessment and what they heard around them in the threatre.

While everyone had something they might not have liked -- an outfit, a scenario, etc. -- the general consensus was positive. Some are talking about going to see it again. Others said it felt like "visiting with old friends." Yet others said the whole thing is a fantasy, except for the strength of the relationship: that's real. The reason that they know it's real is that they have friends like that.

Let's be honest. Most men don't have friends like that. They may have sports or poker buddies but they don't have friends who understand them to the depths of their hearts.

Yet the reviews have been mixed. Some have been by women. But it's the reviews by men which have been particularly mean and snippy. They miss the point. For an example read John Podhoretz in the print edition of the Weekly Standard.

Now here is the Clinton connection. Just as men don't get the essence of friendship. The men just don't get how mad so many women are about the treatment meted out to Hillary Clinton. The comments about her whining, her shrillness, her pantsuits, her ankles, her voice, her laugh.... None of the things we have heard about male candidates. Does anyone know how Obama, McCain, or any of the other close to a dozen men laugh? What their ankles look like?

And here too the male commentators don't get it. Maybe the connection is a bit of a stretch but it just seems real to me.

We used to say "We've come a long way." I am really beginning to wonder.

Libel Tourism: What You Can do to Protect America's Concept of Freedom of Speech

As I posted last week, a bill has been introduced into the House of Representatives which would protect American autors and publishers from being subjected to other countries's laws regarding freedom of speech.

The bill was prompted by a New York Times op-ed I wrote together with my colleagues Professor Michael Broyde of Emory's Law School.

The bill has won the strong support of the Association of American Publishers.

Spearheaded by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), the legislation was co-sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and nine members of the Committee (Issa, Nadler, Berman, Coble, Lofgren, Jackson-Lee, Wexler, Johnson, and Gutierrez), along with Reps. Mark Udall (D-CO) and John Yarmuth (D-KY).

If you believe in free speech as we have defined it here in America and are an American citizen, contact your representative and tell him/her to support H.R. 6146.

You can make a real difference.

Obama's Auschwitz Mistake [2]

Here's some background on what the American soldiers who came upon [I generally avoided the word "liberation"] Ohrdruf camp.

Gen. Eisenhower was one of them and his comments upon seeing the camp are well known. "We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now, at least, he will know what he is fighting against."

For a short film of what the Americans, Obama's uncle among them, saw see here

The camp wasn't an Auschwitz but remember, American soldiers had nothing to compare it to, i.e. they couldn't say, "Oh this isn't nice but we know Auschwitz was worse."

I went to some of the Republican blogs and some of the comments are really vicious. [Adam Holland links to them.]

Obama's Auschwitz Mistake

The comments and emails have been coming in. They all want to know what did I make of Obama's statement that his "uncle" [great uncle] helped liberate Auschwitz.

The fact is that Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets.

This is typical family lore where one camp is substituted for another. Had Obama thought about it he probably would have known the story has a historical mistake.

Turns out he meant Ohrdruf, one of the Buchenwald sub-camps. [He apologized for his mistake.]

The RNC has pounced. You can almost hear it licking its chops. It should save its energy. This is a matter of historical ignorance not anything diabolical.

Fact is that most Jews -- including those who are strongly identified -- would get it wrong. Witness the number of people who fell -- and continue to fall -- for the apples over the fence story. [Which I hear is being made into a movie.... fiction I hope.] That is a far more dangerous distortion.

I would say to them, before you beat up on Obama, make sure all the stories you tell are true.

Boston's Musuem of Fine Arts [2]: Rewriting History to Save a Painting

Oskar Kokoschka's painting "Two Nudes (Lovers)"


In an earlier post I criticized Boston's Museum of Fine Art's contention that Jews in Vienna were acting in free will when they disposed of their possessions in 1939.

The debate centered on a painting by Kokoschka which a Jewish family had sold in Vienna in 1939. The MFA, which currently has possession of the painting, argues that the family was not forced to sell the painting but did so voluntarily.

Let's remember the historical context: Eichmann was on the scene and was doing everything possible to get Jews to emigrate without any of their possessions. To argue that they were selling possessions because they "wanted" to is ludicrous.

Well it turns out that -- not surprisingly -- other historians feel similarly. See the most recent article by Geoff Edgers on the topic.

It is striking that the MFA refuses to release its own art historians report on the painting. I can't help but wonder why.

Historian Michael Burleigh reviews History Lesson: A Race Odyssey by Mary Lefkowitz

Michael Burleigh, the British historian, in his review of Mary Lefkowitz's book History Lessons, demonstrates how history can be rewritten on some of America's finest campuses with the support of the administration all in the name of not making a fuss.

If should give those of us who think Holocaust denial could never gain traction on campus -- which includes me -- some pause.

Hating HIllary Cause She's a Woman

This article by Andrew Stephen, who has been watching American politics for a long time, is painful to read. It shows the relentless sexist attack used to bring down Hillary Clinton. It is really mind boggling.

And if you think you have read all this stuff before, let me assure you that you have not.

Libel Tourism: New York Times Op-Ed by Lipstadt and Broyde Spurs Federal Legislation

The op-ed my colleague Michael Broyde and I wrote on libel tourism has prompted proposals for federal legislation. Emory has just released the following press release.

Emory Professors' Op-Ed Spurs Federal Legislation on 'Libel Tourismʼ' U.S. Reps. Steve Cohen (D-TN) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) are expected to introduce today a bill to end "libel tourism," a phenomenon whereby plaintiffs seek judgments from foreign courts against American authors and publishers for making allegedly defamatory statements. Two Emory University professors, Michael Broyde and Deborah Lipstadt, brought the problem of libel tourism to the attention of federal lawmakers in a co-written New York Times opinion piece (Oct. 11, 2007). Broyde, an expert in comparative and Jewish law, helped draft the federal bill. He and Lipstadt are drafting a follow-up opinion piece designed to support the bill's passage. The bill would prohibit U.S. courts from recognizing or enforcing foreign defamation judgments that are inconsistent with the First Amendment. The bill's authors contend that libel tourism "threatens to undermine our nation's core free speech principles, as embodied in the First Amendment. U.S. law places a higher burden on certain defamation plaintiffs in order to safeguard First Amendment-protected speech. Other countries, including those that generally share our legal tradition, provide no such protection…" Broyde and Lipstadt wrote the op-ed in response to billionaire Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz's 2004 lawsuit against Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American author who wrote "Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed and How to Stop It." The 2003 book argues that bin Mahfouz has financed Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. Bin Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for libel in Britain, where libel laws place the burden of proof on defendants. She lost the case and was ordered to apologize, destroy all copies of the book and pay bin Mahfouz $230,000 in damages. Lipstadt faced a similar legal battle when Holocaust denier David Irving sued her in Britain for her 1994 book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," which asserted Irving had deliberately distorted Holocaust facts. Although Lipstadt won, her case lasted four years and cost more than $1 million in legal fees. Broyde is a professor of law and a senior fellow in Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion (CSLR), and Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies and a CSLR associated faculty member.

Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Professor Kevin McDonald in his own Words

The ADL has compiled some very telling quotes by California State University Long Beach professor, Kevin McDonald.

For McDonald's role in my trial see History on Trial, Chapter 10.

Kaddish by the Polish Chief Rabbi at a Catholic burial ceremony: An Appropriate Statement

Irena Sendler, who was involved in the rescue of 2500 Jewish children, was buried in Warsaw last week. At the Catholic ceremony Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, recited Kaddish in front of her grave. I find this to be quite something. A well deserved tribute to a hero.

http://www.forum-znak.org.pl/ind
ex-en.php?t=wydarzenia&id=7318

[photo: VIN News]

Thoughts on Irena Sendler and on Not Knowing What I Would Have Done

In my post on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising [notes from the speech I gave at the Sami Rohr Prize presentation in Jerusalem] I have been having an exchange with Roman Werpachowski, a Polish reader who believes the Warsaw Ghetto fighters were wrong to have fought to the end.

He believes that, since they knew they were going to die fighting, it would have been better for them to escape and lived. He makes a legitimate point but I am not sure if he is right.

But that is not the issue between us.

When I quoted Irena Sendler in the previous post on the bravery of Jewish mothers, those who were willing to give up their children to a stranger with no guarantee of the child's safety, I knew that I did not know what I would have done.

And I thought back to my exchange with this reader in which he delcares that he would have escaped. My issue with him has been that I simply don't know what I would have done in that situation:

Fought to the death?

Stayed with my family who might have needed my help?

Escaped to the other side knowing that it would result in my family's immediate deportation to a death camp?

Sat paralyzed with fright?

I don't know and I don't believe anyone else can know precisely what they would have done -- until they are in that position.

Funny thing, when I was younger I knew exactly what I would have done.....

May we never find out.

Irena Sendler, Oskar Schindler of Warsaw Ghetto, Dies

[edited 10:15 a.m. EDT]

Irena Sendler who saved approximately 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto died at age 98. [According to Deborah Dwork she was personally responsible for saving about 400 children herself and being the "prime mover" for the saving of the rest.]

It has been said of her that, had Poland had better public relations, Oskar Schindler would have been known as the "Irena Sendler of Germany."

There is a nice obit for her in the New York Times. In it she praises the bravery of Jewish mothers in the ghetto:

"Here I am, a stranger, asking them to place their child in my care. They ask if I can guarantee their safety. I have to answer no. Somethimes they wold give me their child. Other times they would say come back. I would come back a few days later and the family had already been deported."

May her memory and their bravery be for a blessing.

Professor at Cal State Long Beach [who testified for David Irving] : Profiled by LA Jewish Journal

I have posted on Professor Kevin McDonald, who testified [voluntarily and poorly] for David Irving previously. An in depth profile of him by Brad Geenberg appears in the LA Jewish Journal. Greenberg also discusses his experience interviewing McDonald on his blog.

To read McDonald's testimony brief testimony at my trial see www.hdot.org [ pages 6-24. ] He clearly had no idea what the trial was about. I discuss his ludicrous performance in History on Trial, Chapter 10.

[The photo at the right shows Kevin MacDonald being honored in 2004 for his work on the Jews by The Occidental Quarterly, a white supremacist publication. He was accompanied by Virginia Abernethy, a self-described "white separatist."]

McDonald has discussed the clannish behavior and negative influence of Jews on the show of Hesham Tillawi. It's long, tedious, and pretty sobering when one thinks that this kook -- and I could use words far worse than that -- is a professor at an American university.

I am a firm believer in academic freedom but it seems that Cal State Long Beach is really pushing the matter by continuing to award him with merit leaves -- a hard fought privilege at that school -- and the like. I just wonder what would happen if he were saying these things about other minorities....

Finally, I am reminded of what Professor Dan Jacobson of the University of London had to say about McDonald after his testimony: "That witness had a small dull mind possessed by a large dud idea."

Holocaust Denial on YouTube

There is an insidious Holocaust denial movie on YouTube. It relies primarily on footage from Terezin [Theresienstadt] and some seems to come from the propaganda film the Nazis made about that "camp" called The Fuhrer Gives the Jews a City.

By the way, there was a swimming pool at Auschwitz 1 -- not Birkenau where most of the Jews were -- it was rarely used by inmates and its main purpose was to store water for fire fighting.

In Conversation with Jan Gross: YIVO tonight

I will be in conversation with Jan Gross tonight at YIVO at 7 p.m. For details click here

HDOT, Emory website on Holocaust Denial, Receives 120K Grant

HDOT Website Receives 120K Grant from Claims Conference

Release date: April 30, 2008
Contact: Elaine Justice at 404-727-0643 or elaine.justice@emory.edu

Funding will support HDOT.org translation into Arabic, Farsi, Turkish, Russian

Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt has received a grant of $120,000 from the New York-based Claims Conference (The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany) on behalf of her Web site, Holocaust Denial on Trial (HDOT.org).

The grant will be used to translate elements of the site into Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and Russian and to develop educational lesson plans.

Holocaust Denial on Trial chronicles Lipstadt's 1996-2000 British trial versus Holocaust denier David Irving. In 1996 he sued Lipstadt in British court alleging libelous content in her book "Denying the Holocaust."

Following her resounding victory in 2000, Lipstadt founded the site in conjunction with Emory to provide complete archives of the trial's documents. The site strives to empower readers to identify and reject the lies, distortions and misleading innuendo used by Holocaust deniers.

But there are still those who spread disinformation on the Holocaust. That's why Lipstadt began HDOT.org. She is out to make such distortions a thing of the past."When people don't have historically accurate information they are susceptible to all sorts of distortions and fabrications," says Lipstadt. "This is true for the Arab speaking world and the English speaking world as well."

Grant Will Fund Translation, Education Tools

The grant will allow HDOT.org to complete 50 myth/fact sheets about the Holocaust in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and Russian, and to introduce two educational modules on the topic of Auschwitz denial for use in advanced secondary school and undergraduate college courses.

Adding additional languages and lesson plans is just the beginning, says Dan Leshem, web development specialist at Emory, which hosts the site. "We strive to be responsive to our readers' needs. For that reason, we also want to build a connection to the site's readership," he says.

Visitors can sign up for periodic newsletters and subscribe to an RSS news feed of Lipstadt's frequently updated blog entries. "The weight of this site is its integrity," says David Lower, a business analyst at Emory who oversees the site's development.

"We have to hold these translations to the highest possible standards. We know that deniers will look for any errors on the site to exploit for their own purposes."One example of precision in translation was the word "Holocaust" itself, says Leshem. "We transliterated the word and got 10,000 hits."

Then, based on a recommendation by a scholar of Arabic, they used another term for holocaust in Arabic that is much more common—it translates loosely as 'the catastrophe of the Jews'—and got 150,000 hits, simply because it is the more common term. "That goes back to the translators knowing the content," Leshem says.

So far, that diligence seems to be working. After posting the first translations of the myth/fact sheets in Arabic, Leshem copied the name "Anne Frank" in Arabic and did a Google search. HDOT.org was listed at number three.

Thomas Paine Got it Just Right

Thomas Paine, the American patriot who wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet (1776) which was so influential in supporting revolution against the British, and who was an outspoken Deist, is credited with the following statement

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Talk about an eternal truth.....

[Thanks to David Gorski for passing this on.]

Hungarian Antisemitism: The Re-emergence of an Old Hatred in a Renewed Society

Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times reports on the reemergence of antisemitism in Hungary. This confirms much of what I heard a few weeks ago when I was in Budapest.

Essentially what Kimmelman says is that a pretty virulent form of antisemitism is coexisting with a renewed expression of Jewish culture.

UK Schools Drop Teaching the Holocaust: A False Story Continues to Make the Rounds

During the past week I have received numerous emails regarding the false story that the UK has dropped all mention of the Holocaust from its curriculum.

The latest iteration of the story is now linked to the fact that General Eisenhower worried, as he toured the concentration camps in April 1945, that someday there might be those who would deny that this happened.

The email then goes on to note that the UK has dropped teaching of the Holocaust. Earlier versions had accused the University of Kentucky of dropping it.

Why people would believe such stories confounds me.

A recent interview on Muslim-Jewish relations in the UK with Michael Whine, government and international affairs director at the Community Security Trust, the defense agency of the UK Jewish community, and defense and group relations director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the representative body of the community, summarizes the true state of affairs regarding Holocaust education.

Whine notes:

"The MCB* has opposed Holocaust education. Last year they finally agreed to officially participate in Holocaust Memorial Day. Under Muslim influence, the Bolton local council did not hold a Holocaust Memorial Day last year and replaced it with a Genocide Memorial Day. This year they are marking both.

"Yet a significant number of Muslim leaders have attended Holocaust Memorial Day ceremonies, including some members of the MCB Executive. We expect, however, further Muslim attempts to weaken Holocaust remembrance and to replace it with genocide remembrance.

"Almost every municipality has held some remembrance activity on Holocaust Memorial Day. Those with a significant Jewish electorate have usually done more than others. The government provides money for educational material and funds trips to Auschwitz for two students from every high school each year. These are preceded by educational sessions. Britain probably leads the world in Holocaust education.

"A few years ago the Department of Education undertook a study on the teaching of sensitive subjects that included the Crusades, the First and Second World Wars, and the Holocaust. It found that the Holocaust is generally well taught in British schools. One school had considered abandoning its courses for fear of offending Muslim parents in the school. It was misreported by some newspapers and that led to a viral email, which is still going around, claiming that Britain has abandoned Holocaust education in schools."

The interview was conducted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

* Whine notes that the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) was founded by the government as an umbrella organization in 1977. This body has been influenced since by its radical leadership and nowadays represents no more than five hundred mosques and separate organizations. To put this in perspective, there are probably around fifteen hundred official and unofficial mosques in Britain these days, although official estimates are around nine hundred

In Defense of Jimmy Carter: A Letter that Speaks for Itself

The following letter speaks for itself. I was in Israel during Carter's visit and the interesting thing was how even my far left friends thought of it as a stunt by Carter and not something that would in any way move the peace process further..

Ugly old yenta,

As the following article* makes clear - President Cater's recent meeting with Hamas in Damascus opened the door for the EU (and soon the U.S.) to include the organization in future peace talks. Shouldn't you be extending an aplogy and an olive branch to the Nobel Peace Laureate for the bilious resentment and virulent anti-Gentile hate you spewed towards him after his fine book: "Israel - Not Apartheid"? When will you account for your canards against the man? Or, are you still clinging to the position that Israel is "The Land of Milk and Honey" and that the Palestinians are "filthy shvatz goyim" that need to be "done away with"?

One Proud Jew
Dean Chancery [deanchancery@gmail.com]

*No article was included in this eloquent message.

Rohr Prize [2]: Warsaw and Cairo - Distant Echoes of Two Decimated Communities

edited May 5th 6:26 a.m.

At the Rohr Prize ceremony I was asked to speak on behalf of the judges. The following are excerpts from my remarks.

Tonight we gather to celebrate, honor, and commemorate. We celebrate the fact that tonight is Pesach, zeman simchatanu, the time of our rejoicing.

We celebrate that this important event takes place in Jerusalem.

We honor one family’s remarkable generosity and commitment to enhance the writing of Jewish books.

We celebrate Lucette Lagnado’s book, The Man in the Sharkskin Suit, a book that is in and of itself an act of commemoration of a community that is no more.

We also gather to honor the work of two other authors, Eric Goldstein, author of The Price of Whiteness, a meticulous and important book on Jewish integration into the American mainstream, and Elana Blumberg, author of In the House of Study, a fascinating memoir on the author’s sometimes troubled path in discovering her way in the world of traditional Jewish texts and her own identity as a Jewish woman.

But there are other things that it behooves us to commemorate: On these very nights of Pesach 65 years ago two groups of Jews were fighting to preserve Jewish dignity and memory.

One, of course, was the group of young, wildly inexperienced Warsaw ghetto fighters, who managed, despite having no military training whatsoever, to hold off the Germans for over three weeks. Their bravery, meseerat nefesh, and commitment are the stuff of legends… legends that are true.

But they did not fight alone. In the ghetto there was another group which fought to preserve Jewish history and dignity. And their contribution and commitment – while less dramatic than that of Anilevitch and his colleagues ---- is no less important and, in fact, may be as important.

I speak, of course, of the work of Oyneg Shabbes, the group gathered by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum. They took it upon themselves to preserve in an unbelievably comprehensive fashion the history and day to day life of the ghetto and its inhabitants.

In a magisterial new book, Who Will Write Our History? historian Samuel Kassow [a review of which I have posted on this blog] tells the story of how Oyneg Shabbes recorded every aspect of the ghetto’s existence.... No detail was too small or considered too “unimportant” to be included in their efforts.

[I previously posted about their commitment to getting the record of what was being done to them precisely right. I shall, therefore, skip over that part of my talk.]

They worked with military precision. Though over 300 people were involved in the effort no person knew some one else’s identity unless it was necessary for the project.

And none of those involved knew which three people had been entrusted with burying the archives. That way, if one was caught, he or she could not be forced to reveal the other’s identity.

This was an operation worthy of elite army. What is remarkable is that it was done, not to save lives, but to save documents, to preserve the history of a community which faced an enemy that was committed – to paraphrase the Haggadah – l’akore et hakol, to destroy them all.

They so desperately wanted – in a way that is guaranteed to break the heart of even the most rigorously exacting historian – to be remembered. Let us hear it in their own voices:

Israel Lichtenstein, one of those assigned to bury the Oyneg Shabbes archival collection wrote the following as he was burying them:

I do not ask for any thanks, for any memorial, for any praise. I only wish to be remembered.

I wish my wife to be remembered, Gele Sekstein. She has worked during the war years with children as an educator and teacher, has prepared stage sets, costumes of children’s theatre… both of us get ready to meet and receive death.

I wish my little daughter to be remembered. Margalit is 20 months old today. She has fully mastered the Yiddish language and speaks it perfectly… I don’t lament my own life or that of my wife. I pity only this little nice and talented girl. She too deserves to be remembered.

With Lichtenstein was Nahum Grzywacz, 18 years old. When they were burying the archives he heard his parents’ building was being blockaded. He wrote.

I am going to run to my parents and if they are all right. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Remember my name is Nahum Grzywacz. [emphasis in original]

Also helping was David Graber, age 19. As they buried the archives Graber wrote:

What we were unable to cry and shriek out to the world we buried in the ground. … I would love to see the moment in which this great treasure will be dug up and scream the truth to the world. So the world may know all. So the ones who did not live through it may be glad and we may feel like veterans with medals on our chest. We would be the fathers, the teachers, the educators. Of the future…. But no, we shall certainly not live to see it, and therefore I write my last will: May the treasure fall into good hands, may it last into better times, may it alarm and alert the world to what happened… in the twentieth century. We now die in peace. We fulfilled our mission. May history attest for us. [emphasis added]

Tonight we come to honor Lucette Lagnado. Her book captures the sounds, emotions, smells, tastes of a community that was also prematurely uprooted, a life that is no more.

That community’s end did not occur in as brutal and murderous a fashion as that of the Warsaw ghetto. However, it was destruction none the less, a destruction that too many people have accepted in a matter of fact fashion.

Lucette has described how, since her book’s publication, the Syrian and Egyptian Jewish communities worldwide have embraced her and profusely thanked her for ensuring that their history shall not go quietly into the night.

Wanting to be remembered is a normal human emotion. But it takes on tremendous poignancy when we remember those – whether in Warsaw or in Cairo – whose communities came to a premature end.

So tonight we come to celebrate and to commemorate and to pay tribute to those non-fiction authors who ensure that the history of those who came before us will not be forgotten.

Let us hope that in generations to come others will gather, as we do tonight, in Jerusalem to celebrate non-fiction authors.

And let us pray that there will be no additional uprooted communities whose history needs preserving so those authors of the future can turn their attention to documenting Jewish communities which are living vigorously creative Jewish lives, communities which are thriving.

And, we will gather to celebrate, in the spirit of the Rohr Prize and the work of the Jewish Book Council, communities in whose midst authors are writing and people are reading Jewish books, books of the superbly high caliber that we honor tonight.

Rohr Prize Ceremony, Jerusalem, 24 April 2008

Murdering History: The Holocaust was the Allies' Fault

Former New Statesman editor, Peter Wilby, has come up with an absurdly stupid self-serving argument in the name of attacking the Iraq war.

In an article in The Guardian he argues that, now that all the other reasons for the Iraq war have proved to be a bust, war supporters fall back on the claim that it was worth it because it got rid of a terrible dictator, just like World War II.

He then goes on to passionately argue that the only reason the Allies went to war against Hitler was for self-interest not for moral reasons.

This is, of course, is a complete straw man. No historian worth his or her salt argues anything but that. Wilby seems to believe that because they entered the war for self-interested reasons nothing they accomplished has any moral value.

But where he goes way over the top is when he argues that the Jews would have been better off if the Allies had not gone to war against Germany.

Would the Holocaust have happened if there had been no war or if the western democracies had acted against Nazi Germany earlier? We can never know - though it is likely that, if Britain had made peace in 1940 after the fall of France, the Jews would have been sent to Madagascar. What is certain is that the war prevented any concerted attempt at rescue.

Wilby ignores the fact that Madagascar would have meant a slow death for the Jews. It was uninhabitable particularly for millions of urban people. it was meant to be a place where Jews would die not thrive.

Furthermore, as blogger Marko Attila Hoare points out, Britain controlled the naval routes to Madagascar so it would have had to cooperate with Nazi Germany to get the Jews there.

He then goes on to take his argument to even more absurd heights, that by going to war resources that the Allies would have used to help the Jews were diverted to fight the war.

Resources used to help Jews would be diverted from the war. . Any mass movement of refugees ran the risk of the Germans planting agents among them. Oil supplies were too vital to Britain to risk upsetting Arabs by evacuating them to Palestine. Any of the suggested swaps - Jews for German POWs, for example - might suggest allied weakness. Besides, why should the allies assist Hitler to rid Europe of Jewry? The best we could do, as Anthony Eden, the British foreign secretary, observed in 1944, was to "hope that the German government will refrain from exterminating these unfortunate people".

What makes him think that the Allies, who in Evian in 1938 would not open their doors to Jewish refugees, would have run to help the Jews?

Moreover, he seems to have convinced himself that Hitler would not have gone to war with the USSR and, in the course of so doing, would not have murdered millions of Jews. With an assurance that the West would not fight him, Hitler would have wasted no time in declaring war on the USSR. He wanted their lebensraum and he wanted their resources to allow the German people to live in luxury.

He might well have won and, if so, millions of more people -- among them many more Jews -- would have been murdered.

Wilby can be against war in general and the war in Iraq all he wants [who precisely is for war? And who, with the exception of John McCain and George Bush, still believe in the rectitude of this war?] But he should not murder history in the process.

The Sami Rohr Prize in Jewish Literature: Reflections on The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit

One of the reasons I have been lax in blogging is that I was in Israel for the awarding of the Sami Rohr Prize in nonfiction. This prize has been established by the Rohr family to honor their father, who incidently escaped from German shortly after Kristalnacht, on his 80th birthday.

The amazing generosity of this family and their desire to further Jewish literature and culture through this generous award [$100,000 to the winner] speaks to their willingness to think "way outside the box."

The award is given to an emerging writer in the field of Jewish literature. I am one of the judges in the non-fiction category. This year's winner was Lucette Lagnado, author of The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit. I was asked to write something about the book for the program. These are my thoughts on this book:

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit is a stunningly beautiful book. It addresses epic and age old themes: exile, loss, and rootlessness. It is both a tragic family saga and the story of a compelling man, a bon vivant, who managed to mesh his love of sensual pleasures with his deep commitment to Jewish tradition. Above all it is the story of a world and a community that did not die a natural death. It was uprooted and destroyed by those who rejected its love and fealty.

Lucette Lagnado traces the story the twentieth century Cairo Jewish community by telling the story of her father who was the ultimate man about Cairo. He moved as easily in the synagogue as he did in Cairo’s most elaborate and elegant night spots. She is the child born in his later years and the one who becomes the apple of his eye. It is through her eyes that we watch him make his way through the city and establish bonds with both Muslim and expatriates of every variety.

The Rohr prize judges were swept away by the beauty of the book. It was not, however, only the graceful and luscious prose of Lagnado’s “stunning” [New York Times] memoir which caught our attention.

Starting in the late 1940s and continuing until the 1960s Jewish communities which had lived in relative harmony with their Muslim neighbors were decimated. It was a wholesale destruction, one that was designed to humiliate Jews who had loved their homelands with a deep seated passion. The Egyptians stripped Lagnado’s family of virtually all their possessions prior to their departure. In a final act of degradation, they forcibly removed her mother’s wedding band from her finger as the family boarded the boat. Despite this humiliation as the ship sailed away her father cried out: “Ragaouna Masr,” Take us back to Cairo.

What was this love affair? Who were these Jewish communities? What was the culture they so adored? Jewish tradition and culture is rooted in its history. Lagnado has a painted a brilliant portrait of a world that will never be again. In describing a small piece of that history she has given a great gift to those who were part of that world and to their descendants. She has also given a gift – possibly even greater -- to those who never knew that world.

Ultimately, however, this book transcends ethnic, national, and religious divides. Any reader whose family has ever known exile and immigration will be touched by this book. It will help them understand the sacrifices that have been made on their behalf. And those readers whose families have not been forcibly uprooted will understand how blessed they are.

Excuse the long absence

After travels to Ohio, NYC, Jerusalem, Detroit, Columbia University, Wilkes Barre, and Charleston, West Va. I have returned to Atlanta and to my blogging. Lots to catch up on... Will try to do so in a somewhat measure pace.