Abe Greenwald: Kanye West, Louis Farrakhan and Anti-Semitism
What lessons can we learn from the rubbish-cluttered mind of Kanye West? We can start by drawing some important distinctions.IMDB: Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America
Mr. West’s is a particular kind of anti-Semitism. The left-wing activist Shaun King writes in Newsweek that “you don’t have to be white to be a white supremacist,” and that “Kanye West is now a full-blown white supremacist.” This is a category error.
The “white extinction” conspiracy theory promoted by white supremacists holds that Jews promote integration, miscegenation and civil rights as part of a plot to replace the white race. Mr. West appears to believe the opposite. “Jewish people have owned the black voice,” he said on a recent podcast, later speaking of black Americans “being signed to a [Jewish-owned] record label, or having a Jewish manager, or being signed to a Jewish basketball team, or doing a movie on a Jewish platform like Disney.”
That sort of talk sounds very much like the ravings of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the world’s foremost black anti-Semite. “You can’t do nothing in Hollywood unless you go by them”—the Jews—Mr. Farrakhan said in a 2010 speech. “You a hip-hop artist? You can’t do nothing, you gotta go by them. You want to be a great sports figure? They own that plantation. Children of Israel, they got you jumping through hoops.”
Similarly, Mr. West’s claim that Planned Parenthood was founded by Jews to control the black population is the inverse of the white-supremacist notion that Jews have promoted abortion to eradicate whites. Again, Mr. West was merely echoing the Nation of Islam, which has long implicated Planned Parenthood in a supposed black “depopulation agenda.”
TriviaWhy is conservative media defending anti-Semitism?
Film was included on a recommended viewing list by the Congressional Black Caucus at the request of long time Democrat Party supporter Louis Farrakhan
Kanye West’s descent into anti-Semitic hysteria has been a clarifying moment for American Jews. We have found out who our friends are from their reaction or non-reaction to Kanye’s appalling statements. Unfortunately, not enough conservative and Republican leaders have spoken out. The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens’s incoherent defense of Kanye, who is a friend of hers, was disappointing. Hopefully she will reconsider and put some distance between herself and Kanye.How Theodore Roosevelt Embarrassed an Anti-Semite While Protecting His Freedom of Speech
Much worse, however, is the case of Jason Whitlock. A black Christian conservative with 600,000 followers on Twitter, Whitlock works at Glenn Beck’s The Blaze and frequently appears on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. He is not only defending Kanye’s anti-Semitic outbursts, but also engaging in anti-Semitism himself, attacking Jewish people with rhetoric one would expect to find only on a fringe neo-Nazi website.
In an article at The Blaze defending Kanye’s comments about Jews having too much power and controlling black lives, Whitlock wrote, “I’m not going to entertain the lie that progressive secular elites—black, Jewish, LGBTQ or feminists—wield no power in the United States. Miss me with that ‘trope.’ Denial of the mass power they’ve collected is just one of the many lies they use to avoid accountability.”
“On the surface, progressive secular black people, Jewish people, LGBTQ and feminists seem united in their hatred of white people,” he continued. “It’s not white people. It’s a hatred of Christianity that unites them. That hatred compels them to try to destroy anything that Christianity created, including the patriarchy, Western civilization and the United States of America.”
Blaming Jews for trying to destroy Christianity is one of anti-Semitism’s oldest libels, and it has led to centuries of Christian violence against Jews. Moreover, why single out Jews for promulgating left-wing policies that Whitlock believes are harming America? Are there no progressive Christians or Muslims in the U.S. who wield political power? Has Whitlock ever heard of former President Barack Obama? Current President Joe Biden? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi? They all routinely cite Christian doctrine to promote left-wing values.
In 1892, Hermann Ahlwardt was elected to the German parliament on an explicitly anti-Semitic platform. Three years later he broke off from his party to found the “Anti-Semitic People’s Party.” Dovi Safier and Yehuda Geberer tell the story of his brief tour of United States in the same year, in which he was feted by the newly formed Anti-Semitic Society of America. At the time, Theodore Roosevelt was New York City’s police commissioner. Safier and Geberer cite the future president’s description of what followed:
“While I was Police Commissioner of New York City, an anti-Semitic preacher from Berlin, Rector Ahlwardt, came to New York to preach a crusade against the Jews. Many Jews were much excited and asked me to prevent him from speaking and not to give him police protection. This, I told them, was impossible; and, if possible, would have been undesirable, because it would make him a martyr. The proper thing to do was to make him ridiculous. Accordingly, I sent a detail of police under a Jewish sergeant, and the Jew-baiter made his harangue under the active protection of some 40 police, every one of them a Jew.”
Safier and Geberer add:
As a result, his U.S. tour wasn’t overly successful, and the American press was full of derision for his stated mission. When he arrived in Hoboken, New Jersey to deliver an address at the local anti-Semitic society, he was berated and beaten by the young Jewish crowd, causing him to draw his (illegally obtained) pistol and wave it at the crowd. This act landed him in prison for disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon. Borrowing a page from Commissioner Roosevelt’s playbook, the authorities in Hoboken placed him in a cell together with his assailants—who surely didn’t file a complaint about overcrowding.
We Need to Talk About the Way We Talk About Israel
It’s not about being a Republican or a Democrat. It’s about treating human beings equally and with dignity. It’s about demanding justice for all, including Jewish Americans.
The consequences of going quietly into the night, of allowing this continued exclusion of Jews from public life, are dire for the diaspora. It means that good people who want to celebrate inclusivity, eliminate climate change, do their jobs, make the world a better place, or simply learn in a school won’t be able to do so. It means the minimization of Jews in public life. It means that America is experimenting with its darkest tendencies. It means that the future of American Jewry is more fragile than it’s ever been. It means that antisemitism is winning.
It’s hard to stand up against this conversation. It’s intimidating, it’s scary, it’s risky. You could be castigated, called out, condemned, or canceled. Going against the grain is not without cost. And anyway, it is a really confusing conversation. But nonetheless, we need to say it over and over again. The way we talk about Israel is not as scary as having Islamic Jihad launch hundreds or thousands of rockets a few miles away from you. But the Israel conversation in America is its own type of violence—and there is no Iron Dome for this one.
So what should we do? Here are three options.
Option 1. We can leave. We can leave these institutions and these organizations and start our own. Our own climate change advocacy groups, our own institutions to celebrate the LBGTQ+ community, our own universities. That’s what the rabbis of post-destruction Israel did. They had no choice. They lost all their institutions and they changed the future of the Jewish people and oh my goodness that worked. The mystics of Tsfat did the same thing. They lost their geographic and cultural framework and they turned inward. They invented things, they wrote things, they created what Jewish mysticism is today. They abandoned all they knew and they changed the trajectory of Judaism for the better. Maybe we should, too. Maybe we should say we are done, we are abandoning these organizations and structures that don’t want us, and we will make our own centers of justice and education and business.
Option 2. We can stay. And we can try and change this trajectory from within. Davka, we can send our children to these colleges and help them represent as Jews. We can speak up and speak out. We can counter-protest and counter-program. We can fundraise and coalition-build and organize. We can remind people that just as we have every obligation to fight for the dignity and justice for others, we also have every right to be a part of that work. We can stay, and muster the chutzpah to shame the shaming of Israel. There are many Jewish institutions and groups and friend circles right now that are reevaluating their existence seriously and frantically. They are trying to find ways to stay and to make things better.
And then, there’s Option 3. We can do nothing. We like to say there are no wrong answers. But in this case, there is one wrong answer. Because doing nothing is the outcome we absolutely cannot tolerate. We cannot pretend this problem is on the periphery when it is pervasive and appalling. Ignoring it is enabling it. Denying it is helping it flourish. It is not for us to complete the work but neither are we free to desist from it. There is broken glass all over this world and we must pick up those pieces and repair them. The very future of the diaspora may depend on which option we choose. Option 3, doing nothing, is no option at all.
We have all the resources to really work on this problem. We have some of the best minds, the kindest people, the warmest souls here. Together, we can be a part of and even lead the way in ensuring that we quiet the growing acceptance of Jew-hate.
J Street works to elect anti-Israel candidates to Congress.
— AIPAC (@AIPAC) November 3, 2022
Summer Lee calls for conditioning aid to Israel, questions Israel’s right to defend itself while under attack, & aligns with Israel’s biggest critics in Congress.@jstreetdotorg is many things, but it's not pro-Israel. https://t.co/EDIZSjTllu pic.twitter.com/SAznAvBxqt
The Hijacking of Middle East Studies
Few trends in academia are more depressing than the continued domination of Middle Eastern studies departments by postcolonial professors whose shtick involves recycling cliched attacks on the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little Satan.” The results of this trend are evident in faculty antipathy toward Israel, which is increasingly playing out in their support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.Antisemitic book from Kyrie Irving scandal a bestseller on Amazon, Apple
This reached a new pinnacle in March 2022 when the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) voted to formally support an academic boycott of Israeli universities. “Our members have cast a clear vote to answer the call for solidarity from Palestinian scholars and students experiencing violations of their right to education and other human rights,” MESA’s president, Eve Troutt Powell, wrote of the resolution. “MESA’s Board will work to honor the will of its members and ensure that the call for an academic boycott is upheld without undermining our commitment to the free exchange of ideas and scholarship.”
MESA, which has more than 2,800 members and more than 50 institutional members, describes itself as a “private, non-profit learned society that brings together scholars, educators and those interested in the study of the region from all over the world.” Academic Middle East studies departments are crucial in the development of American students’—and by extension the American public’s—views of the Middle East. It is also the mechanism that informs and helps shape U.S. policymakers, from the State Department to the military and intelligence communities. MESA’s vote to boycott Israeli academics and institutions puts scholars on notice that professional acceptance in the organization now demands that they discriminate against individuals on the basis of their national, ethnic, and religious origins.
Part of MESA’s decision to boycott Israel is explained in a new report from the National Association of Scholars (NAS), a conservative nonprofit organization that advocates for academic freedom, on the takeover of Middle East studies centers (MESCs). Established by the federal government in the 1950s in the interest of advancing U.S. national security, MESCs have been hijacked by Arab and Muslim states who donate generously to universities and departments, the report finds, and by activist professors who have “repurposed critical theory to galvanize activism on Middle East issues.”
A now-rescinded rule from the Trump administration’s Education Department forced colleges and universities to divulge billions of dollars in foreign contributions. Not surprisingly it revealed that as federal money has waxed and waned, private donations—especially from states like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar—increased, often after being funneled through opaque funding mechanisms such as “university foundations.” Twelve universities disclosed a total of $6.5 billion in foreign funding. The true number is likely much higher.
The book series based on the film shared by basketball player Kyrie Irving is a bestseller on Amazon, Apple Books and Barnes & Noble in the United States, The Jerusalem Post has found.
Entries in the Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America series, which promotes the conspiracy theory that Jewish people are imposters who stole the heritage of black people, are the number one best selling book or audio book in three categories on Amazon: "Religious Intolerance & Persecution," "Black & African American Biographies," and "People of African Descent & Black Studies." Versions of the book are also the "most wished for" in these categories.
The first book, by author Ronald Dalton Jr., beat out former president Barack Obama's autobiography A Promised Land in the "Black & African American Biographies" category. In the "People of African Descent & Black Studies," versions of the book are in every slot in the top ten besides number 4 and 8, which were won by the audiobook and hardcopy of Nikole Hannah-Jones's The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story and the number 9 best seller, and audiobook The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley.
On Apple Books, Hebrews to Negroes was number 9 on the list of top audiobooks. The book was also found to be number 69 on Barnes & Noble's top 100 bestselling books.
@DavidHirsh @HGutfleisch @marc_seul #Antisemitism #Antizionism #bremen #Frankfurt pic.twitter.com/TrY81esphY
— LCSCA (@centre_as) November 3, 2022
'I am deeply sorry to have caused you pain': Kyrie Irving FINALLY apologizes for linking to anti-Semitic film on social media - after Nets suspended him and Anti-Defamation League REJECTED his $500,000 donation
Kyrie Irving had first refused to apologize Thursday for posting anti-Semitic material to his Twitter page
And the guard also refused to answer whether or not he held anti-Semitic beliefs
Irving and the Nets organization pledged Wednesday to work with the Anti-Defamation League and each donate $500k to causes that 'eradicate intolerance'
But the ADL now says it will not accept Irving's donation as 'he feels no accountability for his actions' Irving posted a link to the Amazon page for the 2018 film 'Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America' last week
It took:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 4, 2022
- 2 disastrous press conferences
- 1 botched "donation" to fight hate
- an indefinite suspension without pay
- nationwide outrage and pressure
for Kyrie Irving to apologize for pushing the grossly antisemitic documentary “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America". pic.twitter.com/Hjwji3WRBh
Damn @SHAQ is the best! He just absolutely schooled Kanye! ?? pic.twitter.com/HcSOf1KHHS
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) November 4, 2022
Marc Lamont Hill praises terrorist that tried to bomb Jerusalem cinema
Temple University professor and political commentator Marc Lamont Hill praised Palestinian terrorist Fatima Bernawi after her death at the age of 83 on Friday morning.
"Just heard about the death of Fatima Bernawi," said Hill, responding to a tweet by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). "She is a legend among Afro-Palestinians and a beloved daughter of Jerusalem. Much needs to be written about her life and struggle."
Bernawi and other terrorists had attempted to bomb the Zion Cinema in downtown Jerusalem in October 1967. The explosive, left in a handbag, was found before detonation, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-affiliated NGO Samidoun said in a eulogy. She was arrested and served a decade in prison before being released in a prisoner swap.
Hill blessed her in another post. He also shared a tweet about Bernawi posted by an activist before later deleting it, according to analyst Eitan Fischberger, due to her radicalism. Fischberger said she had previously called for "all Israelis to die and expressed support for terrorists and terror groups."
"The Palestinian revolutionary Fatima Bernawi passed away today at the age of 83," wrote PYM. "She was the first Palestinian woman militant to be arrested by occupation forces. Bernawi’s contributions to the struggle are innumerable, and she will forever be revered by the Palestinian nation." PYM has been involved in events celebrating PFLP terrorists.
Who is Fatima Bernawi?
Samidoun said that in addition to being one of the first modern female Palestinian terrorists to be arrested by Israel, Bernawi "was one of the first women to plan an armed operation in Palestine."
Bernawi, a former UNRWA nurse, was exiled to Lebanon as part of the prisoner deal, but later returned to Gaza. Affiliated with Fatah, she became the chief of the Palestinian Female Police Corps, according to Gulf News.
"Along with Dalal al-Mughrabi, Shadia Abu Ghazaleh, and Leila Khaled, Bernawi remained a symbol of Palestinian women’s steadfastness and commitment by all means to liberate their homeland from the river to the sea," said Samidoun.
Narrator: She attempted to murder civilians in a cinema in Jerusalem, by placing a bomb there. Thank goodness the bomb failed to go off. That's why she was arrested. pic.twitter.com/lbs8dZpNRp
— Daniel Sugarman (@Daniel_Sugarman) November 4, 2022
So @marclamonthill deleted the first tweet memorializing terrorist Fatima Bernawi, possibly because he was retweeting a notorious terror supporter. But then he.....
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 4, 2022
Tweets twice more in support of a terrorist? pic.twitter.com/os4wNcAkNM
Update: looks like he thinks she's okay since her bomb (thankfully) didn't take any lives. pic.twitter.com/4vpF1pXrec
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) November 4, 2022
More flyers spotted outside last night on campus. pic.twitter.com/SrbFHxDpFf
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 4, 2022
Interestingly Jewish left wing controversial Yachaduk seem to support #Iranian Press TV @Campaign4T Reported Press TV to the police #antisemitism #IranianRevolution2022 (2) https://t.co/SXdz9v6iiN
— Eye On Antisemitism (@AntisemitismEye) November 4, 2022
FBI issues warning of credible broad threat to NJ synagogues
The Federal Bureau of Investigation in Newark sent a warning on Thursday of credible threats to synagogues in New Jersey.
“The FBI has received credible information of a broad threat to synagogues in NJ,” the FBI of Newark tweeted. “We ask at this time that you take all security precautions to protect your community and facility. We will share more information as soon as we can. Stay alert. In case of emergency call police.”
In a follow-up tweet, the FBI of Newark said it was “taking a proactive measure with this warning while investigative processes are carried out.”
On Twitter, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said his office is “closely monitoring” the situation and working with local law enforcement to “ensure that all houses of worship are protected.”
— FBI Newark (@FBINewark) November 4, 2022
Detroit Jewish center evacuated after pipe bomb threats
The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit's Frankel academy was evacuated after pipe bomb threats were made on Thursday.Synagogue in Chico hit with antisemitic vandalism, sign burned
"Frankel Jewish Academy and several other Jewish schools across the country have been the subject of bomb threats over the last two days." said the community center in a statement.
According to the NGO StopAntisemitism, students and staff were evacuated while police searched the grounds for explosive devices. The "pipe bomb threat was called in at 3pm EDT," tweeted the organization.
Police "determined there are no explosive devices in the building or surrounding area," said the community center.
The community center thanked the police and local security services, and committed to returning to scheduled Jewish community programming.
"Nothing is more important than the safety and security of our patrons, staff, and community," said the center.
Antisemitic vandals set fire to a sign welcoming visitors to Congregation Beth Israel in Chico earlier this week.
The vandalism, discovered Wednesday afternoon by a temple assistant in the college town, marks the latest in a series of antisemitic outbursts in the Sacramento Valley in recent months. In late August, four black-clad activists, members of a white supremacist cell, hung banners above a highway near UC Davis claiming the Holocaust “is an anti-white lie” and “Communism is Jewish.” Sacramento State University has dealt with repeated acts of pro-Nazi vandalism since the start of the fall semester, prompting the mayor to speak at a press conference to decry hate.
Synagogue leaders called an emergency board meeting on Wednesday night to discuss the incident. Leaders said in a statement they were in contact with Chico police, the Anti-Defamation League and the Secure Community Network, a nonprofit monitoring threats to Jewish communities across North America.
Rabbi Lisa Rappaport said in a phone call Thursday that the crime was “incredibly disturbing and distressing,” though considering the recent rise in highly visible antisemitic hate incidents and anti-Jewish rhetoric on the national stage, it was “not surprising.”
“We’re all sort of braced and ready for something like this,” she said.
Earlier this year Chico saw an antisemitic flyer campaign similar to those spearheaded by the Goyim Defense League, a virulently antisemitic network led by a Petaluma man. In online forums the GDL has boasted about trying to paper all 50 states with anti-Jewish propaganda; its flyers claim Jews are responsible for the Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine and other ills.
HORRIFYING - a Synagogue's sign in the Sacramento, CA area has been set on fire and had swastikas, Nazi lightening bolts carved into it.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) November 3, 2022
Chico PD received a call regarding the vandalism at Beth Israel Synagogue around 4:15pm yesterday and are investigating it as a hate crime. pic.twitter.com/348fMwCQdZ
Australian soccer club fined after fans make Nazi salutes at match
Australian soccer bosses said Friday they have fined semi-professional club Sydney United 58 and ordered their staff to undergo anti-racism training after fans made Nazi salutes at last month’s Australia Cup final.The Dramatic Decline of the ‘Rothschilds of the East’
During the October 1 game against Macarthur FC, some Sydney United fans were shown on television making fascist salutes and shouting over a welcome speech by an indigenous representative.
The fans also chanted far-right Croatian songs during the game at CommBank Stadium in Sydney, Australian media reported.
Football Australia said it had issued Sydney United — formerly known as Sydney Croatia — with an AUD$15,000 (US$9,500) fine.
Wielding the threat of further sanctions including a potential three-year ban from the cup, the governing body warned that the club’s fans must behave well in the future.
It ordered Sydney United directors and staff to have training against racism, discrimination, and antisemitism, and to learn about indigenous culture.
Football Australia said two fans had already been issued with life bans.
“We have acted decisively in a manner which reflects our desire to strike this behavior out of Australian football,” said Football Australia chief executive James Johnson.
NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Darren Bark said the final had featured “some of the ugliest scenes we have seen by spectators at a football game in our country.”
Across Asia, it’s not hard to stumble across traces of the Sassoons, the Baghdadi Jewish merchant family that came to be known as the “Rothschilds of the East.”Why Is Israel One of the HAPPIEST Countries in the World?
In Shanghai and Hong Kong, they built lavish synagogues, most still in use today. At Victor’s Cafe in Shanghai, named for Victor Sassoon and housed in his former hotel, visitors enjoy “Sassoon curry” with a view of the historic Bund district. In Mumbai, India—the former headquarters of David Sassoon & Co.—the name is difficult to miss: It’s on a historic boat dock, library, schools, and hospitals. And Jews who visit Mumbai can stay in the Sassoon House attached to the Magen David Synagogue—one of the largest synagogues in Asia outside Israel—for easy access to daily minyans and Shabbat services.
A century ago, the Sassoons were known worldwide; news of everything from their business activities to personal affairs made it into international media. For a time, they dominated up to 70% of the trade volume of Indian opium and also dabbled in cotton, silver, textiles, banking, insurance, and real estate. They were accepted as members of the British aristocracy at a time when Jews were only beginning to be accepted within society. Yet by the second half of the 20th century, there was no business to speak of; today, hardly anyone knows their name. How did one of the 19th century’s most successful dynasties rise and fall so dramatically while dynasties like the Kadoories and the Rothschilds persisted?
The story of the Sassoons is a classic example of the duality of assimilation and the refugee experience. Later generations of the family traded in their distinctive Baghdadi Jewishness for wealth and inclusion into British aristocratic life. In the end, this was one of the biggest mistakes that led to their eventual downfall, argues Joseph Sassoon, a descendent of the family, in his new book The Sassoons: The Great Global Merchants and the Making of an Empire. Sassoon, a professor of Arab studies at Georgetown University, digs into a treasure trove of untapped archives housed at the National Library in Jerusalem that had never before been accessed.
The book focuses on the David Sassoon family line—the one that escaped Baghdad in 1830 and established David Sassoon & Co. in Mumbai—while Joseph descends from one of David’s brothers. Joseph’s family remained in Baghdad until the 1970s when they fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. Growing up, Joseph would hear stories from his father about their famed relatives who made the Sassoon name famous.
But he took little interest in learning about his family until 2012, when he received a letter from another person named Joseph Sassoon, a distant relative living in Scotland, looking to connect with other family members. “I had no idea where these initial excursions would lead,” he writes in the book. But his interest was piqued, and what tipped the balance was the archive he discovered at the National Library in Jerusalem.
While most accounts of the Sassoon family—like The Last Kings of Shanghai, published in 2020—focus on the family’s activities in Shanghai, the tens of thousands of documents accessed by Joseph on the family business were used to chronicle its whole story, from the patriarch’s escape from Baghdad until the company faded from public life more than a century later. Most of those documents—letters, business correspondence and ledgers, even dinner menus—were written in Judeo-Arabic, part of the reason they had not been used before.
You may be surprised to hear that Israel is ranked as one of the HAPPIEST countries in the world! So what is the secret to Israel's happiness? We can explain. ?? #InsideIsrael
I prayed for peace at the Western Wall: “May Jerusalem emerge and endure as a place of unity among the children of Abraham—Jews, Christians, and Muslims.” pic.twitter.com/KY0RvXnEml
— Ritchie Torres (@RitchieTorres) November 3, 2022
New film ‘Reckonings’ explores the complex issue of Holocaust reparations
Near-centenarian Holocaust survivor Helena Weinrauch danced at The Paley Center for Media in Manhattan on Thursday night, minutes before a sold-out premiere of the new film “Reckonings.”Israeli initiative asks synagogues to honor Kristallnacht by keeping their lights on
Weinrauch, 98, had mixed emotions while walking into the theater to see the documentary in which she appears.
“I’m a bit sad but I’m happy to still be alive,” Weinrauch told JNS.
“Reckonings” opens with Weinrauch explaining that when British soldiers liberated her from the Bergen-Belsen death camp in 1945, she looked similar to the corpses on a truck that was to take them to be “taken care of.”
Presumed dead, she was placed on the truck as well, but a British officer pulled on her leg and then announced, “That skeleton is still alive.” Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories
The release of “Reckonings” marks the 70th anniversary of the Luxembourg Agreement, reached on September 10, 1952, in which the German government agreed to pay reparations to both survivors and the State of Israel. It was signed by Konrad Adenauer, then chancellor of Germany, and Moshe Sharett, who two years later became Israel’s second prime minister.
Nothing about the issue of reparations was simple. Some survivors viewed reparations as “blood money,” including future Prime Minister Menachem Begin, a Holocaust survivor, who vehemently opposed them. Then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion favored accepting the funds in order to finance the upbuilding of the State of Israel and improve the lives of its citizens.
Adenauer had been opposed to Nazism and favored talks for reparations, while several members of his government were against them. While Adenauer may have thought reparations were justified from a moral perspective, he must have known that they would also aid Germany’s reacceptance by the international community.
On November 9, synagogues and churches around the world will keep their lights on to commemorate Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany’s “Night of Broken Glass,” in which dozens of Jews were murdered and hundreds of synagogues were set ablaze in 1938.
Organized by Israel’s Religious Kibbutz Movement, the initiative called “Light from the Synagogue” has slowly grown over the past 15 years. Participating congregations are asked to teach about the November 1938 pogrom’s place in history, in addition to keeping the lights on until morning.
“Kristallnacht was a point of no return,” said Dalia Yohanan, the project’s coordinator. “The world did not care and that was a signal to the Nazis,” she told The Times of Israel.
Yohanan’s father — Naftali (Kurt) Wertheim — survived Kristallnacht as a boy by hiding under a table as neighbors threw stones at his family’s windows. Soon after, Wertheim was sent on a Kindertransport rescue to Britain and he later settled in Israel.
Yohanan helped launch “Light from the Synagogue” in 2008 with leaders of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). The commemoration differs from Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Memorial Day — because the focus is not on mourning.
“This is not like Yom HaShoah,” said Yohanan. “It’s an opportunity to talk about what it means to be part of the Jewish community and what is our Jewish identity. This is the most beautiful day to talk about it. They burned, we learn how to build up,” said the activist.
More than 400 synagogues in Israel are expected to participate this year, along with hundreds of synagogues and churches outside the Jewish state, said Yohanan. In Argentina, for example, commemorations will be held at 50 synagogues, said Yohanan.
“Every year we grow a little bit more in Israel and the Jewish world,” said Yohanan.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon! Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. Read all about it here! |
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