Last Tuesday’s Maimonides class was on Anti-Semitism and I have
to say it was quite the eye-opener.
Not that I wasn’t aware of the rampant Anti-Semitism alive
and well in today’s world—or the so called “reasons” behind it—but what struck
me most were the things they failed
to mention to me in Hebrew School or my Genocide in the 20th Century class in
high school.
Before I get into that, I’d like to begin this post by
stating that Holocaust Education Week occurred earlier this month. For those of
you unfamiliar with the event, I’d highly suggest learning more about it. I’m
always the first one to say everyone should take the time to learn about other
“Remember” Days, Weeks, and Months, but this is certainly one people need to
take up the mantle of carrying forward.
The last of the Holocaust survivors are dying. Our children
will not have the opportunity to meet them. We must remember—if not for the sake of the millions of people who
lost their lives, but for the sake of our children and their children and the
future of our world.
One child of Holocaust survivors—Justice Rosalie Abella of
the Supreme Court—recently gave a keynote address at a Holocaust event earlier
in October. Canada’s role during WWII was certainly better than most, but less
than exemplary.
In August, The Star
published an article that revealed the existence of a Jewish Internment camp in
Ripples, N.B. near Minto. This camp was home to more than 700 Jews and
imprisoned others who spoke out against WWII.
Although Canada, like many other countries, did not do much
to help the Jews during the war, its postwar efforts provided shelter for
30,000 Jews who lived through the horrors of the Nazi regime. Today, Canada
chairs (Mario Silva) the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance—an
organization that makes up 31 countries—which sole aim is to “ensure that the
lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten.”
But Canada, and the rest of the alliance’s members, cannot
be the only countries to bear the responsibility of carrying on its message.
The lessons from genocide itself should be something each and every human being
should carry forward. Genocides occurred long before the Holocaust and it has
continued to happen since.
However, this post will not speak to the number of genocides
that have occurred before and after the Holocaust. My wish is to speak directly
to Jewish concerns.
I want to share a particular anecdote with you about my
experience as a Jewish person in secular society.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work as an intern
in Jewish Advocacy for B’nai Brith Canada. The only reason I was hired—in all
honesty—was because my grandfather, Bill Grosberg, works for the organization
and has continued to do so since he was 14 years old. He will be 90 years old
next September.
Having only just completed my first year studies during my
Bachelor’s degree at Queen’s University, I was asked to compile an emergency contact
list for all Synagogues in Canada. Should any far-reaching Anti-Semitic acts
occur, B’nai Brith wanted to be able to send out a nation-wide message to those
responsible for the security of the synagogues.
During my time as an intern, I was asked to sit in on a
conference call involving all B’nai Brith Advocacy members across Canada. Frank
Diamont, B’nai Brith Canada’s CEO—at that time the Executive VP— addressed all
of us on a very important matter that concerned all North American Jews.
First, I would like to say that I did not personally work
for Frank. I was also never involved directly in B’nai Brith’s politics or
their role in the Jewish North American world. So if anyone wants me to comment
on what’s going on with them, I haven’t the faintest idea. Besides, gramps has
been showing these entries to the good folks at the Hove Street office, so I
rather just say HI GRANDPA I LOVE YOU! and move on.
My reason in bringing up my previous internship is merely to
retell a scenario that Frank spoke of almost seven years ago when I worked
there.
He described the situation for Jews in Toronto as dire, that
the horrors of the Holocaust were by no means behind us but irrevocably part of
our futures. That if there was someone else, who possessed the charisma and
ambition of Hitler, who rose to power, they could—like Hitler—just as easily
round up the Jewish people and deposit them into a ghetto that could, and
would, fill the core of Toronto.
I scoffed then, all those years ago. I felt the assessment
to be extremist and borderline paranoid.
But here I am, years later, and my eyes are finally open. I started
paying attention to the news. I started listening more to how people talk. And
I’m beginning to understand how people think.
We’re all away of the internet being full of slander, libel,
and propaganda. But this one takes the cake: http://whitewraithe.wordpress.com/2012/12/08/britains-jewish-royal-family/.
I can’t even begin to describe how utterly ridiculous some
people are. Yes, the Jews are taking over Britain! That’s something we should be concerned about. Nevermind that
Britain committed multiple genocides over many centuries as it climbed itself
into the position of World Super Power towards the end of the nineteenth
century. No, what we should be freaking out about is that Jewish people are
marrying into the British Royal Family. Because that family is just so
gosh-darn powerful.
Most of the world hates Jewish people. Most of the world
hates everyone. But if genocide is still happening, if people can still talk
about each other in such outlandish ways, who’s to say that North America won’t
one day – as a whole – turn against the Jews? Or any other minority for that
matter.
It took one man to wipe out two-thirds of European Jewry. What
if Canada decides it no longer wants to put up with us anymore? Even then, when
“None was too many” http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/socstud/foundation_gr6/blms/6-2-4f.pdf
—what if the government suddenly decides it no longer wants to help us carry
our burden? Not simply the burden of carrying the message of the Holocaust
forward, but the burden of being Jewish in a world that is apparently not quite
over the idea of obliterating Jews from this world?
How long can the memory of the Holocaust haunt us until its
message runs its course?
What do most people think of when they think of the Jews?
They think, of course, of the Holocaust.
What does it mean
when a group of people are remembered only for the fact that someone tried to
exterminate them?
Nevermind that out of eight of the individuals who have won
Nobel Prizes this year, 6 are Jewish, 2 are Israeli, and 1 is a Holocaust survivor.
Nevermind that although the Jews make up 0.2% of the world’s population, roughly
23% of Nobel Prize winners are Jewish or have Jewish ancestry. Nevermind that of
the two percent of American Jews, 40% are billionaires and over 45% of the
gifts made to charity are made by Jewish Americans. Nevermind that some of the
most famous people in the world—academics, actors, directors, etc. alike are
Jewish.
But the fact remains that we’re a tiny bunch of people. And
some people are paranoid that we’re trying to take over the world? Yes, Jews
have their hands in a lot of things, but so do countless other Christians. Why
aren’t we freaking out about Christianity taking over? Oh wait, it already did!
That’s why we have Christmas off and
not any other non-Christian holiday. Certain sectors of Christianity are all
about conversion. Jewish people don’t push for conversion. They allow it to
happen if that’s what people want, but it’s nowhere on their list of things to
accomplish. Logically speaking, if Jews were seriously interested in taking
over the world, don’t you think they’d want to up their numbers?
People have been trying to kill us since biblical times.
People still want us dead. It isn’t easy being Jewish, just like it isn’t easy
being any minority in this world. But
we don’t hear anything about people being pissed off that Christians run the
world. Because most people are Christian.
So what has enabled the Jew to survive for so many
centuries? And what has the Jew given to humanity?
In Rabbi Ken Spiro’s World
Perfect: the Jewish Impact on Civilization, he writes that he conducted a
series of surveys asking people to list the fundamental values and principles
needed to uphold humanity in our world.
Of the 1,500 individuals surveyed—Westerners and Europeans—6
central categories were decided upon:
- Respect for human life
- Peace and harmony
- Justice and equality
- Education
- Family
- Social responsibility
He then wanted to know where these universal values came
from. Many of the respondents felt that these ideas originated from the
Hellenists—the Greeks and Romans.
Surely Greece and Rome changed the entire world, especially
in art, beauty, philosophy, government, and science. But what about values,
ethics, and principles?
For the purpose of time, I’m going to run through a quick
history lesson.
The Greeks and Romans practiced infanticide. They did this
for two reasons: population control and eradicating “burdensome” (aka deformed)
members of society.
We know this to be true from Euripides, Ion as well as the
archaeological excavations—in the Athenian Agora—containing the remains of 175
babies thrown there to drown.
Even Aristotle himself writes in Politics that “There must
be a law that no imperfect or maimed child shall be brought up. And to avoid an
excess in population, some children must be exposed. For a limit must be fixed
to the population of the state” (VII. 16).
The Romans also engaged in exploitation of the innocent—mutilating
unwanted children to make them useful for begging. Unfortunately, this practice
still occurs in India today.
Seneca himself remarks on the fact that these children have
been done a “service” because they are now made useful through their
deformities.
Let us not forget the fact that it was the Romans who first
turned murder into an exhibition.
More than 200 stadiums were erected so that Romans could
witness the barbaric “sport” of extinguishing human life.
Emperor Augustus, during his reign (29 BC to 14 CE) staged
games where 10,000 men fought and 3500 wild beasts were slain.
Did you really think the Coliseum was merely an
architectural wonder to be gazed at? No. The stadium seated 50,000 people. Its
floor and roof could be raised or lowered; it could be transformed into a
desert or a jungle; it could even be filled with water and turned into a lake so
that boats could sail in it.
It was the ultimate theatre and its primary purpose was to
stage the brutal killing of human and animal life.
We know the positive and negative things that the Greeks and
Romans did for this world.
We can easily say that every religion, culture, race,
ethnicity contributed in the shaping of the modern world. In terms of the
Greeks and Romans, we can certainly thank them for a kind of legal order, but
we certainly did not inherit our belief in the sanctity of human life from
them.
So what have the Jewish people done? What can be said about
the Jews?
John Adams, second president of the United States once said:
“I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other
nation … fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for
civilizing the nations.”
Mark Twain, famous American writer, in an article entitled “Concerning the Jews” in Harper’s Magazine published in 1899, wrote rather poetically:
”...If statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of stardust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. … The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed; and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”
Friedrich Neitzche, the German philosopher who famously said “God is Dead”, wrote: “The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe; they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favorable ones) by means of virtues of some sort… It is certain that the Jew, if he desired-or if they were driven to it, as the anti-Semites seem to wish-could now have the ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe; that they are not working or planning for that end is equally sure… The resourcefulness of the modern Jews, both in mind and soul, is extraordinary…”
Leo Tolstoy, a Russian writer and philosopher, wrote in 1908: “What is the Jew?...What kind of unique creature is this whom all the rulers of all the nations of the world have disgraced and crushed and expelled and destroyed; persecuted, burned and drowned, and who, despite their anger and their fury, continues to live and to flourish. … The Jew - is the symbol of eternity. ... He is the one who for so long had guarded the prophetic message and transmitted it to all mankind. A people such as this can never disappear. The Jew is eternal. He is the embodiment of eternity.”
But most strikingly, what did HITLER, and his right-hand men—the man, and group of men, who swore to annihilate the Jewish people from existence—have to say about the Jew?
In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that “Conscience is a Jewish invention.”
The man who wished to eradicate us believed that Jews invented conscience. As the inventors of conscience, he considered the Jew to be the upholder and perpetuator of morality and social responsibility.
By destroying the Jew, Hitler believed that he was “freeing men from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge; from the dirty and degrading modifications of a chimera called conscience and morality”.
Hitler didn’t want to kill the Jew because of the Jew’s religion. He wanted to kill the Jew because, for Hitler, the Jew was the embodiment of all that was good in the world.
Moreover, Hitler also wrote that:
“If only one country, for whatever reason, tolerates a Jewish family in it, that family will become the germ center for fresh sedition. If one little Jewish boy survives without any Jewish education, with no synagogue and no Hebrew school, it [Judaism] is in his soul. Even if there had never been a synagogue or a Jewish school or an Old Testament, the Jewish spirit would still exist and exert its influence. It has been there from the beginning and there is no Jew, not a single one, who does not personify it.”
(Hitler’s Apocalypse by Robert Wistrich, p. 122.)
Hitler not only wanted to wipe out the Jew in body, but also in spirit.
He may have murdered many of my ancestors. He may be responsible for the millions of Holocaust deniers out there. He may be responsible for the perpetuation of Jewish hatred. And he may even be responsible for the spirit of hatred itself that still exists in this world.
But he isn’t getting my soul. And no matter what I read or hear about people bad-mouthing the Jews, I refuse to reject or ignore my history. I will, as Hitler said, personify the Jewish spirit.
Because at the end of the day, although Hitler set out to destroy the Jew—and anyone else who didn’t fit into his “perfect” world—he was really out to destroy our humanity itself.
I think within every human being there exists the light of inherent goodness, no matter what religion they happen to be.
All that matters is that we do what’s right. Not right by our religious code, but right by a transcendent ethical standard of morality.
The Golden Rule, folks. It really is that simple.
For the next few posts, I intend to delve into the crazy antisemitism that seems to be taking over Europe. I really want to get into the nitty gritty of what people believe about Jews. Because some of it is utterly ridiculous and the bulk of it is actually terrifying.
I have to admit, I'm becoming more and more terrified as I continue to read about it.
MB
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