Behind the Aegis
Behind the Aegis's JournalConfronting Holocaust Denial
Holocaust denial is a position consciously held not because there is no evidence but despite it. Like antisemitism, to which it is closely related, Holocaust denial is not based on evidence but is a position held because its adherents want it to be true, writes Professor Dan Stone.
There are few “flat earthers” these days and the majority of people no longer believe that the moon is made of green cheese. By contrast, denying the Holocaust, that is, claiming that the genocide of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies during World War II ever took place, seems to be flourishing.
It is an extreme example of an increasingly common phenomenon: rejecting facts when they happen to be inconvenient. At least when, in the middle ages, people thought that the sun orbited the earth, they had no proof to the contrary. Holocaust denial is a position consciously held not because there is no evidence but despite it. Like antisemitism, to which it is closely related, Holocaust denial is not based on evidence but is a position held because its adherents want it to be true. Unfortunately, it is not.
Just as antisemitism is a claim about Jews that rests ultimately on mythical thinking – Jews as puppet-masters behind world events, for example – so Holocaust denial rests on similar conspiracy theories – that the Jews concocted the whole story to extract money from Germany and to promote Zionism, for example.
People with strongly-held antisemitic beliefs are rarely amenable to having their views changed by the presentation of evidence, and the same is true of Holocaust denial. What follows is not aimed at those who are unshakeable in their belief that the Holocaust never happened, although it would be nice to think that their minds could be changed (they probably do not read the JC, in any case). Rather, I want to show that, when people – often youngsters – are confused by the easily-accessible lies that proliferate on the internet, it is not hard to put them straight.
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GI Jews Didnt Just Fight Nazis They Battled Anti-Semitism In The Ranks Too
GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II” begins as many Holocaust documentaries do, with a history of the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany mixed with what is now standard archival footage of Brownshirts and Kristallnacht. Throw in interviews with some Jewish celebrities — in this case, Carl Reiner and his friend Mel Brooks wearing his old Army jacket — and it has all the workings of a typical PBS documentary.
But the film, which premieres April 11, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, quickly takes an unexpected turn. Jewish-American soldiers, the viewer learns, weren’t only fighting Nazis during the war — they had to battle the anti-Semitic prejudice of many of their fellow soldiers.
All told, some 550,000 Jews served in World War II. A few had experienced anti-Semitism at home already in the form of “Gentiles Only” signs, for example, which were found at some public facilities across the country.
Mimi Rivkin, one of the 10,000 Jewish women who enlisted, a future member of the Women’s Army Corps, recalled a more personal incident in public school: “Suddenly kids weren’t playing with me. I asked one why and she said, ‘The teacher told us you’re a Jew and we’re not supposed to play with you.’”
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Republican candidate for Oregon Legislature frequently disparages Jews and Muslims on social media
Joshua Powell, a Republican candidate for an open Eugene-area statehouse seat, frequently makes vitrolic and expletive-filled anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim posts on social media.
“New York Times called the Bundy ranch people trying to spin the narrative ... (expletive) Jews!” Powell wrote on Facebook last October during the trial for the 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada. “A new (expletive) low by the Jew York Times.”
“Saw more Muslims in Eugene,” Powell wrote a month earlier. “ISIS right under our noses.”
“Washington (state) is crawling with Muslim rats,” he wrote in another post last fall.
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“We’ve never had Muslims here in Oregon, ever, until now,” he said. “Jewish liberals are opening up the borders, and innocent bystanders are subjected to this aggressive agenda. And then they wonder why there’s anti-Semitism.”
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Nazis destroyed this Berlin synagogue. A Muslim politician and a Jewish leader want to rebuild it.
Along a narrow canal in one of Berlin’s largest Turkish and Muslim neighborhoods sits a synagogue’s ghost — the site of a worship hall that was largely destroyed by the Nazis on the November night in 1938 known as Kristallnacht.
Eighty years later, a Palestinian-born German politician and the leader of Berlin’s Jewish community stood together on a recent morning outside the vanished building’s single remaining wing and outlined a plan to give the ghost new life.
If they can raise the funds, the two hope to completely rebuild the Fraenkelufer synagogue as a house of worship and neighborhood meeting place for people of all faiths and none. The aim, they said, is to send a message of comity and reassurance at a time when rising Islamophobia and fears of a new wave of anti-Semitism in Germany are deepening social mistrust.
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“I wouldn’t be a good Muslim if I didn’t champion Jewish life in my home city, Berlin,” he said. “And a Christian wouldn’t be a good Christian, either, if he didn’t intervene when a woman’s hijab is being torn from her head.”
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(Jewish Group) Long-lost film that predicted rise of anti-Semitism has ominous message for todays w
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Long-lost film that predicted rise of anti-Semitism has ominous message for today’s world
BERLIN — In Europe, anti-Semitism once again dominated this week’s news agenda.
On Monday, thousands marched in London against what they perceive to be blatant anti-Semitism in Britain’s mainstream Labour Party. The same day, the Paris prosecutor’s office said that it was investigating whether anti-Semitism was a motivation for the killing of an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor last week. Anti-Semitic incidents in schools triggered a quest to find solutions all week in Germany. And in Poland, a renowned anti-racism activist was branded a traitor after speaking out against the nation's controversial anti-defamation law concerning Holocaust complicity.
It’s against this backdrop that producers of a newly restored 1924 Austrian movie want their work to be seen.
Austria’s national film archive has worked for over a year to carefully restore “The City Without Jews,” a pre-World War II silent film that served as a warning against the scapegoating of Jews at the time. The film — which sparked furious reactions in the mid-1920s — was believed to have been lost until a copy was discovered in a Paris flea market in 2015.
The film describes a fictional city in the 1920s, troubled by rising unemployment and poverty, and where resentments against Jews is mounting as people increasingly blame them for the city’s woes. After a national law is passed to force all Jews to leave the country, residents celebrate — only to soon realize that they are worse off than before. The law is eventually reversed.
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If you are craving some real-time anti-Semitism, simply scroll though the comment section. The first thing most of the Jew-haters bring up...Israel, usually a good predictor of an anti-Semite in a discussion about anti-Semitism.
LGBTQ Americans Won't Be Counted in 2020 U.S. Census After All
LGBTQ advocacy groups are outraged after proposed questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity were quickly removed Tuesday from a just-released draft of the 2020 U.S. Census.
The U.S. Census Bureau, which is part of the Department of Commerce, is required to issue a list of categories it plans to track three years before the survey is conducted. Tuesday's list showed categories ranging from race and gender to the type of plumbing in homes and the length of a person's daily commute to work. Each category is followed by a table showing the federal agencies that rely on the data to make decisions about law enforcement, health care, equal employment opportunities and more.
No previous U.S. Census has ever included LGBTQ Americans, which makes it challenging for federal agencies and researchers to accurately track the size, demographics and needs of the community. In addition, the more detailed American Community Survey also leaves out LGBTQ categories. Tuesday's initial release from the Census Bureau proposed including lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people on both surveys.
Advocacy groups have been campaigning for years to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity, and were briefly elated when the 2020 Census draft was released. But hopes were dashed when the proposed addition suddenly disappeared, and a statement was issued by the Census bureau that called the LGBTQ inclusion a mistake.
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(Jewish Group) How The Right And The Left Share A Double Standard About Anti-Semitism
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)When DC Councilman Trayon White claimed climate change was a conspiracy of the famously Jewish Rothschilds, he quickly made headlines, and not in a good way. Interestingly, some of his strongest defenders came from within the Jewish community.
“We believe that we can best address anti-Semitism and misinformation in this moment by engaging and educating rather than denouncing,” said Jacob Feinspan, executive director of Jews United for Justice (JUFJ).
As a Jew local to the DC area, I was initially skeptical. But the Councilman has since made a sincere apology and reached out to Jewish leaders in order to learn. JUFJ’s approach, which leveraged a longstanding relationship with Councilman White, offers an intriguing example.
And yet, this sort of “calling-in” doesn’t always work.
When news broke of the continued relationship between the egregiously anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan and Women’s March co-leader Tamika Mallory, many condemned the association. And yet some progressive Jewish groups moved quickly, to attack Mallory’s critics.
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I and others have been saying this for YEARS. It is pretty sickening to watch other Jews speak out of both sides of their mouths in regards to anti-Semitism, but have NO fucking problem being full-throated in responses to other forms of bigotry.
(Jewish Group) Anti-Semitism an Ill Wind, From Right or Left
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Passover is the ultimate expression of “They tried to kill us. We won. Let’s eat.”
(Anyone unfamiliar with that line should check the expiration date on their MOT membership card.)
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Frankly, an ill wind, regardless of the direction from which is blows, is still an ill wind.
A whiff of anti-Semitism emanates from the intersectional left, whose leaders appear disinclined to denounce (let alone dissociate from) the latest anti-Jewish diatribe by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, leaving some otherwise supportive Jews to question their allegiance.
A similar aroma arises from the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement when rhetoric opposing Israeli government policies veers into denigrating Jews who support Israel.
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Seems Weisman is getting some more push back. Good. Though, I am interested in the book.
(Jewish Group) Conspiracy theories about the Rothschilds are a symptom. The problem is deeper.
(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)Last week, D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. blamed the Jews for bad weather.
“It just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation,” he said in a video posted to his Facebook page. “That’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.” The Rothschilds, of course, are a Jewish banking dynasty whom hateful conspiracy theorists have impugned for everything from the Kennedy assassination to the Islamic State.
The punchlines write themselves: If Jews really controlled the climate, Tel Aviv wouldn’t be so humid, New York would feel like Los Angeles, and anyway, George Soros and Sheldon Adelson would never be able to agree on how to set the thermostat. “The good news,” wrote Bard College’s Walter Russell Mead, is that “paying off the Rothschild family to stop climate change has got to be easier than shifting the whole global energy system.”
But although this story may be funny on the surface, it masks something deeply unsettling beneath.
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Yet even as it has become increasingly apparent that these bigoted disinformation bubbles exist and have ensnared numerous individuals, many are still in denial and dismiss the inevitable anti-Semitic outbursts they provoke as isolated incidents. This is true on the right — where no matter how many neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and Islamophobes that President Trump retweets, white supremacy and bigotry is viewed by many as incidental to his appeal. And it’s true on the left — where anti-Semitic incidents are too often ignored or explained away as distractions or exceptions, from the Women’s March organizers and their Farrakhan fandom to the Chicago LGBT march that ejected lesbians displaying Jewish stars.
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to DonViejo for posting this article in General Discussion (take a look)!
Greece: Thessaloniki grapples with Holocaust taboo
On the University of Thessaloniki's campus, there is a memorial to the Greek victims of the Holocaust. It was built in 2014 — very late for a city once known as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans."
"There are still people in Thessaloniki who don't know that the campus used to be part of the Jewish cemetery," says filmmaker Lydia Konsta.
The cemetery was destroyed during the Nazi German occupation. This was done in cooperation with the city's administration, who were pursuing goals of their own. Large parts of Thessaloniki had been destroyed by fire in 1917 and the Jewish gravestones were to be used for the remaining repairs. Thus, one of the world's largest Jewish cemeteries disappeared into the streets, sidewalks and churches of the city.
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The many victims' associations in Greece use the term "Holocaust" in connection with the cruel massacres committed by the Nazis, in which non-Jews were also killed. "The Jews were killed for the simple reason that they were born. Most others were killed for purely political reasons," says Molho. "A lot of people haven't understood this. And many still don't want to understand it. For me, that's anti-Semitism."
This form of anti-Semitism is sometimes openly expressed: "The Germans killed 360 people in my village," a retired teacher from Crete told DW, "but Hitler was right about the Jews. They still hold the world's power to this day, and they don't respect the crucifix." A 41-year-old animal keeper from Serres in northern Greece says: "Why should we deal with such stupidities as the Holocaust today? Anyway, the young generation has nothing against the Jews."
To this day, parts of headstones from Jewish cemeteries can be found embedded in sidewalks around Thessaloniki
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