We welcome your comments to this and any other CIJR publication. Please address your response to: Rob Coles, Publications Chairman, Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, PO Box 175, Station H, Montreal QC H3G 2K7 – Tel: (514) 486-5544 – Fax:(514) 486-8284; E-mail: rob@isranet.wpsitie.com
Kristallnacht: Baruch Cohen, Nov. 8, 2013— The appalling resurgence of today’s global antisemitism calls for a strong, united Western World. Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred, a strange and enigmatic phenomenon, unequalled by any other prejudice or hatred in world history.
European Jews Report Rise in Anti-semitism: Times of Israel, Nov. 8, 2013— A poll of European Jews has found that more than three-quarters of those questioned believe antisemitism is on the rise in their home countries and close to one-third have considered emigrating because they don’t feel safe.
An End to Jewish Life in the Diaspora: Isi Leibler, Jerusalem Post, Nov. 3, 2013— The recent Pew Research Center survey of American Jews has ignited discussions extending from gloomy predictions of the inevitable demise of Diaspora Jewry by assimilation, to optimism over the finding that the number of Jews has risen to 6.7 million from the 5.5 million estimated in the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey.
Ten Basic Points: Israel’s Right to Judea and Samaria: Amb. Alan Baker, Arutz Sheva, Nov. 6, 2013— In contrast to John Kerry's remarks, Israel has legitimate legal rights to Judea and Samaria, as summarized below.
For Zion’s Sake: The Rise of the Jewish Soldier: Daniel Tauber, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 22, 2013— Even more than preserving Theodor Herzl’s call for Jewish statehood and pioneering illegal immigration and rescue efforts, perhaps Revisionist Zionism’s greatest contribution to Israel’s founding was the thing for which it was most reviled – the revival of Jewish militarism.
Video: Yair Lapid Speaks at the Hungarian Parliament: Youtube, Oct. 1, 2013
75 Years After Kristallnacht, Survivor Recalls the Night That Seared His Life: Ofer Aderret, Ha’aretz, Nov. 8, 2013
10 Minutes Alone With the Butcher of Auschwitz: Thomas Harding, National Post, Nov. 4, 2013
Nazi Art: Does Germany Have a Problem Returning Art Stolen by the Nazis?: Mark Hudson, The Telegraph, Nov. 4, 2013
Baruch Cohen Nov. 8, 2013
O the Chimneys, On the ingeniously devised habitations of death, When Israel’s body drifted as smoke Through the air…
—Nelly Sachs, O the Chimneys: Selected Poems, [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1967]
The appalling resurgence of today’s global antisemitism calls for a strong, united Western World. Antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred, a strange and enigmatic phenomenon, unequalled by any other prejudice or hatred in world history.
Today, as the “New Europe”, embracing the evil forces of xenophobia, witnesses an antisemitic revival, not only the Jews, but also the State of Israel, are being attacked. Indeed, in the new post-modern global antisemitism, Israel becomes “the Jew among the nations”.
Only through strong, uncompromising and non-appeasing action can Western ideals, justice, freedom and true democracy guarantee that no more Kristallnachts will ever occur again.
On January 21, 1939, Hitler told the Czech Foreign Minister Chualkosky: “We are going to destroy the Jews…Today I will be a prophet again. If international finance Jewry within Europe and abroad should succeed once more in pushing the people into a world war, then the consequences will not be the Bolshevization of the world and therewith, a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary, the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.”
And the world chose not to look and remained silent (Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945).
Zachor! Remember! Kristallnacht will never occur again as long as we, the Jewish People, along with the democratic world, will stand firm, united in support for our strong State of Israel!
Never again! AM ISRAEL CHAI!
EUROPEAN JEWS REPORT RISE IN ANTI-SEMITISM
Times of Israel, Nov. 8, 2013
A poll of European Jews has found that more than three-quarters of those questioned believe anti-Semitism is on the rise in their home countries and close to one-third have considered emigrating because they don’t feel safe. The survey was conducted by the European Union’s Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). Its release Friday was timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogroms in Nazi Germany. The Agency for Fundamental Rights said 5,847 self-identified Jews were surveyed in eight Western European countries “in which some 90% of the estimated Jewish population in the EU live.”
Among the findings: 34 percent of poll respondents in Sweden and 29 percent in France said they never wear a Star of David or anything else that could signal their religion. Over three quarters of overall respondents said the situation had become “more acute” in the last five years and the same number consider online anti-Semitism to be a real problem. Twenty-one percent said they had experienced an anti-Semitic incident “involving verbal insult, harassment or a physical attack” in the year preceding the poll.
Hungary garnered the highest numbers among respondents for manifestations of anti-Semitism on the internet, in the media, and in political life — 86%, 73%, and 84% respectively. In France, 78% of respondents said vandalism of Jewish buildings and institutions was a problem. According to the report, only 8% of survey respondents in Latvia said the Arab-Israeli conflict had an impact on their feelings of safety, with that figure rising to 28% for respondents in Germany and 73% in France. The agency said its findings aim to provide guidance on measures to take against anti-Semitism.
“Antisemitism is a disturbing example of how prejudice can persist through the centuries, and it has no place in our society today. It is particularly distressing to see that the internet, which should be a tool for communication and dialogue, is being used as an instrument of anti-Semitic harassment,” said FRA Director Morten Kjaerum. “While many EU governments have made great efforts to combat anti-Semitism, more targeted measures are needed.”
AN END TO JEWISH LIFE IN THE DIASPORA?
Isi Leibler
Jerusalem Post, Nov. 3, 2013
The recent Pew Research Center survey of American Jews has ignited discussions extending from gloomy predictions of the inevitable demise of Diaspora Jewry by assimilation, to optimism over the finding that the number of Jews has risen to 6.7 million from the 5.5 million estimated in the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey. The Pew survey results are complex and lend themselves to endless interpretation. But what they undeniably show is a wide-ranging definition of Jewish identity, increased polarization of the American Jewish religious experience, a changing connection to the State of Israel, and above all, a mushrooming demographic crisis.
The most dramatic Pew survey finding is an alarming increase in the rate of intermarriage. Among all married Jews who participated in the survey, 44 percent had a non-Jewish spouse. Of those who married in 2000 or later, the figure dramatically increased to 58% – an increase of 41% from 1970, when the rate of intermarriage was 17%. This substantial escalation in the rate of intermarriage in just one generation represents nothing short of a hemorrhage of the American Jewish community, and a level of assimilation unprecedented in Jewish history. Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz has aptly described the process of assimilation as “a self-inflicted Holocaust.” It is, he says, “like a person getting into his bath, cutting his veins, and peacefully bleeding to death.” The survey also highlights the absurdity of the notion that intermarriage augments Jewish numbers, and confirms that only a small proportion of children of intermarried couples retain a Jewish connection.
The Pew survey notes that the Conservative Movement has been in dramatic decline, while the Reform Movement has expanded and absorbed large numbers of intermarried families. However, the ascendant Orthodox community has, to some extent, offset these numbers. Intermarriage is practically nonexistent among American Orthodox Jews: Fully 98% of the married Orthodox respondents have a Jewish spouse. The number of Orthodox Jews is likely to expand beyond its current 15% of the Jewish community, because of their high fertility rate (the survey found that the Orthodox have an average of 4.1 children, compared with the 1.9 average of American Jewish adults overall). In addition, the study maintains that more Orthodox Jews today retain their religious commitment throughout their lives than was the case in the past.
The survey highlights that cultural identification is replacing religious identification among many American Jews. In stark contrast to 10 years ago, when 93% of American Jews identified themselves as Jews by religion, increasing numbers of Jews now define themselves as “Jews of no religion.” Two-thirds do not belong to any synagogue; 42% maintain that having “a good sense of humor” is more essential to their Jewish identities than observing Jewish law; most describe liberalism and a commitment to tikkun olam as the defining characteristics of their Jewishness. Many Jews are delighted with this “universalist Judaism” and characterize its adherents as “proud Jews” who are contributing enormously to American culture. One commentator satirically remarked that for every Jew who keeps a Christmas tree, there are 100 non-Jews who like bagels. Oy! Another highly disturbing survey finding is the extent to which Judaism and Christianity have become blurred in the minds of many American Jews.
The criteria for qualifying as being Jewish have been broadened to the point of absurdity. For example, 34% of the respondents stated that a belief in Jesus as the Messiah was compatible with being Jewish, and 30% of the “Jewish” families surveyed have Christmas trees. As Hebrew Union College Prof. Sara Benor observed, “more people than in the past believe that you can be both Christian and Jewish.”Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, predicts that a new religious category will soon emerge for those who consider themselves Jewish but accept Christian doctrines regarding Jesus. This confused state of affairs is both a reflection and a consequence of an appalling meltdown of Jewish values in America. However, the survey does confirm that Israel remains a principal factor in American Jewish identity. Seventy percent of respondents said they were somewhat attached, attached, or very attached to the Jewish state, and a significant 40% said they had visited Israel. But only 38% believe that the Israeli government is genuinely pursuing peace with the Palestinians. This is not surprising, given that the primary Jewish values of a substantial proportion of respondents are liberalism and a “good sense of humor,” rather than dedication to the Jewish people or Judaism.
The Pew findings held few surprises for me. In my analysis entitled “The Israel-Diaspora Crisis: A Looming Disaster,” published in 1994 by the World Jewish Congress, I predicted a gloomy outcome for Diaspora Jewry. I noted that in open societies with escalating levels of racial religious and ethnic intermarriage and increasing numbers of gentiles willing to marry Jews, Jewish intermarriage would inevitably increase. While I foresaw an increase in the numbers of religiously observant Jews who would consume more kosher food, buy more Jewish books and provide their children with Jewish education, I predicted that the vast majority would be swept up by assimilation and would distance themselves from their Jewishness. I said that, regrettably, no Diaspora Jew could confidently state that his grandchildren would remain Jewish. Television and the Internet have only accelerated these trends…
Despite the alarming statistics of intermarriage, which demonstrate that as many as 71% of non-Orthodox Jews are marrying non-Jewish spouses, we must never write off any Jewish community. Although the indicators suggest that Diaspora Jews in open societies are in danger of being reduced to Orthodox enclaves, we must stimulate all avenues likely to enhance Jewish identity. Each community – and certainly America’s – holds potential for Jewish continuity and contribution. Each carries with it the hope of the late Prof. Emil Fackenheim, that Jews must add a 614th Jewish precept, to deny a posthumous victory to Hitler by ensuring the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people.
We should not be under any illusions. Diaspora Jewish life is under greater threat today from loss of identity than from antisemitism. But whatever the outcome, Jewish continuity is assured now that Israel exists as a politically independent entity and has become the center of gravity for Jewish spiritual life. As Diaspora Jewry seeks to define itself and its role within the global Jewish arena, Israel remains the only place in the world that today provides an environment in which religiously observant and non-observant Jews alike can fully express their identity while satisfying the existential requirements of peoplehood.
TEN BASIC POINTS: ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO JUDEA AND SAMARIA
Amb. Alan Baker
Arutz Sheva, Nov. 6, 2013
1. Upon Israel’s taking control of the area in 1967, the 1907 Hague Rules on Land Warfare and the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) were not considered applicable to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) territory, as the Kingdom of Jordan, prior to 1967, was never the prior legal sovereign, and in any event has since renounced any claim to sovereign rights via-a-vis the territory.
2. Israel, as administering power pending a negotiated final determination as to the fate of the territory, nevertheless chose to implement the humanitarian provisions of the Geneva convention and other norms of international humanitarian law in order to ensure the basic day-to-day rights of the local population as well as Israel’s own rights to protect its forces and to utilize those parts of land that were not under local private ownership.
3. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting the mass transfer of population into occupied territory as practiced by Germany during the second world war, was neither relevant nor was ever intended to apply to Israelis choosing to reside in Judea and Samaria.
4. Accordingly, claims by the UN, European capitals, organizations and individuals that Israeli settlement activity is in violation of international law therefore have no legal basis whatsoever.
5. Similarly, the oft-used term “occupied Palestinian territories” is totally inaccurate and false. The territories are neither occupied nor Palestinian. No legal instrument has ever determined that the Palestinians have sovereignty or that the territories belong to them.
6. The territories of Judea and Samaria remain in dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, subject only to the outcome of permanent status negotiations between them.
7. The legality of the presence of Israel’s communities in the area stems from the historic, indigenous and legal rights of the Jewish people to settle in the area, granted pursuant to valid and binding international legal instruments recognized and accepted by the international community. These rights cannot be denied or placed in question.
8. The Palestinian leadership, in the still valid 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo 2), agreed to, and accepted Israel’s continued presence in Judea and Samaria pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations, without any restriction on either side regarding planning, zoning or construction of homes and communities. Hence, claims that Israel’s presence in the area is illegal have no basis.
9. The Palestinian leadership undertook in the Oslo Accords, to settle all outstanding issues, including borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem and refugees, by negotiation only and not through unilateral measures. The Palestinian call for a freeze on settlement activity as a precondition for returning to negotiation is a violation of the agreements.
10. Any attempt, through the UN or otherwise, to unilaterally change the status of the territory would violate Palestinian commitments set out in the Oslo Accords and prejudice the integrity and continued validity of the various agreements with Israel, thereby opening up the situation to possible reciprocal unilateral action by Israel.
FOR ZION’S SAKE: THE RISE OF THE JEWISH SOLDIER
Daniel Tauber
Jerusalem Post, Oct. 22, 2013
Even more than preserving Theodor Herzl’s call for Jewish statehood and pioneering illegal immigration and rescue efforts, perhaps Revisionist Zionism’s greatest contribution to Israel’s founding was the thing for which it was most reviled – the revival of Jewish militarism. Practical and socialist Zionists preached that the “new Jew” would be a farmer working the land; Ze’ev Jabotinsky preached that the new Jew would be a soldier. More than anyone else, Jabotinsky made sure that this new Jew would rise.
The Kishinev pogrom of 1903 had a profound affect on Jabotinsky, who visited the city on a charity mission in the pogrom’s aftermath. Amid the devastation, he found a piece of Torah parchment on the ground that read, “in a foreign land.” Like the Dreyfus Affair for Herzl, Kishinev completed Jabotinsky’s conversion to the Zionist cause. Even before Kishinev, Jabotinsky urged the organization of Jewish self-defense committees and became active in the Odessa Committee. Soon he would establish himself as one of the foremost advocates for Zionism and Jewish rights in Russia. His talents widely recognized, in 1909 he was appointed to lead the Zionist movement’s press network in Constantinople, where, like Herzl, he learned that Turkey would never accept a Jewish state in Palestine.
Early in the war, in March 1915, Jabotinsky and Yosef Trumpeldor brought a petition to the British military commander in Egypt, requesting that Britain form “a Jewish Legion” to fight in Palestine. They were offered a mule transport unit to be sent to another Turkish front – the “Zion Mule Corps.” Not content with that, Jabotinsky traveled to London and waged a years-long campaign that resulted in the establishment of a “Jewish Regiment,” later known as the “Jewish Legion,” announced in August 1917. Throughout the campaign, Jabotinsky was vilified by his fellow Jews. He was accused of subjecting Palestinian Jews to possible Turkish retaliation (though this was already occurring), of breaking the Zionist movement’s official neutrality, and of siding with anti-Semitic Russia. Back in Odessa, Menachem Ussishkin told Jabotinsky’s mother, “Your son should be hanged.” But when half a battalion of the Jewish Regiment marched though London before shipping out to Palestine in February 1918, even Jabotinsky’s most ardent opponents looked on with pride. Through the legion, thousands of young Jews – ultimately 5,000 of the approximately 10,000 who registered – were trained, armed and took part in the conquest of Palestine. While the legion was overshadowed by the Balfour Declaration, issued in November 1917, its political benefits should not be underestimated.
Like Chaim Weizmann, Jabotinsky knew that to have a place at the peace table, the Zionist movement would have to support the winning side. Jabotinsky also knew that those who would fight would have a greater stake in the post-war settlement. Historian Howard Sachar writes that the legion’s “role in the conquest of Palestine eventually signified as much as the ordeal of the early Zionist pioneers, and hardly less than the Balfour Declaration itself, in reinforcing the Jews’ claims to their national home.” And undoubtedly, the memorandums, letters, negotiations, conversations, meetings and arguments that went into the legion pulled British officials deeper into Zionism’s orbit.
After the war, Jabotinsky envisioned the legion as being permanently stationed in Palestine. Before, a Jewish army was needed for conquest. Now it was needed for defense. As Jabotinsky would later write in The Iron Wall, violent Arab opposition to Zionism necessitated it: “The Zionists want only one thing, Jewish immigration; and this Jewish immigration is what the Arabs do not want.” This, he wrote, “means that [Zionist colonization] can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach. “In this matter there is no difference between our ‘militarists’ and our ‘vegetarians.’ Except that the first prefer that the iron wall should consist of Jewish soldiers, and the others are content that they should be British.” Yet, against Jabotinsky’s pleadings, the anti-Zionist British military administration in Palestine demobilized the legion in 1919.
[To read the full article, please click on the following link—ed.]
CIJR wishes all its friends and supporters Shabbat Shalom!
Video: Yair Lapid Speaks at the Hungarian Parliament: Youtube, Oct. 1, 2013
75 years after Kristallnacht, survivor recalls the night that seared his life: Ofer Aderret, Ha’aretz, Nov. 8, 2013 Daniel Heiman was just shy of 12 years old when the Nazis broke into the building in Nuremburg where he lived with his family. They destroyed his aunt's home. They threw a neighbor out the window to his death.
Nazi art: does Germany have a problem returning art stolen by the Nazis?: Mark Hudson, The Telegraph, Nov. 4, 2013 The 20th century wasn’t short of “notorious” artistic events: the riot at the premiere of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring in 1913, the unveiling of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, a urinal exhibited as a work of art in 1917. But one stands head and shoulders above the rest: the Entartete Kunst – Degenerate Art – exhibition staged by the Nazis in Munich in 1937.
10 minutes alone with the butcher of Auschwitz: Thomas Harding, National Post, Nov. 4, 2013 It is May 1945. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen.
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