FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Everyone knows that ‘criticism of Israel’ and antisemitism are two distinct things. Here’s how they criticize Israel in Europe:

Assailants rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France, on Monday night.

A Jewish congregation in Helsingborg, in southern Sweden, also was attacked Monday night by someone who “broke a window and threw in something that was burning,” said police spokesman Leif Nilsson. Neighbors alerted rescue services before the fire took hold.

Someone also started a blaze outside the premises last week. And on Sunday slogans including “murderers … You broke the cease-fire” and “don’t subject Palestine to ethnic cleansing” were daubed on Israel’s embassy in Stockholm…

“Jihad 4 Israel” graffiti was found on six different locations across London and “Kill Jews” graffiti was scrawled on a bus stop in Jewish neighborhood of Temple Fortune.

“Jihad is the only solution for Palestine” was written on the door of a north London synagogue.

Last Wednesday evening, a gang of 15-20 youths, variously reported as “Middle Eastern” and “Asian,” marched down Golders Green High Road, in a predominantly Jewish area of London, shouting “Free, Free Palestine.” They reportedly also attempted to enter some kosher restaurants.

Last Thursday, on the same street, a group of Asian males drove a car shouting “Death to the Jews,” “Jews should be killed” and “Jewish bastards.”

There was also an attempt to set fire to a synagogue in Brondesbury, northwest London, on Sunday night. The attackers tried to smash a window but were prevented from doing so by a security film. They then attempted to set the synagogue door on fire using gasoline…

Police said burning rags were shoved through the mailbox of a Jewish home in Antwerp last weekend. Damage was limited and no arrests were made.

In Denmark, a 27-year-old Dane born in Lebanon of Palestinian parents is alleged to have wounded two young Israelis last week, opening fire with a handgun in a shooting that police suspect could be linked to the Gaza crisis. — Jerusalem Post

If you are still confused about the difference between Israel-hatred and Jew-hatred, see my article “Anti-Zionism and antisemitism“.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Europe, antisemitism, anti-Semitism

Recently I wrote that evildoers like Bernard Madoff and the Rubashkins reflect badly on the Jewish people. Well, they do, but I think they have very little effect on the prevalence of anti-Semitisim, despite the horror stories being circulated.

What they have done is cause an increase in antisemitic expression by giving antisemites something to talk about. David Duke is never one to miss an opportunity. What else is new?

Anti-Semitism, and indeed, all group hatreds, are irrational. A rational antisemite would have to prove that Jews are in general more dishonest than non-Jews, and there is no such proof. Certainly one Bernie Madoff out of  13 million Jews is statistically insignificant, no matter how expensive or well-publicized his crimes are.

Not that it isn’t annoying. I imagine that many African-Americans slapped their foreheads when Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA)  was found with $90,000 of cold cash in his freezer. But it didn’t prove anything about anyone other than Jefferson (and any co-conspirators he may have had).

But nobody suddenly became a racist because of Jefferson and nobody became an antisemite because of Madoff. And unfortunately, very rarely does someone stop being one as a result of rational argument.

The very irrationality of group hatreds — which are possibly vestiges of the group behavior of primates — give them power to stir the emotions. This is why anti-Semitism is so popular with dictatorial regimes, who depend on emotions like fear and hatred to control and motivate their populations.

And this — the deliberate stirring of atavistic emotions for political purposes — is probably the major source of antisemitism today. In particular, Iranian and Arab regimes — including the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah — deliberately promulgate the most disgusting, emotionally powerful antisemitic myths of the Middle Ages and Nazi era in order to create new antisemites, antisemites who will be prepare to fight and die for their irrational feelings.

Sometimes one can see their intentions in the myths they choose. It is very important for Ahmadinejad to talk about Jewish ‘control’ of the US, for example, because he needs to arouse hatred of his greatest enemy — the US — as well as of Jews and Israel.

Technorati Tags: antisemitism, Madoff, Rubashkin, Ahmadinejad

Sholom Rubashkin, CEO of kosher meat provider Agriprocessors was arrested on October 30 and charged with violations of immigration and child labor laws. In 2004, Agriprocessors was also the subject of a shocking undercover video made by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, in which animals were slaughtered in cruel (and according to many authorities, non-kosher) methods.

And Bernie Madoff needs no introduction.

Rabbi Shmueley Boteach said,

…in sharp contrast to what is developing in the kosher meat industry, there has been no move afoot to establish something akin to “Hechsher Tzedek,” a rabbinic certificate of ethical excellence, for financial institutions. After all, how is it that when so many of the people going to jail on Wall Street turn out to be Jewish, the Modern Orthodox and Conservative movements have not immediately launched a campaign, as they are doing with kosher meat, to evaluate firms that invest Jewish money to ensure that they conform to the highest ethical norms in terms of treatment of employees and overcompensation of dead-beat executives?

Boteach’s intent was to contrast the attitudes of liberal Jews (for Boteach, Modern Orthodox is liberal) toward a corrupt kosher butcher with those toward a corrupt financier, but I’m more interested in the similarities than the differences.

There are anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews. We all know what they are. One is that there are a disproportionate number of unethical Jews in  business and finance. Is it true? Probably not, but it’s impossible to tell. There are plenty of non-Jewish corporate criminals to go around. Let’s not forget Enron’s Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling (although their Jewish CFO, Andy Fastow, went to jail too), WorldCom’s Bernie Ebbers, Tyco’s L. Dennis Kozlowski and Mark Swartz, or Adelphia’s John and Timothy Rigas.

Unfortunately, Jews are noticeable (and if people don’t notice, the anti-Semites help them notice). One Madoff or Rubashkin cancels a thousand honest and decent people.

I often hear that nothing that Jews do can possibly affect what antisemites say about them, and this is true.  But what Jews do can affect what normal people think. Madoff and Rubashkin each violated numerous commandments — the Torah explicitly commands that employees must be treated justly, cruelty to animals is forbidden, and of course the injunction לא תגנב [You shall not steal] is found in the Ten Commandments. Madoff’s crime is especially heinous because so many charities suffered at his hands, but both of them blackened the name of the Jewish People.

There is no central authority in Judaism, so it’s not possible to cut someone off from his people or put him to death by stoning, two biblical punishments that might be applied to [alleged, but I believe them to be guilty] criminals like these. To be fair, Rubashkin seems to have some supporters, although like Boteach they mostly talk about his treatment — especially a particularly stupid statement by prosecutors — and not his actions.

It is disappointing that so few Orthodox authorities have disputed the technical kashrut of Agriprocessors’ meat (no, I’m not a rabbi, but I challenge anyone to watch the video and explain how what appears there is kosher slaughter). Although Rubashkin was arrested for other crimes, like Madoff, Agriprocessors defrauded Jews — those who thought they were buying kosher meat.

Madoff doesn’t seem to have any supporters, possibly because he stole from everyone. His own sons contacted the FBI after Madoff admitted the fraud to them.

Bradley Burston said that Madoff was a Christmas present to anti-Semites. I suppose the timing of Rubashkin’s arrest would make him a Halloween present.

Sholom Rubashkin does the ‘perp walk’

Technorati Tags: Madoff, Rubashkin, anti-Semitism

As I write, news reports indicate that hundreds are dead and injured in Mumbai. Indian commandos are about to storm the Chabad house there, where it appears that Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, his wife Rivka and an uncertain number of others are being held hostage by terrorists (their small son was reportedly rescued early on).  It’s painful but impossible to stop trying to keep up with events as this horrible but familiar story unfolds.

I’m sure when it’s over the ‘mujahideen’ that perpetrated this atrocity will explain that they had important ‘political’ motives. What political imperative made them include the Chabad house as a target? Is Chabad someow a representative of the Zionist entity that is denying ‘human rights’ to Palestinians, who are themselves no strangers to this kind of ‘political’ activity?

No, let’s face it, we know why the Chabad house was attacked.

It would be good if the various camps among Israelis and Jews everywhere would pay attention and understand that after all this time they are not a ‘normal’ people in the eyes of the world. This is why there needs to be a state of Israel that can defend itself and indeed, defend the Jewish people.

Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg

Technorati Tags: Mumbai, Chabad

On May 10, 1933, books from university libraries all over Germany were burned by Nazi students and officials. Books were chosen to be burned because of their ‘un-German’ content or Jewish authorship:

In a symbolic act of ominous significance, on May 10, 1933 the students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books, presaging an era of state censorship and control of culture. On the night of May 10, in most university towns, nationalist students marched in torchlight parades “against the un-German spirit.” The scripted rituals called for high Nazi officials, professors, rectors, and student leaders to address the participants and spectators. At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged and unwanted books into the bonfires with great joyous ceremony, band-playing, songs, “fire oaths,” and incantations. — Wikipedia

Frederick William University in Berlin — now called Humboldt University — held a major book-burning that evening in the Platz am Opernhaus (today called the Bebelplatz) that is next to the University. Here is how it looked that evening in 1933:

Nazi bookburning at Platz Am Opernhaus (Bebelplatz), May 10, 1933

Today’s young Germans seem to have lost little of their anti-Semitic enthusiasm. On Sunday, Germans observed the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which many consider the official Nazi expulsion of the Jewish people from the human race.  On Wednesday an Exhibit in the Humboldt University lobby called “Betrayed and Sold” about the looting of Jewish businesses by the Nazis was destroyed by rioting high school students and left-wing activists.

Although the protest was supposedly about such things as class size, matriculation exams and school staffing, the students nevertheless expressed themselves about other issues:

[University President] Christoph Markschies told The Jerusalem Post that one of the protesters in the lobby of the university said “Damn Israel” when asked by another student to “stop” vandalizing the exhibit…

“Friendship with Israel is part of the HU’s identity,” said Markschies, adding that “no one can tell me that the exhibit was damaged because it was a mistake”…

Niklas Wuchenauer, a pupil in Berlin and spokesperson for the protest group “Tear down the educational barriers,” told the Post that “we regret that the exhibit was damaged or destroyed.”

When asked about the “Damn Israel” statement, Wuchenauer said the statement is not anti-Semitic and simply means it “would it have been more meaningful if the UN had not created two states in 1947 and had integrated the Jews into one state.” — Jerusalem Post

I see. A German destroys an exhibit about the persecution of Jews by Germans in the 1930’s, before there was a state of Israel, in order to suggest that there should not be a state of Israel. One could not possibly ask for a clearer example of the relationship between extreme hatred of Israel and anti-Semitism.

Here is how the Bebelplatz looked this week, 75 years and 6 months after the bookburning. Same idea, different year.

Technorati Tags: Germany, anti-Semitism, Israel