By Richard Baehr, AMERICAN THINKER
A review of Demonizing Israel and the Jews by Manfred Gerstenfeld, RVP Press, New York, 2013
In the six years 1939-1945, two thirds of Europe’s 9 million Jews were executed by gunfire, starved to death, or incinerated in gas chambers during the Holocaust. While Nazi Germany was, of course the principal actor in this mass human slaughter, the Germans found many willing collaborators among the legions of Jew haters in countries they conquered, occupied, and recruited from for the slave labor and death camps. For a few decades after the end of the war, in part due to guilt for their complicity or stance as bystanders to the carnage, many Western European nations were supportive of the new state of Israel, and made the public expression of anti-Semitism verboten. Eastern European nations, in the orbit of the Soviet bloc, adopted the USSR’s position on Israel, which turned sharply negative soon after Israeli independence.
As Manfred Gerstenfeld, a scholar of Jewish communities in Europe and anti-Semitism vividly portrays in this collection of 57 interviews with academics, politicians, and writers in Europe and a few other places as well, the brief time-out on thousands of years of anti-Semitism among Europeans has ended. The end of any tilt towards Israel occurred even earlier, dating to the end of the 1967 war, when Israel was transformed in the eyes of the leftist elites from besieged victim to colonial occupier. Some Europeans pay lip service to hating Israel, but also oppose anti-Semitism. But when you treat the one majority-Jewish state in the world differently than you treat all others and use the most vicious language at your disposal to condemn Israel, then you are singling it out not for its behavior, but for the makeup of its population.
Gerstenfeld’s interviews include citizens of France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Argentina, Egypt, and Libya. Interviews were also conducted with analysts from Israel and America describing how anti-Semitism is flourishing in these places as a result of activities of various Christian churches, radical Islamists, left wing political parties (e.g. the Communists, the Greens, hard left socialist parties), some nativist right wing parties, the media (the BBC worst of all in due to its influence), NGOs, and international organizations, in particular the United Nations and its councils and committees. All of these forces aligned against Israel, and in an increasingly visible way against Jews themselves , are aided and abetted by Israel-hating Jews and Israelis, who bask in the attention, financial support and worship by non-Jews whose hatred of Israel and Jews is legitimized by the self-loathing Jews.
One message that is repeated by writers from several European countries is that there is no future any more for Jews in their country, whether it be France, which has the largest Jewish community in Europe, and the third largest in the world (nearly half a million), or the much smaller communities in the Netherlands, Turkey, and Switzerland.
Gerstenfeld’s interviews reveal that in countries where Jews have had little presence historically and are hardly even visible anymore, the hatred of Israel and Jews is often extreme. Norway is a particularly troubling example.
As a result of the Germans’ success in their Jew-killing effort, today over 80% of the world’s Jews live in just two countries: Israel, where the Jewish community is growing rapidly, mainly due to natural growth, and the United States, where for 50 years Jewish numbers have been stable to slightly declining due to low birth rates and intermarriage. Jewish numbers in Europe, the former population center of the Jewish world, have declined another 50% since the end of World War 2. Jews are not even 1 of every 500 people on the planet today, while 75 years ago, they were 1% of the world’s population, 5 times the current share.
In Europe, Jews are far outnumbered by Muslims and Arabs in every country. These countries have welcomed the newcomers, a policy consistent with their liberal social policies and worship at the altar of multiculturalism, tolerance for the other, and diversity. But the Europeans have largely failed to integrate their new members, so that they not only learn the language of their new country but adopt its values. The Moroccans in the Netherlands, and the Arabs in Malmo, Sweden can beat up and terrorize the few Jews in their midst, but the authorities in these communities seem more concerned with appeasing their angry hate-filled immigrant communities, than policing them or educating them in the values that led to their admission to the countries they now call home. France has had a steady stream of emigrants to Israel (a greater number annually than make aliyah from the United States, with a Jewish community more than ten times as large), after several murderous attacks, the worst an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012.
For leftists in Europe and their Muslim and Arab communities, there is sharp divergence on pretty much all public policy except one: that Israel is a horrible villain, the world’s worst and most dangerous country, and is behaving today like the Nazis. It is a country that deserves to die. The Nazi analogy is not accidental, since it provides an opportunity for Europeans to argue that they have really learned the lessons of the Holocaust, and will oppose behavior today by those who resemble the Nazis with their tactics and policies. It takes very little for the modern Europeans to cleanse their consciences for their nations’ collaboration with or passivity during the mass murder in their midst last century.
To read Gerstenfeld’s interviews is to come away thankful that I am a Jew living in the United States. To be sure, some of the same trends that have overtaken Europe are at work in the United States, where Israel is now viewed as a bad actor in academia, much of the media, and on the left in general, and where the current President is the least sympathetic to Israel of any President since Jimmy Carter, to whom he deserves comparison in many areas.
While threats exist, Jewish institutions in America are not armed camps guarded by visible security people; Jews do not have to hide their identity walking the street; the fastest growing Christian community in America, the Evangelicals, are very supportive of Israel, and most national and state political figures are still quite sympathetic to the Jewish state. But over time, these numbers will change here with rapid Muslim and Arab population growth due to immigration policy, and Jewish stasis in numbers.
The intellectual and media elites in America are becoming more influential, though not quite to the level in Europe, and hostility to Israel is one of their core beliefs. Given the large majority support for Israel versus the Palestinian among Americans, the elites see themselves as leading the change that will make this nation’s policies more like those of Europe, our social better.
Gerstenfeld’s book is a signal of how ugly it has gotten across the pond for Jews and Israel supporters. There may be no Jewish future in Europe, but in America, knowledge of how the world’s oldest hate has come roaring back in Europe is a lesson on how it must be resisted in the one country that has truly been exceptional in this regard.
The most meaningful test today is support for Israel, not fighting alleged Klan members in Northern Idaho and fake hate crime perpetrators at Oberlin College. Hatred of Israel has become the principal weapon for Jew haters abroad. Friends of Israel have their work cut out for themselves there, and here as well.
@ yamit82:
You let yourself be overawed by his fame & accomplishments.
Yet even his own students did not find it unseemly to criticise his work — openly.
— The Tosafot are plentiful with such.
The man put on his pants one leg at a time, Yamit. . . .
A. All men — including Shlomo ben Yitzhaki — are born into a fallen world, subject to human fallibility.
B. All men, however, are likewise, gifted by their Creator with the capacity for REASON.
Rashi is not Holy Writ.
There is no reason to assume that he got everything right.
R. Shlomo is not God.
However, to return to the primary point-of-departure:
If you PERSONALLY believe the Almighty created the world for the sake of the Jews and not vice versa, then make your case in your own words, with your own reasoning — and I’ll consider it as a matter of thought.
But don’t hand me some shmegegge about how it must be true because Rashi, or Kahane, or Chaim-Yahnkel, or your Aunt Mathilde said so.
Pulling intellectual rank is an intellectual non-starter.
That’s what is known in the business as horseshit.
Egotism by its very nature overlooks the FIRST of all truths: “Be still and know that I am God (subtext: ‘and that you are NOT’).”
And that’s what’s known as “begging the question.”
— What “lies” that I “base [my] beliefs on” have you ever SHOWN to be lies?
Oh, no you don’t, Slick.
If it’s fact, then it’s not ‘opinion.’
If it’s opinion, then it isn’t yet established to be fact.
Can’t have it both ways, bubb.
LMAO. Who’re you kidding? — Of course it’s personal.
It’s been personal from Day One.
@ honeybee:
Irrelevant. Still an evasion, not a reply
— and SOP for PresentCompany.
@ yamit82:
And THAT’S your idea of a ‘contradiction’ to what I said???!!!
Here’s a bulletin, bubbeleh:
The WORLD was created long BEFORE there were such things as “nations.”
The Jewish people, OTOH, was created (long) AFTER nations had come into being.
What’s more, were the world not in need of redemption — a need which manifest long before there was one single Jew in existence — there would have been no need to create the Jews
— as they are at the CORE of that redemption.
I repeat:
NOTHING in your Neusner excerpt contradicts what I wrote.
@ yamit82:
Of course it doesn’t.
But ALL opinion is just that, opinion — and thus, subject to fallibility.
Right, so nobody could read it before the 12th century AD. . . .
And how did he discover those “grammatical,textual and syntactical errors“?
He clearly was not above using the opportunity of such commentary to superimpose his own outlook & agenda on the text.
Sometimes that can be quite lucid, even fascinating; thought provoking. Not necessarily true, however.
Not all his stuff is strictly pshat literal. He leans heavily on the Midrash on occasion.
It does not diminish his stature to acknowledge that.
The LARGER point, though, is that when you place him on a pedestal this way, you flirt with idolatry — because you haven’t the gumption (or the patience) to think things thru for yourself.
@ dweller:
Expressed y thoughts entirely,I can’t be responsible for inablity to understand.
P,S. Sweetie
@ honeybee:
Not a reply.
Rather, an evasion — as so many times before.
yamit82 Said:
Much better,you done good,boy!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
Did you write that alfull poetry!!!!!!!! Read some Donne,Dickenson or Longfellow. My ear are bleeding! sweetie.
dweller Said:
Gee isn’t everyone entitled to their opinion?
That does not mean that all opinions are equal in truth and merit.
“When all ideas are equal, no ideas are “significantly” better than others.”??? Hobbs
Rahshi is respected for his scholarship and brilliance and is one of the few Jewish Biblical commentators that is accepted by every Jew and probably many gentiles. He only commented on grammatical,textual and syntax errors in the Tanach. Without his contributions the Tanach would be virtually unreadable. You infer that your opinion and knowledge is superior to his?? ROTFL
The arrogance of ignorance. Jews have justification in being egoists when their egos are based on truth, but you have no excuse not in fact, not in scholarship and not in the lies you base your beliefs upon. That’s just one mans opinion, nothing personal.
dweller Said:
“The nations have no important role in history, except as G-d assigns them a role in relationship to Israels conduct.
I don’t think he read Kahane or Kahane read him, do you?
Can’t argue with stupid christians.
Hint Hint!!!!
” And I will sanctify My great Name which hath been profaned among the nations which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the nations shall know that I am the L-rd, saith the L-rd, G-d, WHEN I SHALL BE SANCTIFIED THROUGH YOU BEFORE THEIR EYES. For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries and will bring you into your own land.” (Ezekiel 36)
Jesus and You
For life is quite absurd
And death’s the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin – give the audience a grin
Enjoy it – it’s your last chance anyhow.
Life’s a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true.
You’ll see it’s all a show
Keep ’em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you
So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath 😛
dweller Said:
My reply: http://youtu.be/_VJY97l0jVA
@ honeybee:
If you WERE a lady, the thought to take it the way you did
— would have never occurred to you.
Busted.
@ yamit82:
Nonsense.
The notion that the world was created for the Jewish nation — instead of vice versa — is the height of absurdity — and is anything BUT ‘Jewish’ (except to a Jewish egotist).
I find not a word in the Neusner excerpt you quoted which contradicts that.
Rashi is entitled to his opinion (as is Kahane, as well as PresentCompany)
— but Rashi isn’t holy writ.
yamit82 Said:
Ake Max if I can buy him out!!!!!!!!!!!!!
honeybee Said:
Already mortgaged to MAX.
yamit82 Said:
YOUR SOUL,CHICO
dweller Said:
Did not.
honeybee Said:
????
dweller Said:
What you attribute to Kahane is in actuality primary core Judaism expressed by most of the chazal and alluded to in the first sentence in genesis.
That first sentence set the template for the whole Torah. Should read Literally: “In the beginning of God’s creation of: (Blank)? [God created the world] for the sake of the Torah, See Rashi:
See:“The Canonical History of Ideas: The Place of the So-called Tannaite Midrashim, Mekhilta According to R. Ishmael, Sifra, Sifré to Numbers, and Sifré to Deuteronomy” page 169
by Jacob Neusner
“G-d acts in history and does so publicly, in the full light of day. That is to show the nations who is in charge. The Torah is what distinguishes Israel from the nations. All the nations had every opportunity to understand and accept the Torah, and all declined it; that is why Israel was selected. And that demonstrates the importance of both the covenant and the Torah, the medium of the covenant. The nations even had a prophet, comparable to Moses, who was Balaam.”
“The nations have no important role in history, except as G-d assigns them a role in relationship to Israels conduct. The nations are estranged from G-d by idolatry. That’s what prevents goodness from coming into the world. The name of G-d rests upon Israel in great measure. Idolators do not control heaven. The greatest sin an Israelite can commit is idolatry, and those who entice Israel to idolatry are deprived of the ordinary protections of the law. G-d is violently angry at the nations because of their idolatry. As to the nations’ relationship with Israel, they are guided by Israel’s condition. When Israel is weak, the nations take advantage, when strong, they are sycophantic. G-d did not apportion love to the nations as he did to Israel.”
.
Being collectively Chosen means that G-d’s Plan for Humanity will be made manifest and will be implemented through the Jewish people — both the righteous ones and the evil ones.
Even jesus, the progenitor of christianity, agreed with the foregoing, as is demonstrated by the following exchange between him and a gentile follower: “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for Salvation is from the Jews.'” (John 4:19-22). Subsequently, Paul, nascent Christianity’s seminal evangelist, affirmed this understanding in his epistle to the gentile peoples of the Roman Empire: “As far as the Gospel is concerned, they [the Jews] are enemies on your account; but as far as Choice is concerned, they [the Jews] are beloved on account of the [Hebrew] Patriarchs. For, God’s Gifts and His Calling are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:28-29).
However, being collectively Chosen also means that, collectively, the gentile nations will eventually suffer God’s Wrath when they join together to oppress the Jewish nation (see Genesis 12:3; Numbers 24:8-9; Deuteronomy 32:43; Isaiah 59:17-19; Jeremiah 2:3; Ezekiel 38:3 – 39:6; Joel 4:1-2; and Zechariah 14:2-13).
dweller Said:
Boy howdy, if I wern’t a lady could I say something about that line. Carefull!!!!!!! You bring out the Groucho Marx in me.
yamit82 Said:
Su almo!!!!!
@ yamit82:
Not, alas, one of Kahane’s finer moments.
Arguably, APART from the phrase, “The Jewish nation is indeed, the heart of the world,”
— he got the picture precisely 180 degrees bass-ackwards.