Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

Under the pressure of social distancing and social isolation, we are seeing the awakening of a renewed social consciousness.

Not only have our interactions with others not declined, but they have become more meaningful, more precious, more intentional, more purposeful. People meet and greet, apparently with even greater frequency than ever, not in the flesh, but in the instantaneous ether of cyberspace.

Whether through Zoom video conference, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp messenger, email or telephone, people are using technology to connect, to organize, to help each other, and to study together.

It is paradoxical, but it is true: Isolation is driving people together.

Long before interactive video conferencing became so central a part of daily life, there was one visionary who understood how to harness its immense spiritual and social potential.

The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, articulated the basic principle as far back as the summer of 1960, nearly six decades ago:

There is communication through writing and print there is communication through speech but the possibility of communication through the radio is doubly advantageous. Firstly, the voice does not weaken, but reaches the ends of the earth with the same vigor with which it left the mouth of the speaker. Accordingly, if these are words spoken from the heart they will also enter the heart of the listener. Secondly, the speech is transported without a long interval. Although time does elapse, as everything in this world is bounded by time, it travels very quickly, at the speed of light. (Torat Menachem Hitvaduyot, Vol. 28, 145-148.)

Responding to objections raised in some religious quarters that radio might be somehow unholy or detrimental to Judaism, the Rebbe cited a passage from the foundational work of Chabad thought, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadis Tanya: There is nothing physical or spiritual that divides us from Gd it is only sin that divides.

But it isnt simply that technology is kosher. After all, just because something is kosher it doesnt mean that it is ideal, or that it should be unthinkingly embraced. What is really key here is that the Rebbe saw the emphasis on interpersonal interaction, interpersonal meaning and interpersonal love as one of the key spiritual innovations of Chassidus. This insight is encapsulated in an anecdote that he published in his first book, Hayom Yom:

The original chassidim of Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi once gathered together, circa 1784 to 1787, and the topic of their discussion was that the Rebbes innovation is that we are not alone. In the past the rebbethe head of the academy or the scholar of geniuswas alone, and the students were alone too. The path of Hasidism established by the Rebbe is the great and holy innovation that the rebbe is not alone and the hasidim are not alone. (Hayom Yom, entry for the 22nd of Iyaar.)

Loneliness, or alienation, has long been identified by theorists and sociologists as one of the maladies of the human condition, especially in modern times. In the current moment, those who suffer from loneliness are even more vulnerable than usual, so the idea that Chassidus is the antidote to loneliness is now more relevant than ever before.

Philip Wexler, emeritus professor of the sociology of education and Hebrew University, has argued that the mystical aims of Hasidism do not stand in tension with communal life. Hasidic mysticism is fundamentally social; it is experienced collectively, and is indeed an experience of collectivity. (Social Vision: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Transformative Paradigm for the World, Chapter 3.)

Against the general consensus of sociologists, Wexler argues that in Chabad thought and practice mystical experience and social experience are fundamentally intertwined: The sense of being an individual standing apart from the community is actually a result of the exile and imprisonment of the transcendent soul within the earthly body. To achieve a personal mystical experience, in other words, is to overcome bodily individuation, to overcome loneliness and alienation.

This helps us understand the Rebbes embrace of new media technologies. They are not simply a practical means to a higher end. Actually, new media technologies present a supreme spiritual opportunity, an opportunity to enhance our experience of collectivity, of togetherness, of oneness. Positive connection and communication is synonymous with spiritual redemption and ascent.

The ultimate expression of the Rebbes embrace of technology came with the interactive and international Chanukah Live television programs in 1989, 1990, and 1991. Using cutting edge satellite technology, simultaneous mass celebrations in cities across the globe were all led by the Rebbe, from his synagogue at 770 Eastern Parkway, in Brooklyn, New York. Giant screens were set up at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, at the Kremlin in Moscow, as well as in locations in India, Japan, Australia and elsewhere.

Even today such an event would be an extremely ambitious undertaking. Back then, personal computers and the internet were not widely in use, and special satellite equipment mounted on trucks had to be deployed. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported that the two hour celebration was broadcast by television stations in Israel, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Britain, France, Italy, Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and India, and by no less than 70 public television stations in the United States alone.

For the Rebbe, the technology was not an incidental. The medium itself was part and parcel of the message. The satellite orbits in the heavens and thereby facilitates global interconnectivity on earththats the medium. Through the heavenly dimension of divine connection all humanity can come together in dynamic and mutually-supportive interactionthats the message.

In the Rebbes own words:

In order to make it easier to understand and grasp that ones action in one particular place is connected and impactful throughout the entire world, in heaven and earth, Gd revealed additional mysteries that he embedded in nature, whereby one connects heaven and earth, and parts of the earth that are separated by great distances.

By means of the satellite that orbits in space, in heaven, and receives commands that are sent there to be transmitted from one end of the earth to the earth, a person can remain in their own four cubits and connect with a person standing at the other end of the world, speaking to him and seeing him, and communicating with him about providing help with the things he needs, or helping with some good advice and the like Moreover, one can actually provide real help and aid instantaneously for via the satellite a sum of money is transferred to the bank, or to the furniture or food store, for that individual ...

This is also one of the fundamental purposes of the satellite, that through it the unity of humanity in its entirety will be increased, helping one another even when we are spatially distant from one another, whether with physical aid or spiritual aid, furthering issues of justice, morality, peace and unity throughout the world. (Torat Menachem Hitvaduyot 5752, Vol. 2, 18-19. Also available here)

Before the age of the Internet, an artist depicted the global reach possible through technology.

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Decades Before Zoom, The Rebbe Used Interactive Video to Connect the World - In 1989, the Chanukah Live program showed that satellite technology can...

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

A federal appeals court has upheld a New Jersey school district's firing of a teacher who allegedly taught his high school history students denial of the Holocaust and conspiracy theories linking the United States to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The teacher, Jason Mostafa Ali, alleged that his dismissal from Woodbridge (N.J.) High School in 2016 was discriminatory based on his race and his perceived religion. Ali is of Egyptian descent and is described in court papers as a nonpracticing Muslim. He alleged that staff members at the school had made disparaging remarks about him based on race and religion.

But both a federal district court and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, in Philadelphia, ruled for the school district.

"There are no nuances to be discerned regarding the Holocaust. It is a historic fact," the 3rd Circuit court said in its April 22 decision in Ali v. Woodbridge Township School District. "That tragic event in human history along with the 9/11 terrorist attacks lie at the center of this matter."

Ali began work as a history teacher at Woodbridge High in September 2015, and by the following May reports were trickling up to the school administration that the teacher was offering unorthodox views about the Holocaust and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

One student wrote in a paper submitted in Ali's class that "Adolf Hitler ... is looked at as a bad guy but in reality brought Germany out of its great depression." Another of Ali's students wrote that "what they claim happened in the concentration camps did not really happen" and that "Jews ... had a much easier and more enjoyable life in the camps."

For a lesson on 9/11, Ali posted links on a school website for his students to access articles from Egypt and Saudi Arabia that suggest the United States was involved in the attacks and that it planned a similar attack on ISIS in 2015 using Al-Queda terrorists.

In September 2016, after a TV news reporter questioned school administrators about the 9/11 materials, the school district dismissed Ali.

He sued the district and administrators in state court, alleging violations of New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination as well as a federal law that bars race considerations in contracting.

The school district removed the suit to federal court. In a deposition, Ali was asked about some of the conclusions his students had come to about the Holocaust as expressed in papers they wrote. For example, Ali was asked about whether he taught his students "to question the facts as to whether Hitler chose to brutally abuse, take advantage, starve and murder Jews for absolutely no reason at all."

Ali said he taught his students "to question everything."

When asked in the deposition whether he "encouraged" his students to "come to different views than the traditional understanding of what World War II and the Holocaust and Hitler were about," Ali responded "Yeah, it's called debate."

A federal district court issued summary judgment to the defendants, and the 3rd Circuit panel upheld that decision with its ruling this week.

The appeals court said Ali failed to offer evidence that racial or religious bias motivated administrators to fire him and that the district had legitimate reasons for its action.

"Evidence such as the students' assignments ... and Ali's deposition testimony show that Ali permitted conspiracy-theorist and Hitler-apologist presentations in his class and encouraged students to develop these opinions," the court said.

Comments that Ali alleges certain staff members had made to him, such as "Hey Arabia Nights" and "Hey, Big Egypt," were "offensive," the court said, but were not so pervasive as to alter his working conditions to support a discrimination claim.

The appeals court also rejected Ali's claim that posting links to articles containing "alternative views" on the 9/11 attacks was protected by the First Amendment.

"Based on our case law, Ali did not have a right to decide what would be taught in the classroom," the court said.

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Appeals Court Upholds Teacher Firing Over Holocaust Denial, 9/11 Theories - Education Week

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

Photo Credit: FB courtesy

{Originally posted to the authors website}

Some things are too sickening to digest properly, and I can rarely remember being as horrified by an item as I was whilst researching this. Some things cannot be unseen. This exclusive is about a new Crypto currency that turns the Holocaust into a sick trading joke.

I am neither pretending to be an expert in crypto-currency nor do you need a working knowledge of crypto-currencies to understand the issue. Some things are clearly sick on sight.

This crypto currency was brought to my attention by Jonathan Finberg who originally contacted Jewish Human Rights Watch. It is called Holocoin. Incredibly, it gives you the option to buy or sell Jews. The website asks the trader clearly will you save them, or let them burn:

With the website burning Jews at the rate of 4,107 each day, (the website claims this is equivalent to the rate at which Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust), a by-product is created ash. It is therefore also possible to buy ash the remains of the Jews they have burnt:

There is no denial here. Nor open glorification. To excuse themselves, the founders claim the crypto-currency is educational. They are pretending to care.

The website, theholocoin.net was only purchased on April 2nd. The site is registered and hosted by the Canadian internet service company Tucows. The Twitter handle appears to have been set up in the last week. The only Tweet so far is a proud announcement that the crypto-currency has been listed on the ForkDelta exchange. Holocoin started trading just a week ago. For those that understand or want to it is an ERC-20 token, which means it is designed for use on the Ethereum platform (a competitor to Bitcoin).

There appear to have been hundreds of trades in the past week. At the time of writing, there are 208 accounts holding the currency.

The two founders have the usernames Smaug Hitler and 30YearOldHimmler:

There is a reddit article they used to promote themselves, which provides a link to their community on the social media site Discord The community currently has 153 members. Here is an example of a trade:

The user -Smaug Hitler -burned 4107 Jews on 12/4 at 17:43. A link to this transaction is available online.

Two separate crypto-currency reviewers have seen and written about the Holocoin. One on the 6th April and another on the 7th. Neither of the reviewers are sure whether the currency is a serious attempt at Holocaust education or a joke of the worst kind. They obviously dont live on the same planet as I do and clearly did not do any research. Reading through the Discord comments is more than enlightening. The founders knew exactly what they were doing. They had created a crypto currency they could not market on social media and that would only appeal to edgy right wing folk (Thats neo-Nazi to us ordinary folk):

They claim this is their first attempt at creating a coin. And of course there are the giveaways. The comment that for the sake of this project, they are not denying the Holocaust: This means that they cant mock the Holocaust and use it as a way to make money if they openly say it never happened. Holocaust denial is something to joke about:

Burning Jews, buying ash. Welcome to 21st century Jew-hate. Sometimes, there is no need for 1000s words to explain how horrific -or innovative some of the antisemitism online is.

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Crypto Currency Ridicules and Makes Coin on the Holocaust - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

Aron Bielski visiting the location in modern-day Belarus where he and his brothers fought the Nazis and other pro-German forces during WW II.

By Jackson Richman

Aron Bielski is the youngest and last living member of the Bielski brigade, which he founded along with three of his brothers. Their activities have become widely known as one of the largest partisan groups that rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

He was born July 21, 1927 into the family of David and Beila Bielski, who had 10 sons and two daughters, in what is today Belarus.

According to Aron Bielski, they were the only known Jewish family in the Belarusian village of Stankiewicze. His parents and two of his brothers, Yankel and Avraham, were killed by the Nazis and buried in a mass grave on Dec. 5, 1941.

The story of the Bielski brigade led by the surviving brothers which fought Nazis and other pro-German forces while rescuing escapees from their grips has been written about in a number of books, as well as portrayed in the 2008 feature film Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber (George MacKay played Aron).

Denverites Isaac Koll and the late Paula Burger lived with the Bielski brigade during the Holocaust, as documented in the book Paulas Window by Burger and IJN senior writer Andrea Jacobs.

After WW II, during which his brothers saved more than 1,200 Jews, Aron Bielski moved to British Mandate Palestine and served in Israels army during the 1948 War of Independence.

He then moved to the US, where his brothers and the rest of the family lived, changing his name to Bell. He and his first wife, Judith, had three children.

Today, Bielski, 92, and the grandfather of 12, lives in Florida with his wife Henryka, 80, who was born in Poland in 1939 and is also a survivor.

JNS talked with Aron and Henryka Bielski before Yom HaShoah.

Q: What was your role in the Bielski brigade?

Aron Bielski (AB): To pick up children in the ghetto. For some reason or another, I never wore a yellow Star of David. I dont know why, maybe I was stupid. By the help of G-d, I dont know why every Jew was wearing the star. Therefore, it gave me the opportunity to walk into places where no Jew could. I lost two brothers because they had the Star of David.

It is very hard to be a good Jew, but at the end, it is indescribable how rewarding it is.

Dont think for a moment that I was a hero in any way or matter. This was pure luck because there were stronger people than me, and they were butchered. But I was lucky enough to prevail.

Q: What was your relationship with your brothers before and after you went into the forest?

AB: I was always lucky and privileged to have brothers. Asael was probably the most powerful individual that I ever met in my life. Smart and a very powerful, strong individual. With the help of G-d, because how smart could you be? You are nothing against the regular army that is working to destroy you.

Henryka Bielski (HB): The oldest brother, Walter, and [the second oldest] of the brothers, Nathan, went to America before the war. Yehoshua, a rabbi, went to Siberia during the war. A sister, Tove, lived with her husband, Avraham, in another village but they joined her brothers in the forest.

Q: What was life like in the forest?

AB: Life in the forest was great.

[There was] freedom. You saw the sunshine. All we needed was food, and we won. If you wanted to sleep, you slept. If there was no bed, you slept on the snow. Whatever it was, it was. Its hard to believe, but thats what it is. I had a rifle, but I didnthink I should be on the first line. They wouldnt let me. They protected me.

Q: How did you get food in the forest?

AB: You went by people; some gave you, some didnt want to give you, some we got by force. We got whatever food we could get.

Believe it or not, there was some religious people who didnt touch a piece of meat because it was not kosher. This Ill never forget.

They had potatoes, eggs and even killed a cow. In the summertime, the forest had fruit.

They would rather die than eat the non-kosher meat. They would take leaves from a tree and cook them. They did not eat non-kosher food. Its something for the books.

Q: How was survival different as a partisan than other stories of survival during WW II and the Holocaust?

AB: Youre a different person than if you were born in the city and never been to the woods. Youre afraid of animals, wild animals. We were only afraid of G-d Himself.

HB: My mother survived with me, and we were not in the ghetto. The Polish army helped us. My father was in Auschwitz.

AB: She also survived because she knew, G-d told her, that I needed a very good wife, a very good friend. Shes still here, believe it or not.

Q: How did you two meet?

HB: We met in the Catskills in upstate New York in 1992 and got married in 1995. My husband had two daughters and one son. The daughter had four children, and one son had four and the other had five. I have two biological and two adopted children.

Q: How accurate are the portrayals? Can you address the accuracy of memory of the Holocaust in general?

AB: What happened was much worse than what the movie [Defiance] portrays.

HB: The movie did not show how they fought for their freedom. How Aron was running to the ghetto and bringing people there to the forest. How they were going to fight for the food and bring the food to the forest. How there was a cow in the forest, and the milk was only for children. Aron was 13 years old and was helping younger children.

The movie didnt show how they trekked through the snow, how they were freezing to death.

Q: What happened after the war?

HB: Arons brother, Asael, served in the Russian army fighting Hitler and was killed in battle. His wife, Chaja, gave birth to their daughter.

Aron was sitting on the sidewalk, thinking about what to do with his life. No parents, no family, nobody. It was the hardest time in his life because he didnt know what to do. His brothers, Zus and Tuvia, went to check on their wives.

AB: I sat down on the sidewalk and came to the conclusion: Theres no sense thinking. You get hungry. You got to go to work. I went and worked for whoever needed help.

Q: What kind of work did you do?

AB: Cleaning the village oven. Whatever I was told to do, I was happy to do it.

Q: What are your thoughts on Holocaust revisionism, such as Polands recent laws about terminology? On Holocaust denial?

AB: Some of the Poles had to [keep quiet]. If they didnt collaborate, they would die. Some of them had to save their own lives. Of course, not all gentiles are Jew-haters; not all gentiles are bad people. There were some Jews [who acted] worse.

HB: I used to live in Canada and knew a Jew who came to North America at the same time as Aron. He was a Nazi collaborator in Auschwitz. He was taking gold from Jews. He said he was doing it because he wanted to save his life. But with that gold, with his cousin he bought a two-story mansion.

Polish families saved me and my mom.

There were a lot of Poles who behaved badly. But there were a lot of Poles who did what they did because they were forced to. However, Poles did attack Jewish property and got richer from Jewish houses.

Q: What is your message?

HB: We should love each other. Doesnt matter what is your skin color, what is your religion. You should always be nice to each other. Were all human. Were sharing the same Earth, same sun and moon. Were sharing everything. Love everybody, be nice to everybody.

AB: People should be nice to each other, to help each other, whoever needs help. Be good to your family and to people. If you see a person needs help, help him or her. Because the good L-rd will know about it.

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Last surviving Bielski brother: 'If you see a person who needs help, help' - IJN - Intermountain Jewish News

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

This is a year of anniversaries. They mark a succession of momentous events 75 years ago which only those of advanced age will remember. January 27 marked three quarters of a century since the Russians liberated Auschwitz. The Nazis had already sent most of those reserved for slave labour, and for this reason not gassed, by train or by foot westwards. Many thousands ended up in Bergen-Belsen, where emaciated survivors were liberated by British troops in mid-April, an anniversary which had been due to be marked last week at the camp, before coronavirus intervened.

This week, it is Yom Hashoah, Israels annual ceremony of remembrance. In May, it will be 75 years since VE Day, the German surrender in Europe, and then in September the Japanese surrender, following the atomic bombs dropped by the US Air Force on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

For me, liberation from the Budapest ghetto happened around the same time as that of Auschwitz. Thankfully I was too young to have personal memories. But at exactly this time 75 years ago, on 20 April 1944, my grandmother was being taken from the salt mine at Beendorf, a sub-camp of Neuengamme, where she had been forced to make armaments deep in the ground and thus away from Allied bombers. She had come there from Auschwitz and Ravensbruck.

As the fighting neared its inevitable end, the head of the Swedish Red Cross, Count Bernadotte, negotiated with the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler evidently seeking to save his own neck to release a few thousand, mainly female, concentration camp inmates and allow them to reach Sweden. About a third of the women in the Beendorf camp died on the ten-day train journey northwards. My grandmother was one of the lucky ones, if lucky is the word. Recuperation in Sweden did not save her. Like many others who had been released as a result of the deal between Himmler and Count Bernadotte, she was to die within two years.

There is no single lesson to be drawn from this weeks Yom Hashoah, when many Jews around the world remember the Holocaust. For the ever smaller number of survivors of the death camps and concentration camps, there will be intense personal memories. Their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will be affected in different ways. For others, there will be a variety of political and moral lessons.

This year, I have found myself particularly disturbed by the continuing debate over the bombing by British and US aircraft of the city of Dresden in February 1945, another 75th anniversary attended by the Duke of Kent. Dresden has become a powerful symbol of the suffering of ordinary Germans. Many consider it a war crime committed by the Allies, in particular by Winston Churchill.

Though they deny that there is any intended parallel between wrongdoing on both sides in the Second World War, though the dignified annual events held around the reconstructed Frauenkirche are acts of reconciliation, though the German President Frank-Walter Steinmaiers speech stressed that Dresdens suffering followed Hitlers deplorable policies and acts, some of the assumptions of the Dresden campaigners risk misunderstanding and distorting the history of the Second World War. This is especially the case in light of a succession of books by German and British historians, blaming the Allies.

There appear to be political as well as moral and religious agendas. One of them is that 1939-1945 shows the need for a federal Europe. Moreover, it is now said to be Britain which, in the words of a book blurb advertising a work by a leading Dresden activist, acts according to the principles of its military heritage, while Germany has swung to pacifism. Through an unreserved assumption of guilt, Germans have regained the moral high ground and are set to become the natural leader in Europe.

This focus on British moral shortcomings has become widespread. It is seen in a major educational site of our National Archives. This gives just six international examples of documents relating to Heroes and Villains. The first example of someone schoolchildren are clearly invited to view as a villain is Churchill, for his role in the bombing of Dresden. Alongside him is Stalin, but not Hitler.

Admittedly, there is reason to impress on those at school that we are not inevitably the goodies and they are not always the baddies. History is complex. The trouble is that the bombing of Dresden became a staple of Nazi propaganda, when Goebbels claimed a vastly exaggerated death toll. This was later followed by David Irvings greatly inflated statistics (later modified) in a bestselling book on the bombing.

On the merits of the decision to bomb Dresden in 1945, and more broadly on the British policy of area bombing at a time when targeting technologies were still poor, I have not considered this narrow question closely enough to reach a conclusion. Certainly, specialist historians such as Richard Overy have raised serious doubts.

I have resisted becoming drawn into the historical details for several reasons. The attempt to blame Churchill, if indeed there is cause for blame, rests on disputed details concerning the actual decision to bomb Dresden. It was reportedly taken while he was out of Britain on his way to Yalta. Then there is the issue of whether a request from the Russians was key to the decision. A third issue, argued by Anthony Beevor, concerns the strategic as distinct from the tactical forces at play.

Though Germany was under extreme pressure by early 1945, it had mounted a serious offensive against US forces in the Ardennes, was still bombing the UK with rockets and was developing weapons and equipment, such as jet engines, possibly capable of turning the tide. Even after the defeat of Germany, the Allies faced the potentially daunting task of invading Japan. Even if the continuing sufferings of slave labourers and POWs in Germany are to be discounted, there were pressing reasons to force a German surrender at the earliest possible moment.

Yet all these arguments, in my view, pale into relative insignificance. The amount of coverage of the destruction of Dresden lacks proportion and is diversionary.

By any normal standards, the deaths of about 25,000 people in Dresden, most of them civilians, constitutes a tremendous, wholly unacceptable toll. German civilian deaths from all Allied bombing amounted to hundreds of thousands. A danger is that Dresden is being used by some to justify pacifism, an approach which for all its nobility may partly have been responsible for the weakness which led to the outbreak of the Second World War. Further, despite the care taken by organisers of the annual commemorations at the Frauenkirche to avoid any moral equivalence between the Nazis and the Allies, the subtext of much, though not all, of the Dresden debate is to divert attention from the deeds of the Nazi state, especially but not exclusively towards Jews. The implication that Churchill was as bad as Hitler is grotesque, as has been the tendency among parts of the German population to focus excessively on their status as victims. The further result is to contextualise that is, minimise the Holocaust.

We canot allow ourselves to be desensitised to the point of shrugging off the deaths of the 25,000 victims of the bombing of Dresden. But nor should we be tempted to weigh them as heavily as the millions of Soviet prisoners starved to death in Nazi captivity, the millions of non-Jewish civilians and the six million Jews murdered.

Concerning the citizens of Germany, there can be no suggestion of collective guilt. This would amount to an immoral, quasi-racist approach. At the same time, we should have no illusions about certain German responses to the past, which have been far less satisfactory than generally realised.

In the course of acting as honorary academic advisor to a group of London-based Auschwitz survivors, I experienced bruising encounters with several German ambassadors in London, alongside generous help from several German scholars and one notable serving German diplomat.

The outcome of our negotiations was highly unsatisfactory. One of our aims to several of us it was the principal one was to receive from the German authorities the acknowledgement that slave labour in Auschwitz had been illegal. I have recently been informed by someone then serving in the German Foreign Ministry that they had considered the point, but rejected it. It would prove too costly. In lieu, survivors were offered a very small cash sum and an informal acknowledgement of their suffering, but on the condition that receipt of the money would be conditional on abandonment of any future claims.

Germanys extraordinary refusal to acknowledge that slave labour imposed by the Nazis had been illegal followed the effective early abandonment of war crimes trials, and the employment after 1945 of former Nazis by Allied and then also by West German intelligence agencies. (The Soviet record seems to have been dubious too.)

Now that 75 years have passed, does any of this matter? Ceremonies to commemorate the Holocaust have become widely established. There are ever more museums and monuments. Outright Holocaust denial is restricted in Europe and North America to the fringes. But I cannot help feeling that, with many honourable exceptions, the response in Germany to its deplorable history under Hitler has been considerably less complete than many suppose.

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Victims and villains: the Holocaust, Churchill and Dresden - TheArticle

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

Obviously the concept of days has become a bit of a joke as our perception of time starts to align with those melted clocks on Salvador Dal paintings.

But don't mind me, you're not here for an existential crisis. You're here to find out what movies are on TV.

Here are seven of the best:

The Sweeney - SyFy - 9pm

Remake of the 1970s series about the Flying Squad cops in London, starring who else but Ray Winstone in the title role. Cockney goodness abounds.

Shaun of the Dead - ITV2 - 9pm

The first film in Richard Wright's Cornetto trilogy, and arguably the funniest. Certainly the most appropriate for the apocalyptic times we live in. If only we could go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over.

Welcome to the Jungle - Comedy Central - 9pm

A comedy starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson when he was first breaking into the movie business, before he became the total Hollywood megastar he is today. If you want to get a vibe for the era of this film: his co-star is Seann William Scott.

Rocky V - ITV4 - 9pm

Not the most heralded of the Rocky movies. In fact, you might even say it's the least heralded of the Rocky films. This one is mostly just for people who can't get enough of the Rocky films.

Denial - RTE2 - 9.45pm

Fraught legal drama film about the true story of a historian who sued publisher Penguin over claims he was a Holocaust denier, forcing the legal team to prove in a court of law that the Holocaust did take place. Stars Timothy Spall and Rachel Weisz.

Napoleon Dynamite - 11.40pm - Comedy Central Extra

Perfected the genre of awkward comedy. If you've never seen it then you're missing out on a cultural milestone.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa - 12.15am - BBC One NI

A strange turn of events sees everyone's favourite local DJ thrust into a situation where he's negotiating with a former colleague who has taken hostages at the radio station. Not everyone's favourite, but it's still Partridge.

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Here are the 7 best movies on TV this Friday evening - JOE.ie

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

This essay was originally published on April 9 2020 in The Arrow: A Journal of Wakeful Society, Culture & Politics.

The toilet paper aisle at my local grocery store was the first to go barren. Similar scenes of scatalogical scarcity are now the norm across North America and many other parts of the world as consumers prepare for months of physical distancing to slow the spread of COVID-19.

You can find footage online of shoppers fighting over the last roll, and the New York Times recently reported on a toilet paper shipment requiring police escort. Just when you thought the panic-buying was over, the Los Angeles Times reported this week on home hacks such as newspaper and gathered leaves if the shortages continue. It is peculiar that in the early days of this crisis, a pooping accessory took priority over food. Survival instincts appear low in late capitalism.

Fortunately, there is a body of social psychology that helps explain the collective impulse to put our heads in our asses in this moment of genuine crisis and its called Terror Management Theory (or TMT). TMT is rooted in the work of Ernest Becker, who won a Pulitzer for his 1973 book the Denial of Death. According to Becker, the intense existential fear caused by the reality of death compels us to psychologically buffer ourselves with fantasies of supremacy that compensate for the overwhelming powerlessness most of us feel in the face of mortality.

The illusions of human supremacy, white supremacy, male supremacy, and class supremacy are, for Becker, all shaped by death denial. The real world is simply too terrible to admit, he writes in the Denial of Death, it tells [humans] that they are small trembling animals who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes [humans] seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way. Protecting ourselves from the terror of mortality with fantasies of supremacy is dangerous for others and, obviously, irrational death will still come. Yet according to Becker, it is what we regularly do to survive the idea of death, if not real death itself.

Since the early 1990s, terror management researchers have been experimentally testing Beckers theories. Although a recent canonical TMT experiment did fail a replication effort, to date, over 500 experiments in 25 countries have consistently supported his account of how fear of death shapes human behavior. It is clear that continued study of terror management is of great importance.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a real-life terror management experiment. In the lab versions, a test group is reminded of their mortality either with explicit or subliminal reminders of death and then tracked for how they respond to different situations or written statements. In recent weeks we have all been subject to constant death reminders as we read local and international news of the virus spread, crowding young and old into underfunded hospital systems, causing unnecessary death (with the elderly and immuno-compromised especially vulnerable, along with frontline, often racialized workers in health care, grocery stores, delivery). The phrase flattening the curve is a euphemism for slowing the kill rate given the limited supply of hospital beds and ventilators. These are anxious times.

So why in the midst of this genuine panic did North American consumers turn first, en masse, to toilet paper? Part of the answer may simply be the social contagion of seeing depleted aisles and joining the stampede (this depletion aggravated by supply chain delays). But it wasnt rice, nuts, or oranges that people snapped up first, it was toilet paper. From a terror management perspective, two-ply is an understandable balm because, along with toilet training in general, it serves to distinguish us from animality. From TP to bidets, we manage our excrement carefully, seeking to distance ourselves from the decay and disgust many of us read into it.

We believe that we are not animals, not poop anarchists (like my golden doodle for example): We are civilized! At a time when industrial human societies are being ground to a halt by a microscopic more-than-human force, it makes sense that we would cling to primary and visceral cultural reminders of our human exceptionalism. We are not powerless in the face of earthly forces such as disease, death, or calls of the wild we wipe.

Numerous TMT experiments have explored the link between death-fear and attachments to human supremacy. For example, one study found that death reminders increased participant support for the killing of animals. According to the researchers: The idea that humans are different from and superior to other animals is a fundamental part of most worldviews, and this is certainly true of the mainstream American view.

COVID-19 should tame illusions of human supremacy. And indeed, our survival and thriving as a species depends on human cultures, especially high-consuming Euro-American ones, transforming our relationships with the more-than-human world into mutually beneficial ones.

The animal holocaust in the recent Australian wildfires (nearly a billion individuals killed) is partly a product of fossil fuel companies treating our precious atmosphere without which earthly life would be nil as an emissions dump.

Climate change is also being accelerated by the felling of forests. Given the recent run on toilet paper, it is worth noting that TP is a major driver of global deforestation. U.S. Americans are the biggest buyers. Even in simpler, pre-pandemic times, they accounted for 20% of global consumption while only comprising 4% of world population. Paper companies that use virgin wood when alternatives are available such as Kirkland (Costcos house brand) are literally flushing forests down the toilet. At least U.S. bidet sales have skyrocketed in response to TP shortages, a good news story amidst these dark days.

Clinging to toilet paper in this time of crisis is not merely a cultural curiosity, it is also accelerating key drivers of future pandemics. Felling trees for paper product, or to make way for animal agriculture, or to facilitate oil and mineral extraction, all encroach on ecosystems, making it easier for zoonotic viruses like COVID-19 to jump from wildlife to domesticated animals and then to humans.

Youd think that runaway climate change and killer pandemics would force a rethink of capitalist extractivism and the illusions of human supremacy at its core. But TMT warns of a darker likelihood: that these fear-inducing events will lead people to double down on their illusions of supremacy, with morbid socio-ecological effects. The toilet paper panic is exemplary.

Rapprochement with the more-than-human world requires new cultural orientations towards death. Death is not alien; it is fundamental to earth processes. To deny death is to deny life. Capitalist destruction of earth systems is that denial materialized.

In the same year that Ernest Becker published the Denial of Death, Dakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. who is an intellectual inspiration for contemporary Indigenous resurgence movements such as the water protectors at Standing Rock wrote that [r]ather than fearing death tribal religions see it as an affirmation of lifes reality. Deloria Jr. continued: The Indian ability to deal with death was a result of the much larger context in which Indians understood life. Human beings were an integral part of the natural world and in death they contributed their bodies to become the dust that nourished the plants and animals that had fed people during their lifetime.

For Deloria Jr., Indigenous approaches to mortality are linked to non-supremacist worldviews that position humans as fundamentally integrated with the natural world, feeding other life forms upon their physical death.

Arikara scholar Michael Yellow Bird has written about rituals that his nation used to rehearse for death. In one such ritual, someone would be chosen to represent death (e.g. dressing up and painting their bodies). They would leave the village and prepare themselves in isolation to return as death incarnate. As the ritual closed, death would disappear into the hills. Elders would then talk with fellow community members about how the encounter impacted them.

It is vital that non-Indigenous people learn from Indigenous ontologies and ceremonies without stealing knowledge in the same way that land has been violently stolen in settler colonial contexts such as the U.S. and Canada. Yellow Bird presents one possible way forward: He sees deep resonances between Indigenous ritual and Buddhist-inspired mindfulness practices that are increasingly available in the Euro-Americas.

A recent TMT study shows how mindfulness meditation can reduce defensive responses to death-fear and compensatory illusions of supremacy. The study goes even further, pinpointing the mechanism that likely allows for reduced defensiveness: the conscious experiencing of death-fear.

According to previous TMT studies, defensive responses to death arise due to thought suppression. Instead of directly facing death-anxiety, people tend to repress the fear into their unconscious. There, the felt powerlessness that death-fear can produce is alchemized into comforting illusions of supremacy. This particular study found that meditation halted thought suppression, allowing death-fears to be experienced consciously. This conscious experiencing appears to have been a key factor facilitating the non-defensive response to death-reminders.

Meditation alone will not undo death-anxiety or compensatory illusions of human supremacy and its deadly material effects. For mindfulness to support a new cultural orientation towards mortality in the Euro-Americas, it needs to be embedded in collective movements and institutions capable of culture change.

I have worked to limit my toilet paper panic in recent days, but I remain troubled by mortality. Buddhist meditation has helped, but I continue to struggle. As an asthmatic, Ive noticed my lungs constrict in fear when reading COVID-19 stories about 40-somethings like me needing ventilators to continue breathing.

Ive found succor in a dream I had two years ago when rampant wildfires darkened Vancouver Island skies. In the dream, I watched a bomb detonate some metres away. Time slowed down as the flames flew forward. I knew it was my end. I knelt down and placed my palm on the earth. In that moment I was home, at peace. The flames consumed me.

It is notoriously hard to die in a dream. This was no exception. There was a scene change and I was suddenly in some elsewhere, both relieved that the threat had passed, and disappointed that my union with primordial energy had ended. And this too shall pass. Even endings end. The show goes on. Energy transforms.

Why does this dream comfort me? Because death will come. Hopefully a long time from now. But it is a part of my life. Acknowledging the reality of death means accepting myself and this earth from which I come. This acknowledgement is not morbid; on the contrary, it promotes more life. Just like shit itself, compost for new growth.

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Why the panic over toilet paper - another case of death denial? - Open Democracy

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

NEW YORK (JTA) For a short period of time, New York state officials enacted controversial guidelines that again tested the inherent tension that the COVD-19 pandemic is causing between our countrys most deeply cherished values respect for multiculturalism and religious freedom on the one side and the states responsibility to promote the common good on the other.

On April 17, at the recommendation of the Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, the Regional Emergency Services Council of New York issued guidelines stating that EMS personnel should not attempt to revive a person if they find him or her in cardiac arrest. The edict was a further push toward public safety over treatment of individuals and respect for moral and religious values than one issued earlier this month stating that if EMS workers could not revive a person from cardiac arrest in 20 minutes, they should not transport the patient to the hospital.

The new guidelines were abandoned only days later, though in practice it is doubtful that they were actually followed. The official statement for its rescission is that the guidelines did not reflect New Yorks standards.

Nor did they reflect Jewish values.

Jewish law recognizes that life is of ultimate value, but it also appreciates that there will be times when saving a persons life may come at the expense of another. For example, the Talmud tells a story of two people who are stranded in a desert and only one has enough water to survive. Rabbi Akiva offers that the person should not share his water, as it would cause both of them to die. The duty to save another persons life applies only when your brother may live with you and not at ones own expense.

But attempting to save someone who is infected with COVID-19 and in cardiac arrest is not the same as sharing ones water bottle. While the risk of infection without proper equipment may be high, it is not obvious that continuing CPR will necessarily lead to the EMS workers ultimate demise. It could, however, lead to spread of contagion, which may indirectly lead to life-threatening situations.

Jewish law does address the extent of ones duty to save another when there is a potential risk to life rather than a definite one. Rabbinic scholars begin their analysis of this matter with the question addressed to Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Zimra (who lived in Safed in the 16th century).

What should one do if a government officer tells a Jew: Let me cut off one of your limbs in a way that you will not die, or I will kill your friend!' (Responsa Radbaz, 3:627)

Of course, attempting to save a patient with COVID-19 is in no way as extreme as this question, but the legal and moral point is analogous. How much should one be willing to sacrifice of himself or herself to save another persons life?

Rabbi David ben Zimri writes that if the risk is not life-threatening, one may endanger ones health for the sake of another. If, however, there is a risk to ones life, then attempting to save them is misguided piety.

Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan (the Chafetz Chaim) writes that one should not put oneself in potentially life-threatening danger to save another from certain danger. However, he adds that one must calculate the situation properly, and be very careful not to rationalize improper risk aversion under the pretense of religious piety. (Mishna Berura 329:19)

Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wosner (1913-2015) clarified Rabbi Kagans demand for proper calculation. According to Rabbi Wosner, opting for personal safety over attempting to save another is justified only when the chances of putting oneself in life-threatening danger is 50% or greater. When the chances are less than 50%, Rabbi Wosner contends in BGeder Hovat Hatzalah LZulat SheYigrom LTorem Huleshet HaGuf vToreach, the person has an obligation, or at least should act out of piety, to try to save the other person. If saving another will only risk making a person sick but not in danger to his health, then he is certainly obligated to save the other person.

Medical professionals, however, may have an even higher duty to treat than the layperson in Jewish law. For example, Rabbi Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (1915-2006) wrote in Teshuvot Tzitz Eliezer 9:17 that physicians have a higher level of duty toward patients, which stems either from the permission physicians have to heal a customary expectation of the profession or because they are compensated for their work. He does add, however, that this greater responsibility comes with greater divine protection from harm, since the person is engaged in such a great mitzvah as saving other peoples lives.

We should be thankful that the states health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, rescinded the guidelines that challenged medical professionals fiduciary responsibilities and potentially their religious and moral values, yet the pandemic will continue to challenge the balance between state priorities and individual liberties.

The best way for us to ameliorate these tensions and avoid challenges to our values is for us to avoid creating opportunities for these situations to occur. Rather than fight against reactionary decisions to deal with the problems that COVID-19 keeps presenting, we should continue to be proactive in stopping the contagion.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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Should you put your life at risk to help others? Rabbis have been grappling with the question for centuries. - JTA News

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

The Coronavirus outbreak has been deemed unprecedented, but how unprecedented is it?

Its hard to ignore the parallel between Covid-19 and the times in which the Jewish calendar finds itself now.

The 49 days between Passover and Shavuot is the period that was set aside to commemorate the 24,000 students of Rabbi Akiva, who died owing to a deadly plague.

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The Talmud is clear in attributing the cause of the outbreak to the sin of lack of mutual respect between Rabbi Akivas students.

The disease, Ascora, affected the lungs until they inevitably died from difficulty breathing, resulting in a daily death toll of 300 to 400.

Consequently, for two millennia, the Jewish people have observed a mourning period, refraining from celebrating weddings, listening to music that may lead to dancing and from having haircuts.

While prophecy has long been abandoned in the Jewish religion and speculation insensitive, the inevitable parallels between the situation in which we each find ourselves and our shared history are hard to ignore. However, let us remember that the story, although tragic, has an optimistic ending, with Rabbi Akiva and his remaining students emblazoned with their mantra, You shall love your neighbour as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), rebuilding the Jewish people and introducing the doctrines of Jewish works, like Zohar and much of the Talmud.

It also gave the Jewish people a unique day, Lag BeOmer, to celebrate both the culmination of the epidemic and the birth of a new society.

Let us utilise the period of mourning, confinement and lack of open rejoicing to strengthen each other, build mutual respect within all areas of humanity and let us see the end of the pandemic speedily.

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Torah For Today! This week: Coronavirus and the Omer? - Jewish News

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Posted By admin on April 24, 2020

Our hearts go out to the members of the ultra-Orthodox community in Israel and worldwide. Haredim are found in disproportionate numbers among the sick and the dead of the coronavirus pandemic. They are civilian casualties of the cruel, unrelenting war on all humanity being waged by the coronavirus. The fact that this war is not driven by antisemitism (as was the Holocaust), i.e. it is not directed at Jews specifically, makes it no less heinous, and the victims no less innocent.Numerous people have angrily blamed haredim for the high losses in the community, arguing that their leaders initially rejected medical instructions. Various members of the ultra-Orthodox community have continued group religious experiences and Torah learning after health authorities called for social isolation. Those religious activities spread the disease much more in their midst. However, before the Holocaust, many hassidic leaders told their followers not to go to Israel or America. During the catastrophe, many advised against flight (especially when done in cooperation with Zionists), and strongly opposed resistance. The outcome was a much higher percentage of deaths among haredim (approaching 90% average). But nobody would think of condemning the victims for following bad advice and policies. Bad judgment does not justify rejection or hatred of innocent victims. Haredim are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone of the Jewish people. They deserve compassion and care at this time of their troubles. Proper understanding of the haredi situation includes acknowledging the legitimate factors that increased their vulnerability to the pandemic. Haredi families are larger and they typically live in smaller quarters, which leads to increased contagion. They live a rich, more intense religious communal life. But these experiences multiply unintentional transmission from one infected person to many others.At the same time, respect for the truth - and commitment to prevent a recurrence - requires that we critique the flawed haredi theology that leads to greater losses in these communities. First and foremost, they follow literally the biblical model in which God controls and does everything in history. They firmly believe that as long as humans please God by doing mitzvot, God will defeat their enemies and grant them victory. (See the Exodus from Egypt and the splitting of the Red Sea). They are oblivious to the main rabbinic interpretation of the Bibles covenant idea - that God has self-limited. God has asked humans to take a more active role in history, with the results depending much more on the people of Israels efforts. (See the Talmudic interpretation of Purim in which that Exodus/redemption would not have happened unless Esther and Mordechai executed their plans to defeat Haman).When presented with the question Should haredi schools be closed to prevent infection? Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky replied, God forbid. Learning Torah protects and saves [the Jewish people]. (Talmud Sotah 21A). He dismissed medical considerations because God controls every detail of history. LEARNING TORAH would please the Lord Who would protect Jewry. This is the same theology that undergirds the haredi refusal to let their youth serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Not tanks and jet fighters but the exempted students learning Torah are the real defense force of the Jewish state. This theology is refuted by the actual facts of real life. It has not led to catastrophe in the past because 90% of Israelis understand that Israel would be destroyed instantly by its enemies if it did not have an army. The 90% serve their time and give their lives, allowing haredim to be saved from the folly of their interpretation which makes the Torah unlivable for a whole society. In the coronavirus case this policy - which totally fails in reality - was applied to the community. The consequences are devastating. The second serious misinterpretation in haredi theology is to see sickness and natural catastrophes as Divine punishment for sins rather than as natural phenomena. The Talmud disagrees: The natural order operates objectively. It does not differentiate between righteous and wicked people. (See Talmud, Avodah Zara 54B). Rabbi Kanievsky was quoted as saying that the virus is a punishment for lashon hara (harmful speech, gossip); that people should stop and repent and the plague would stop.The Book of Job was incorporated into the Bible by the rabbis to make clear that sickness and disaster are not retribution but part of the larger scheme of nature. God rebukes Jobs friends for insisting that his sins have caused the tragedies in his life. Moral: The innocent victim should not be blamed for his or her suffering.The flip side of punishment for sin is the haredi teaching that if you are doing a religious act, God will keep you safe. Those who are agents doing a mitzvah will not be harmed. (See Talmud, Pesachim 8B). Some haredim allowed themselves to be exposed to coronavirus because God would protect them. (Many Evangelical Christians around the world have done the same). Given the natural laws and medical evidence of pandemic, this behavior is nothing but magical thinking. Magic claims that through certain words or actions (in this case: religious faith and behaviors) God is compelled to do what the practitioner wants. The Torah treats magic as abhorrent. It constitutes a denial of Gods freedom. The Bible insists that no Divine action can be compelled by human gifts, behaviors or tricks. Magical thinking also disrespects Gods miraculous creation. It claims to override the objective and dependable system of natural processes and laws. The sad outcome of lack of secular education is that people more easily slip into pre-modern, magical thinking. The haredi penalty for grasping at magic is greater contagion.To protect peoples religiosity, haredi rabbinic leaders prohibit secular education and proscribe most Internet as well. As a result, haredi Jews are not equipped to participate in the science and medical fields that are the key areas to prevent and find cures for dangerous pandemics. The side effect of this well-intentioned but wrong way of protecting religious devotion is that the average haredi Jew lacked understanding of the serious threat of the coronavirus and the urgency of taking preventive actions. Unfortunately, the gedolim - the Torah greats - who make the rulings that guide behavior are just as uninformed as their followers. This explains their delayed and initially counterproductive responses to the threat. The community has paid a terrible price for its leaderships ignorance of science and secular knowledge.In the past century, the haredi gedolim, overall, were guided by the same defensive insular theological thinking and lack of secular information when they opposed Zionism. This resulted in a community with a more secular culture and exposed their community to the catastrophic Nazi assault. They should have been turned out of office (as would happen in a democratic political system), or they should have turned in the direction of integrating modern thinking and Jewish religion. Instead, in the name of preserving the religion, they were granted unlimited authority. By haredi definition, the gadol - the great Torah scholar - is infallible in his rulings. The Ruach Hakodesh/Holy Spirit allegedly speaks in them, even when they speak with little or zero knowledge of the realia. We can only hope that the reality check of the plague will awaken the whole haredi community to the need for new directions in their religious thought and their attitudes toward the rest of society. All Jews are responsible for each other. The proper response is not to blame or reject but to consider together how to end the political coalitions and manipulations that have provided funding and special privileges to keep the haredi community whole and on its current path. The failed outcome is an expanding, aggravating, sometimes even inspiring community but one deprived of essential knowledge, mired in poverty and now vulnerable to disease. Everyone, together, must draw the lessons of this disaster to prevent a future repetition. The writer is a theologian and communal activist and author of The Triumph of Life (forthcoming) from which this column is derived.

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Coronavirus and the haredim - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

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