Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on August 17, 2017

Speaking in an interview on Israeli television, white nationalist Richard Spencer Wednesday said Jews were overrepresented when challenged on antisemitism, adding Jews and Israelis should respect him despite his supremacist views.

Spencer, who has previously courted Israeli media,despite engaging in Holocaust denial and refusing to condemn Hitler, made the remarks while speaking to Israeli state broadcasterChannel 2.

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The alt-right figurehead was initially questioned on the weekends deadly clashes between white supremacist protesters and anti-fascist demonstrators in Charlottesville, Virginia. Spencer refrained from discussing James Alex Fields Jr., thewhite nationalist who standsaccused of deliberately plowing his car into the group of counter protesters and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer. We actually dont know if it was murder yet, Spencer said, adding that he was waiting for all the facts of the case to emerge.

Spencer, who was present at the rally in Charlottesville in protest of the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. was asked aboutthe anti-Jewish slogans shouted during the demonstration. He said the popularity of Donald Trump and the rally in Virginia was the reaction of the maligned white majority.

ALEXANDRIA, VA - AUGUST 14: White nationalist Richard Spencer speaks to select media in his office space on August 14, 2017 Tasos Katopodis/Getty Image

Lets be honest, Spencer said, when asked whether such slogans constitute anti-Semitism, according to Haaretz. Jews are vastly overrepresented in what you could call the establishment, that is, Ivy League educated people who really determine policy, and white people are being dispossessed from this country."

The Channel 2 anchor questioned how Jews should react to these kinds of statements. You are speaking now with a Jewish journalist, most of our viewers are Jews. How should I feel? he asked.

As an Israeli citizen, someone who understands your identity, who has a sense of nationhood and peoplehood, and the history and experience of the Jewish people, you should respect someone like me, who has analogue feelings about whites, Spencer said.

You could say that I am a white Zionistin the sense that I care about my people, I want us to have a secure homeland for us and ourselves. Just like you want a secure homeland in Israel, he added.

On occasion, Spencer has attempted to ingratiate himself to the Israeli right by calling for an alliance with Jews and in December telling Haaretz that he would respect moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

However, he has faced a backlash particularly for his comments on the Holocaust. In December he praised Donald Trumps controversial Holocaust Day remembrance speech which prompted criticism for failing to mention Jews or anti-Semitism. Spencer called it the de-Judification of the Holocaust.

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Richard Spencer Demands Respect On Israeli TV, says Jews are 'Overrepresented' - Newsweek

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Posted By simmons on August 17, 2017

Dear UF President Kent Fuchs,

I currently live and work as a global health specialist in Rwanda, a country that is all too familiar with how hate speech related to ethnicity can spark mass violence. In 1994, America stood by as one million Rwandans were murdered by violence sparked by genocide ideology. Together with my Rwandan colleagues, I have been watching the political situation in the U.S. unfold. A few days ago, I spoke with a colleague about the act of domestic terrorism that occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia. Today, I am proud to tell him students of color at my university and their accomplices made sure that a domestic terrorist who incited violence in Charlottesville would not speak at my alma mater. I am proud to tell him that you, President Fuchs, chose to stand beside your students.

I graduated from UFs College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 2013. During my time at UF, I had the honor of serving as an Inter-Residence Hall Association representative, a Gatorship staffer, a student ambassador for LGBTQ Affairs and a Florida Cicerone. I stood next to former UF President Bernie Machen as he attended the March Against Hate, which we organized in 2012 when a UF Levin College of Law professor found the word "f-----" scratched into his driver-side door. That same year, "n-----" was written on a petition demanding justice during a rally for Trayvon Martin at UF. Two years prior, a doctoral student, Kofi Adu-Brempong, was shot in the head by police at his home in Corry Village, and a swastika was spray-painted on a Jewish fraternity house at Vanderbilt University.

These incidents, when they happen at UF and other universities, are rarely followed-up by consequences for perpetrators because free speech is interpreted to mean a lack of consequences for ones actions, rather than protection from arrest.

Public displays of aggression are echoed by micro-aggressions that students and faculty who belong to marginalized groups experience across campus. I recall a LGBTQ Affairs campaign in 2013 during which we posted signs across campus that displayed anonymous secrets. For example, one read, Here is where I kissed a girl for the first time. Next to Matherly Hall, another read, Here is where some men in a pickup truck drove by and screamed f----- at my girlfriend. I remember one that I wrote that read, Here is where I came out to my favorite professor. She made me feel loved and accepted me immediately. I posted it in Turlington Hall. It was torn down the same day.

In the years since Ive graduated, Ive watched with horror as hate continues to find a platform on our campus. Every year the same group comes to inflict psychological violence against students whose reproductive rights are called to question by horrific blown-up images of mutilated fetuses. This year, a man wearing a swastika armband casually biked across our campus during Jewish American Heritage Month. In recent months, a battle for the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures and the Institute for Black Culture has played out with students of color excluded from conversations that should prioritize their voices.

Students of color had to occupy a closed-door meeting and launch a campaign to participate in the preservation of their cultural institutes. So I was upset when UF entertained the idea of allowing Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, to incite hatred and violence against people of color on our campus. Considering our history though, I was not surprised.

Here in Rwanda, people gather every April to commemorate the genocide against the Tutsi. Rwandans commit and recommit to fighting against genocide ideology and violent extremism across the world. As a global citizen who appreciates the yearly reminder that it is our duty to protect our world against genocide, I hope youjoin me in committing to doing more to encourage our fellow Gators who have never been discriminated against based on religion or ethnicity to reflect on what men who use the same rhetoric as Richard Spencer have meant for people of color, for religious minorities, for our Student Body.

This is not the last time you will be asked to take decisive action to protect students of color the work is ongoing. So when you doubt the validity or feasibility of the radical demands made by student groups who are fighting for fair treatment of students from marginalized backgrounds, I encourage you to remember the decision you just made in the broader context of human history. Go look at the lynching tree that still stands on Bo Diddley Community Plaza. Look at the genocide memorials in Rwanda and around the world. Remember what happens when men in positions of power, given the opportunity to protect black people, choose to do nothing.

Today, you decided it was your duty to protect students from violence. I thank you for that. Moving forward, I hope this sparks a larger commitment to listening to students of color and more action to eradicate white supremacy on our campus and beyond. There is so much left to be done.

Sincerely,

Joanna

Joanna Galaris is a UF alumna.

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Letter to the Editor: A step in the right direction - The Independent Florida Alligator

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Posted By simmons on August 17, 2017

La Crescenta, California is a long way from Charlottesville, Virginia, but both communities have recently had to deal with controversies involving Nazis, white supremacy, and the removal of a public monument that symbolized bigotry. In Charlottesville, the controversy erupted in violence and became national news. In La Crescenta, a suburb of Los Angeles, the dispute was resolved through spirited but nonviolent meetings and discussions. Not surprisingly, the La Crescenta experience generated few headlines.

Members of Nazi, Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups descended on Charlottesville last weekend purportedly to preserve a 26-foot tall statue of Robert E. Lee, a Confederal general and traitor to his country, erected in a local park that was once named after him. The statue of Lee, on his horse with hat in hand, had stood in the park since 1924, a time of resurgent white supremacy, KKK activism, and lynching. In April, the Charlottesville City Council voted to sell and remove the statue and rechristen Lee Park as Emancipation Park. Local white supremacists went to court to oppose the removal and a circuit court judge issued an injunction prohibiting any sale or removal for six months.

Stopping the removal of the Lee statue was the excuse that Nazis and other white supremacists used to organize a march and rally in Charlottesville brandishing torches, bats, and guns. One of them drove his Dodge Challenger into a crowd of counter-protesters that killed 32-year old Heather Heyer and injured 19 others. The controversy was compounded when President Donald Trump refused to forcefully condemn the white supremacists, who then celebrated Trumps remarks as signifying support for their views and actions.

This Friday a week after the Nazis came to Charlottesville people will gather in Crescenta Valley Community Regional Park to celebrate a victory over hate and bigotry. A year ago, a sign at the parks entrance said Welcome to Hindenburg Park, named for Paul von Hindenburg, Germanys president from 1925 to 1934 who appointed Adolf Hitler as German chancellor in 1933. The sign was erected last year, paid for by a German-American group who claimed that it was intended to celebrate the areas German American heritage. But the sign failed to mention the parks ugly past as a site of Nazi rallies and a Nazi youth camp during the 1930s.

Few people knew about the six-foot sign until the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation erected it in March 2016 at the parks entrance near the corner of Honolulu and Dunsmore avenues in La Crescenta, an unincorporated section of LA County, adjacent to Glendale.

The sign greeted visitors with the words Willkommen zum, written in a German typeface, followed by Welcome to Hindenburg Park, and below that The Historic German Section of Crescenta Valley Park. At the bottom of the sign was the countys official seal and the words Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.

Despite the official seal, the county did not pay for the sign, which cost $2,500. The idea for the sign originated with the Tricentennial Foundation, a German heritage organization based in the North Hills section of Los Angeles. The foundation worked with the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Historical Society of Crescenta Valley and the Crescenta Valley Town Council to fund the sign. The foundation s aim was to preserve the historical integrity of the site, Hans Eberhard, the groups chairman, told the Glendale News-Press last year.

Some proponents of the sign argued that they heard no objections about it before the County approved it.

Thats because hardly anyone knew about it until it was put up, explained Jason Moss, executive director of the Jewish Federation of the Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. If it had been a public process, Im sure people would have opposed it. But soon after it was put up, we started voicing our concerns.

Once it was installed, people in the area began to raise questions. After several local residents brought the issue to Moss attention, what appeared to be a harmless historical marker became the subject of controversy. They learned that, despite the sign, the parks name is Crescenta Valley Community Regional Park, not Hindenburg Park, and it is owned and operated by Los Angeles County. Moss and others brought their complaints to County officials.

I think theres a way we can honor German-American culture, but also not forget what took place at that park, Moss explained last year.

Civil rights, human rights, and faith-based groups mobilized a campaign to persuade County officials to take down the sign and replace it with another sign that would tell an accurate history of that site. Local residents signed petitions, contacted local elected officials, and conducted research to uncover the parks ugly but mostly forgotten history.

In April 2016, the countys Human Relations Commission held a public hearing on the issue that attracted at least 200 people, the vast majority of them opposed to the new sign. At the public hearing, many local residents recited versions of the famous statement by philosopher George Santayana: If we dont learn from the past, were doomed to repeat it.

Under pressure from the elected County Board of Supervisors, Parks and Recreation Department officials agreed to remove the sign and to appoint a committee to create a new display that accurately represented the parks history with texts and photos. The sign was removed last November. The new display, explaining the sites history, will be unveiled this Friday.

Had local political officials and business groups done their research, they might have predicted that the sign would generate controversy, given the parks history as a gathering place for American Nazis and Nazi sympathizers.

Had the park simply been a place where German Americans celebrated their rich and fascinating cultural heritage, it would hardly be contentious. But the site also has a much more troubling history.

Although the German American League may have been founded to celebrate German culture, it always had a political side. According to a 1937 article in Life magazine, the group was the Nazi organization in the U.S., previously known as the Friends of the New Germany.

This countrys major pro-Nazi group was the German-American Bund, which sought to promote a favorable view of Nazi Germany and urged Americans to boycott Jewish-owned business. Its rallies not only featured Nazi flags but also American flags, claiming that its members were patriotic Americans. In fact, the Bund claimed that George Washington was the first Fascist.

As early as 1936, the Bund operated 19 Nazi-inspired youth camps across the United States. One of them, Camp Sutter, was located at the German-American Leagues Hindenburg Park.

In an interview last year, Arnie Bernstein, author of the Swastika Nation: Fritz Kuhn and the Rise and Fall of the German-American Bund, explained that the purpose of these Bund youth camps was to indoctrinate children in Nazi ideology. Like most summer camps, the children participated in sports, hikes, arts and crafts and other activities. But they also were taught about Aryan supremacy and told to be loyal to the Bund, its leader Fritz Kuhn, and Adolph Hitler. They wore uniforms similar to those worn by the Hitler Youth group in Germany. They were forced to march around in the middle of the night carrying Bund and American flags, sing the Nazi anthem, give the Nazi salute, and shout Sieg Heil. As part of their camp activities, they were inculcated with Nazi propaganda. A Congressional investigation also uncovered sexual abuse between the adults and campers, Bernstein said

In February 1939, Kuhn, who was often called the American Fuehrer, spoke at a pro-Nazi Bund rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City that attracted over 20,000 people. There he repeatedly referred to President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Frank D. Rosenfeld, called his New Deal the Jew Deal, and stated that the Jews are enemies of the United States.

Bund choir group sings at Hidenburg Park in 1936.

Later that month, the Bund held another rally at its West Coast headquarters at 634 West 15th Street in Los Angeles in building known as the Deutsch Haus (German House). The building was a site for pro-Nazi meetings and also housed a restaurant and beer hall as well as the Aryan Bookstore, where one could purchase the Bund newspaper, Hitlers manifesto Mein Kamp, and other Nazi literature. The Deutsch Haus also screened German anti-Semitic propaganda films with titles like Kosher Slaughter.

A few months later, on April 30, 1939, the Bund held a rally in Hindenburg Park, promoted as a celebration of Hitlers birthday ten days later. Over 2,000 German-American Bund members came to hear Kuhn and West Coast Bund leader Herman Max Schwinn.

According to the Los Angeles Times: Clad in a gray-and-black storm trooper uniform and flanked by a dozen uniformed guards, Kuhn spoke from a stage draped in red swastika banners. The crowd cheered Kuhn and booed as a low-flying plane, sponsored by the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, bombarded the park with thousands of anti-Hitler leaflets.

When it was Schwimms turn to speak, he read a telegram he had sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Do everything in your power to quarantine the United States against alien influences which are at work to drag the nation into war. By alien influences he meant Jews, whom the Bund correctly believed were trying to get the Roosevelt administration and Congress to oppose Hitlers efforts to take over Europe.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times that week, Kuhn spouted typical Nazi ideas. He falsely claimed that Jews occupied 62% of the high posts in the federal government and have plotted to get hold of almost everything, especially in New York and Hollywood.

That event was only one of many Bund and pro-Nazi events that took place at the park. These gatherings featured speakers from other American fascist organizations including the Silver Shirts, White Shirts, and Khaki Shirts as well as the Bund.

California State University-Northridge hosts a website and archive called In Our Own Backyard: Resisting Nazi Propaganda in Southern California, 1933-1945 that includes photos of Nazi rallies at Hindenburg Park. One shows members of the Bund erecting a huge swastika in the park. A two-minute clip from the documentary film Rancho La Canada includes footage of activities at Hindenburg Park, including the 1939 Nazi rally.

In December 1939, Kuhn was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison for embezzlement, but the Bund briefly continued without him. Two years later, after the United States entered World War 2 against the Nazis, the Bund disappeared. In 1943, while he was serving his prison sentence, the U.S. cancelled Kuhns citizenship and deported him to Germany in 1945.

Historian Bernstein is quick to explain that most German Americans werent Nazis or Nazi sympathizers. Many, he said, were ashamed of Hitler and what was going on in Germany, and strongly denounced Kuhn and his followers.

The Bund was a small group compared with the number of German Americans living in the United States, he noted. But they were loud and noisy.

After the war, Hindenburg Park continued to be the site for German festivals. Southern Californias first Oktoberfest was held there in 1956.

While the German American League owned the park, a five-foot bust of Hindenburg adorned the grounds. In 1957, Los Angeles County purchased the land from the German-American League for $91,000, and removed the bust. The Board of Supervisors also abandoned the name Hindenburg Park and incorporated that section of the park into the larger Crescenta Valley County Park.

Over the next half-century, memories of the American Nazis presence at the park faded. By the start of this century, few people recalled that the Glendale area had not only been a stronghold of Nazi activism but also a breeding ground for other hate groups, including the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and the John Birch Society in the 1950s.

In the 1960s, Glendale was West Coast headquarters of the American Nazi Party. In 1962, when the KKK experienced a revival in response to the burgeoning civil rights movement, the Klan paraded down Glendales main thoroughfare, Brand Boulevard, with a horse brigade, marching band and burning cross.

As recently as 2012, a tiny hate group called the Crescenta Valley European American Society, promoting white identity and white pride, had a brief presence on the internet and sponsored a European American Heritage Festival at Hindenburg Park which generated controversy at the time but all manifestations of this group, including its website, soon disappeared.

The La Crescenta and Glendale areas are now more diverse than in earlier years, but the scars of racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and other forms of bigotry never completely heal, as reflected in the upsurge of protest after the appearance of the new Welcome to Hindenburg Park sign last year.

Hans Eberhard, the Tri-Centennial Foundations chairman, seemed either nave or willfully ignorant about the significance of the sites Nazi past.

He told the Glendale News-Press last year that people who hoisted flags bearing swastikas in the park did so because it was the German flag at the time, not because they were Nazis.

Seeking to downplay the dispute, Eberhard explained, This is a welcome to Hindenburg Park. Theres nothing wrong with that. Its an indication this is a historic site.

Steve Pierce, a Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce board member, told the Glendale News Press: The sign is just recognizing the German culture that was in our community. I think thats important. Im very in support of that.

Mike Lawler, former president of the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, who has documented the areas history of racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry, had a somewhat more nuanced view. The parks history, he observed last year, is part of the simple and recurring American story of an immigrant group celebrating their heritage as they assimilate.

But Lawler also understood why the sign triggered a protest movement. My overall feeling is that by burying uncomfortable events in history, we risk repeating past mistakes. Obviously, I dont have the perspective of having been the victim of a mass genocide, so I cannot relate to the Jewish Federations feelings of offense. But I would hope that bringing attention to the parks history would provide an opportunity for educating future generations about the dangers of nationalism and hate groups like the Bund.

The Department of Parks and Recreations six-member advisory committee spent months debating what words and photos to include on the new display and how much to focus on the parks Nazi activities.

Through the months of discussion, we got a vivid reminder of the fruitful collaboration that can come from listening to others, said committee member Mark Strunin, a consultant for nonprofit groups and former president of a nearby synagogue.

All four of my kids frequently go to the park and I was surprised when the sign suddenly appeared, said Sophal Ear, an elected member of the Crescenta Valley Town Council who was appointed to the advisory committee. I had no clue as to the history of the Nazi activities in the park.

A Cambodian refugee and a professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College, Ear said it was important to create a display that doesnt gloss over the past but illuminates it. Its absolutely crucial that we learn the lessons of history.

Mona Field, a retired political science professor at Glendale College who helped lead the campaign to remove the offensive sign, called it a grassroots victory against those who would whitewash history. The new display, she said, tells the full story, good and bad, and makes clear that ideologies of hatred have no place in our community.

The display, recounting the parks history, mentions that in its early days the park was owned by German-American League, who used it for festivals and other events for the local German-American community. But it also explains that it was also used for more controversial activities including the promotion of Nazi beliefs through political rallies and the Sutter Youth Camp. There, the display notes, American youth were indoctrinated into theories of Aryan superiority, which is described as part of Adolf Hitlers racist ideology. These were not simply harmless theories but, the display explains, led to persecution and murder of European Jews and any other group or individual who opposed Hitlers Third Reich regime.

The display includes photos of the entrance to the park, the park caretakers residence in the 1930s, an Easter Sunday service in the park in 1952, a musical comedy performance in the early 1950s, and a bust of Beethoven that was erected in the park. Theres also a 1944 photo of German American bomber pilots in front of a plane. This photo has nothing to do with the park or the Glendale area. One member of the advisory committee insisted that it be part of the display, no doubt to show that German Americans were loyal patriots who served in the U.S. military during World War 2.

But the marker also includes photos of pro-Nazi activities that took place in the park in the 1930s a German American Bund Party choral group, in front of a swastika, a gathering that includes both American and Nazi flags, and a group of children in uniforms looking at the German American Bund Party flag. It does not include a well-known photo of German-American Bund leader Fritz Kuhn speaking at a pro-Nazi rally in Hindenburg Park in April 1939. Only three of the displays nine photos deal with the parks Nazi past.

The display concludes with this statement: Although the events of the 20th century may seem distant, there continues to be a need to guard against all forms of hatred, racism, and totalitarian ideologies of all types. The American ideals of justice and equal opportunity still require our vigilant support.

When the ad hoc committee appointed by the LA County Parks and Recreation Department began deliberating over the design, photos, and wording of the new display, nobody could have anticipated that its unveiling would occur as the nation was reeling from an upsurge of neo-Nazi and white supremacist activism, emboldened by a president who failed to display moral leadership.

The events in Charlottesville are a sad reminder that Nazism, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and racism still exist in our country, said the Jewish Federations Jason Moss. We cannot erase our history. But the new display in the park is a reminder of past events that took place in the community, and hopefully a way to ease the pain.

We showed that there are ways to work together through dialogue, observed Moss, instead of with torches and violence.

Peter Dreier is professor of politics and chair of the Urban & Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College. His most recent book is The 100 Greatest American of the 20th Century: A Social Justice Hall of Fame (Nation Books).

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Battling Nazis and white supremacists: A tale of two cities Charlottesville and La Crescenta - Jewish Journal

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Posted By simmons on August 17, 2017

White nationalists are met by a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12, 2017. Joshua RobertsReuters

Greenblatt is CEO and National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

It was a small Southern town, not known for its violence, when a mob of racist and anti-Semitic men rose up, marched through the streets and claimed the life of an innocent person.

This was not Charlottesville last week, but Marietta, Georgia, 102 years ago today. The victim was Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was questionably convicted of murdering a young woman, then lynched by an angry mob. Although more than a century separates these two incidents, the similarities are eerie and painful.

After more than 100 years of struggle and progress, it is dispiriting to think that we are again seeing anti-Semitic mobs marching through our streets.

It is unconscionable that President Donald Trump has, at best, danced around the issue of condemning the neo-Nazis and white supremacists marching in Charlottesville . Trump brought shame to his office by failing a basic test of moral leadership and breaking with decades of precedent of presidents of both parties condemning this kind of bigotry . It is worth nothing that the only people in the public conversation applauding Trumps remarks are notorious white supremacist David Duke and his fellow traveler Richard Spencer , and their followers.

These bigots ostensibly have reason to gloat. Throughout the 2016 race for the White House, the Trump campaign recycled hateful rhetoric or demonstrated almost inexplicable hostility toward Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, women and other minorities. In the past 18 months, the Anti-Defamation League has recorded an uptick in white supremacist recruiting at colleges and universities. Anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise, including the second desecration of the Holocaust memorial in Boston .

Just as the lynching of Leo Frank led to the birth of the second Ku Klux Klan, do we need to be concerned that the death of Heather Heyer could be a harbinger of a new, organized and powerful racist and anti-Semitic movement?

Fortunately, I think the answer is no. But to combat the forces unleashed over these past few months and that we saw in Charlottesville, we will need a dedicated effort across lines of party, region, race and religion.

Already, the leadership of the nation beyond the President has stood up and powerfully condemned the neo-Nazis, and separated themselves from the moral equivocation of Trump. From the congressional leadership of both parties to former Republican presidential candidates to both Presidents Bush and the Republican Jewish Coalition, we have seen powerful statements against this hate.

Beyond politics, the CEOs of some of our largest and most important companies not only spoke out , but many resigned from Presidential advisory councils so much so that Trump had to disband the councils. Even the leaders of all four branches of our Armed Forces publicly broke with their Commander-in-Chief and condemned the neo-Nazis of Charlottesville.

Beyond statements, the business community is rallying, making donations to support NGOs that fight hate and also taking direct action to combat white supremacists. The efforts of Google , GoDaddy and Cloudflare to take major neo-Nazi sites offline are steps in the right direction. Mayors are organizing their own initiatives, one that could offer a platform for governors, faith leaders and others to take part. The Jewish community is hosting a nationwide Shabbat this Friday evening to bring people together for reflection, and Christian leaders are stepping up as well.

It is hard to imagine an event in our national memory where the country and the world stood together in this manner, to denounce a sitting U.S. president.

I am optimistic that this is just the beginning. These responses demonstrate that responding to the President and his moral vacuity is not a matter of resistance. Its an example of renewal. And if we will it, this moment can be a renewal of our democratic values that cherish freedom to express ideas but not the freedom to incite violence; a renewal of our social contract that binds us to the ideal, e pluribus unum ; and a renewal of the communal bonds that tightly link the American people together because of our differences, not in spite of them.

Of course, the fight against extremism is not easy. It will take organizing, advocating and rejecting vigilantism even against our enemies.

Part of my optimism comes from the lessons of the history we mark today. The lynching of Leo Frank didnt just lead to the rebirth of the KKK. It also galvanized the work of the emergent ADL and the beginning of the movement to combat pervasive anti-Semitism in the United States. Bull Connors dogs and fire hoses, the shots that killed Medgar Evers and others, and the bombs that blew up churches didnt stop our countrys march to justice. The violence targeting the Civil Rights Movement actually galvanized it.

And even though presidential leadership may be lacking, if we harness the outrage and introspection we are seeing from so many Americans, we too can stop these neo-Nazis in their tracks and continue the march for justice.

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ADL CEO: What the Lynching of Leo Frank Shows Us About Hate - TIME

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Posted By admin on August 17, 2017

Apple CEO Tim Cook has called for an unequivocal denouncement of the recent neo-Nazi demonstration in Charlottesville, Va., stressing he disagreed with comments by President Donald Trump that attributed the violence there to many sides and not to white supremacists.

In a note to Apples employees, obtained Wednesday night by Recode, Cook also announced the company would donate $1 million each to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Apple plans to match its employees donations to human rights groups on a 2-for-1 basis until Sept 30. It is also setting up a new system in iTunes, its music software, to offer users an easy way to join us in directly supporting the work of the SPLC, Cook said.

Like so many of you, equality is at the core of my beliefs and values, Cook wrote. The events of the past several days have been deeply troubling for me, and Ive heard from many people at Apple who are saddened, outraged or confused.

He added: What occurred in Charlottesville has no place in our country. Hate is a cancer, and left unchecked it destroys everything in its path. Its scars last generations. History has taught us this time and time again, both in the United States and countries around the world.

Cooks direct rebuke to Trump comes just hours after some of the biggest names in business the leaders of General Electric, General Motors, JPMorgan Chase, Intel and other banking, tech and energy giants withdrew from two councils set up to advise the White House on economic and manufacturing issues.

Trump initially claimed he had disbanded his own groups of corporate advisers, but the executives peeled off on their own as a result of the presidents controversial comments about the violence in Charlottesville.

In recent days, Cook has been especially vocal about the incident. Weve seen the terror of white supremacy & racist violence before. It's a moral issue an affront to America. We must all stand against it, he said in one of his tweets.

Even before the latest controversy, Cook and Trump had maintained a tumultuous but working relationship.

On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump repeatedly attacked Apple on everything from encryption to manufacturing. And Cook, for his part, withdrew the iPhone giant from sponsoring the Republican presidential convention, given Trumps incendiary comments about women, immigrants and minorities. Cook also held a fundraiser for Trumps Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

More recently, Apple has warred with Trump in debates over immigration and climate change. Behind the scenes, however, Cook has labored to shape the Trump administrations policies on issues from tax reform to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, sources previously told Recode. Cook has sounded off not only with the president individually but also his top advisers, like son-in-law Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka.

Heres Cooks full note:

Team,

Like so many of you, equality is at the core of my beliefs and values. The events of the past several days have been deeply troubling for me, and Ive heard from many people at Apple who are saddened, outraged or confused.

What occurred in Charlottesville has no place in our country. Hate is a cancer, and left unchecked it destroys everything in its path. Its scars last generations. History has taught us this time and time again, both in the United States and countries around the world.

We must not witness or permit such hate and bigotry in our country, and we must be unequivocal about it. This is not about the left or the right, conservative or liberal. It is about human decency and morality. I disagree with the president and others who believe that there is a moral equivalence between white supremacists and Nazis, and those who oppose them by standing up for human rights. Equating the two runs counter to our ideals as Americans.

Regardless of your political views, we must all stand together on this one point that we are all equal. As a company, through our actions, our products and our voice, we will always work to ensure that everyone is treated equally and with respect.

I believe Apple has led by example, and were going to keep doing that. We have always welcomed people from every walk of life to our stores around the world and showed them that Apple is inclusive of everyone. We empower people to share their views and express themselves through our products.

In the wake of the tragic and repulsive events in Charlottesville, we are stepping up to help organizations who work to rid our country of hate. Apple will be making contributions of $1 million each to the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. We will also match two-for-one our employees donations to these and several other human rights groups, between now and September 30.

In the coming days, iTunes will offer users an easy way to join us in directly supporting the work of the SPLC.

Dr. Martin Luther King said, Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. So, we will continue to speak up. These have been dark days, but I remain as optimistic as ever that the future is bright. Apple can and will play an important role in bringing about positive change.

Best, Tim

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Apple's Tim Cook 'disagrees' with Donald Trump's take on neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville - Recode

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Posted By richards on August 17, 2017

Apple CEO Tim Cook speaking at the 2017 Apple Worldwide Developer Conference at the San Jose Convention Center, June 5, 2017. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

(JTA) Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged that his company will donate $1 million each to the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center in the wake of the violent far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Apple also will match employee donations to the two groups and others two for one through September, according to a memo Cook wrote Wednesday night obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Cook said he strongly disagrees with President Donald Trumps comparison between the neo-Nazi and white supremacist protesters and those who opposed their rally in Charlottesville.

Hate is a cancer, Cook wrote. This is not about the left or the right, conservative or liberal. It is about human decency and morality.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook says company will donate $1 million to ADL - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By simmons on August 16, 2017

Its difficult to fit 2 years of experience in Israel advocacy into these brief words.

When I graduated earlier this summer, I witnessed a pro-Israel movement with more success than ever before, not because we defeated the anti-Israel movement (notice I did not say pro-Palestinian), but rather because, apart from the occasional out of hand protest, we forgot about the anti-Israel haters, and pursued our own goals.

This is where we found what was in my opinion, one of the most important factors in our success, the space to decide where we wanted to steer conversations of Israel on campus.

We started to get out of the doom and gloom of apartheid week, terrorist vigils run by Palsoc or ignorant calls for Jews to go back where they came from (good luck with that buddy), and began to focus on our own vision of Israel as a starting point, and look where it got us.

We began taking our power back, the power to define what Zionism really means, and managed to make significant strides towards more clearly defining Anti-semitism on campus. Much to the credit of the students of the pro-Israel movement, we saw a tech trip to Israel comprised of Imperial students who for the most part were not Jewish or linked to Israel in any way, we brought 25 Israeli students draped in Israeli flags to discuss politics in the SOAS courtyard (who was it that said it would be impossible?), and furthermore we put on Israel Peace week better than ever before, stimulating both friendly and intense dialogue..but dialogue nonetheless.

Of course, there are faults within the movement that should be addressed. A major fault of this movement is that it sees things constantly in terms of victory or loss. We were louder in the room, so we won that round etc etc.

That is a perspective, which I am sorry to say, is too petty.

This is not a movement that should deal with who is winning, and who is losing, seeing as if we look at it in this way, we have already set ourselves up for failure.

Despite our success, do not regard this year as a victory, see it as part of a larger process, in which you can continue to spread your message further and further, reaching more people in different ways.

Add more layers and political perspectives to your message and do all you can to make it more complex. That is when you can bring forth the beauty of this movement, and contribute something from yourself to make it more wholesome.

It is not about just BDS or Politics, it is about whatever you, the students want to talk about. Whether you want to spread knowledge about Israels technological success, its economic success, the differing cultures of the Yerushalmi and the Tel Avivi, or also talk about the Politics, this is your choice, you just need the courage to bring it forth, and the work ethic to make something happen.

As a side request from me to all the Israel Society presidents, please stop filling events with pro-Israel advocates, otherwise the message is going to remain within the bubble of the convinced.

Its nice to see friends I know, but wouldnt it be even better to make new ones at every event? You are university students, get out of the bubble you are used to!

The final issue I believe is the need for a stronger and more bold Union of Jewish Students (UJS) when it comes to Israel. While I know the internal politics of UJS mean that they cant always come out as incredibly pro-Israel at the risk of offending the minority of Jewish students who do not support Israel, UJS must go further to help students who are mistreated by their universities or student unions for voicing support for the Jewish State. I

have heard accounts of too many let down students who need more from UJS than carefully worded statements.

UJS, you need to be braver than these students, for these students, not hiding behind them and their accomplishments. With a real support system behind them, there is little the students cannot accomplish.

My final word is to the students whom I have both worked with, and for the students to come, both of whom I am so fond and proud of

Remember that you are students at university. These should be some of the most interesting and exciting years of your life. Explore your ideas, discover your values, and most of all do not feel as though you carry the fate of Israel on your shoulders.

By all means, stand for what you believe is right, there is no greater experience than this, to put your heart and soul into your beliefs and see the fruits of your hard work, but pursue this movement with joy, and with grace, remembering always to be respectful.

This movement will take you from light hearted to serious conversations in a second, but even the most serious conversations about the politics of the conflict have rays of light shining through them, find those rays and express them in action.

Enjoy, and do all you can to make sure that in years to come when you look back at your memories on campus, a smile comes to your face.

This blog is entirely my own opinion, and not linked to any organisation and/or person in particular.

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Taking back the power to define Zionism - Jewish News (blog)

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Posted By admin on August 16, 2017

Ali Abunimah Lobby Watch 15 August 2017

Pro-Israel billionaire Sheldon Adelson, center, and his wife Miriam speak with Trump advisor Steve Bannon at the presidents inauguration on 20 January 2017.

A much-discussed article in The New York Times about pressure on President Donald Trump to fire his advisor Steve Bannon contains this intriguing sentence:

Mr. Bannons ability to hang on as Mr. Trumps in-house populist is in part because of his connections to a handful of ultrarich political patrons, including Sheldon G. Adelson, the pro-Israel casino magnate who is based in Las Vegas.

As executive chairman of Breitbart News before joining the Trump campaign, Bannon transformed the right-wing outlet into what he described as the the platform for the alt-right the collection of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and racists who have been the renewed focus of outrage since their violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday.

Bannon is widely viewed as the champion of the white supremacists some of whom were openly parading with Nazi flags and the reason why Trump did not explicitly condemn them immediately after one of their number, allegedly James Alex Fields, 20, rammed his car into counterdemonstrators killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others.

Hence the renewed pressure on Trump to fire Bannon. But if Bannon supports the white supremacist and clearly anti-Semitic far-right, why does he enjoy the backing of Adelson?

The Las Vegas billionaire, as is well known, is a major financier of the US Republican Party and one of the biggest donors to pro-Israel organizations in the United States. Adelson has said he regrets serving in the US army, instead of Israels.

He is also a close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and thats where the answer can be found.

Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have been conspicuously silent about Nazis rampaging in Charlottesville all the more strange since Israel is usually quick to exploit international events to its advantage. (After three days of silence, Netanyahu finally, on Tuesday, tweeted a general condemnation of anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism and racism without specifically mentioning Charlottesville.)

Why is the Jewish state apparently so reluctant to speak out against Nazis?

While Israel purports to be the protector of Jews all over the world, Zionists historically made alliances with the worlds most lethal anti-Semites. Zionists and anti-Semites, after all, shared the analysis that Jews do not belong in Europe, so why not cooperate to transport them somewhere else Palestine.

This odious alliance continues in updated form, as journalist Max Blumenthal observed:

A cornerstone of Israels policy today is to cement ties with other ultra-nationalist, racist and Islamophobic forces around the world even if they are also anti-Semitic.

A striking example is Netanyahus own embrace of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, despite the latters recent praise for Viktor Horthy, the wartime ally of Hitler who oversaw the murder of 500,000 Holocaust victims.

Israels interests took precedence over the safety concerns of Hungarian Jews, as Netanyahu ordered his foreign ministry to tamp down criticism of Orbans anti-Semitic dog whistles.

Notably, Richard Spencer, the neo-Nazi ideologue who wants to create an Aryan homeland in North America, has called his mission a sort of white Zionism. Spencer has ties to another senior White House advisor, Stephen Miller.

A similar ideological alliance prevails inside the White House. And Israel has guarded it: Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, publicly defended Bannon in the days following last Novembers election, after American Jewish groups strongly criticized Bannons appointment to a top position.

But the Adelson-Bannon partnership is also one of convenience. The Adelson-backed Zionist Organization of America is waging a campaign against Trumps National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, which aims to portray the army general as hostile to Israel.

McMaster also happens to be one of Bannons key opponents inside the White House.

Establishment Israel lobby figures, such as the Obama administrations ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, have leapt to McMasters defense:

There are substantive issue at stake. Part of Bannons ultra-nationalist America First agenda is opposing some US military interventions, particularly a renewed surge in Afghanistan that is supported by McMaster and US defense secretary James Mattis.

That is not Adelsons or Netanyahus interest however. Bannon and other ultra-right figures including White House advisor Sebastian Gorka have been key opponents of the international deal with Iran over its nuclear energy program. Blocking or undermining the Iran deal has been Netanyahus preoccupation for years.

Bannon and Gorka furiously opposed the State Departments recent certification that Iran is in compliance with the terms of the agreement.

The Zionist Organization of Americas key allegation against McMaster is that he is too sympathetic towards Iran.

Reporting by The Forward revealed that Gorka is a member of a Hungarian far-right group that was controlled by the Nazis during the war, and has given backing to an anti-Semitic militia.

For those who support justice and oppose war and racism, there is no side to choose in this battle. On one side, you have the Bannon-Adelson faction pushing extreme Zionism, anti-Semitism, white supremacy and possible war with Iran. On the other, you have have the McMaster faction, backed by the DC establishment, which wants to perpetuate Americas existing imperial wars, starting with escalation in Afghanistan.

Adelson doesn't have a problem with anti-Semites. He has a problem with anti-Zionists. And despite protestations to the contrary, he knows the difference.

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The Zionist-white supremacist alliance in Trump's White House - The Electronic Intifada (blog)

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Posted By richards on August 16, 2017

Berl Katznelson 88 224. (photo credit:Courtesy)

Israel marks special days in honor of Zionist visionaries Theodor Herzl and Zeev Jabotinsky and must do the same for Labor Zionism intellectual founder Berl Katznelson, his intellectual heirs in the Labor Party and the Berl Katznelson Education Center said Wednesday, on the eve of the 73rd anniversary of Katznelsons death on the Jewish calendar.

A ceremony at his grave on the Sea of Galilee will be held Thursday on the anniversary, but under a bill that will be proposed by Zionist Union faction head Merav Michaeli, Katznelson Day would be marked every year by teaching his legacy at schools nationwide. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus coalition has blocked the legislation so far, but Labor secretary-general Eran Hermoni said he believes it can be passed.

The narrative of Berl Katznelson has been forgotten, and Netanyahu wants it to be forgotten, Hermoni complained. There has been a trend on the Right of trying to create new historical narratives. To mark Jabotinsky Day in honor of the ideological mentor of the Right and not mark Katznelson Day twists history.

Hermoni noted that when the Left was in power, it honored Jabotinsky by bringing his remains to Israel during the tenure of Labor Party prime minister Levi Eshkol. Berl Katznelson Education Center director Rami Hod said the Left does not do enough to fight for its legacy but the Right does because it feels it has to.

It makes sense that the fathers of both sides be commemorated, Hod said. It would help the students learn to respect the views of two sides. Its not fair that the patriotism of the Zionist Left is questioned. There is a lack of legitimacy to be left-wing these days.

Asked if the Right felt any different when it was out of power, Hod said he could understand that the Right felt it was blocked from being part of the Israeli consensus back then, but added, What happened before does not legitimize what is being done to the Left today.

The Berl Katznelson Education Center, located at Beit Berl on the outskirts of Kfar Saba, runs educational activities focused on Katznelsons ideals of Zionism and social democracy. Katznelson (1887-1944), the spiritual leader of the Labor movement during the British Mandate, helped form pre-state social welfare networks that still exist.

Hermoni said he is not concerned that the Right will continue to block the bill.

We expect the coalition to be loyal to history, he said. If not, we will pass it next Knesset when we are in power and [Labor chairman] Avi Gabbay is prime minister.

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Berl Katznelson backers want day in his memory - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By richards on August 16, 2017

German American Bund meeting, 1935

CRC Papers

In the spring of 1933, a police report submitted to LAPD captain William "Red" Hynes noted "considerable quantities" of Nazi literature littering the streets of downtown Los Angeles. A new group in town, Friends of the New Germany (FNG), was thought to be the source of this sudden burst of Nazi propaganda. Over the next several weeks Hynes, captain of LAPD's "Red Squad" intelligence unit, assigned men to keep an eye on the new group. On Aug. 1, 1933, he sent detective R.A. Wellpott undercover to attend FNG's second public meeting.

The meeting was held at 902 S. Alvarado St. in a mansion that had been converted into a German-American community center, of sorts. It housed an old-style German restaurant, the Alt Heidelberg; a new bookshop, the Aryan Bookstore; and a meeting hall. Approximately 100 people gathered in the hall for the meeting. Wellpott reported that a makeshift stage was set up in the hall, with a speaker's podium flanked by an American flag, the imperial German flag and the Nazi (swastika) flag. Fifteen young men dressed in brown shirts, "whose arms bulge with excess power," were scattered about the hall, "guarding" the meeting.

The meeting began with a phonograph recording of a German march. The West Coast leader of Friends of the New Germany, Robert Pape, called the meeting to order. A keynote speaker spoke on "the German-Jewish conflict," explaining that Nazis wanted to prevent the "bastardization of Germany" by eliminating Jews from power. When several people in the audience jumped up in protest, they were swept out of the meeting by the brown-shirted attendants. The meeting resumed with recorded speeches by Hindenburg and Hitler played on the phonograph. At the end of the evening, the attendees rose and gave the Nazi salute while the new German national anthem was played.

FNG's political activities in Los Angeles raised concern among Jewish and non-Jewish groups alike. The Jewish community newspaper B'nai B'rith Messenger (no relationship to the fraternal order of the same name) took notice of Nazi activity in the city in April. An article, "Hitlerites Organize Branch Here," claimed that Nazi propaganda agents had been sent to Los Angeles by Berlin. The paper even printed the alleged agents' names and addresses on the front page and called for their immediate deportation.

The Jewish press, the secular press, the Red Squad and local Jewish groups were just some of the groups in Los Angeles that viewed Nazi activity in the city with concern. Another group also was watching with concern: the city's veterans organizations. In the spring and summer of 1933, Friends of the New Germany focused its recruitment efforts on local veterans. FNG leaders assumed that U.S. veterans would flock to join their group, presuming that the former military members felt just as betrayed by the American government over recent cuts in their veterans' benefits as the FNG themselves had felt with the Weimar government in Germany at the end of World War I.

Herman Schwinn, West Coast leader of the German American Bund, 1934-1941

CRC Papers

Among the first veterans to be approached by FNG officers was the former U.S. Army lieutenant John Schmidt. Schmidt was the perfect potential FNG recruit. Born in Germany in 1879, Schmidt was a career soldier. In his teens, he had served in the German imperial army. In 1900, Schmidt immigrated to the United States and enlisted in the U.S. Army after his naturalization was complete in 1908. Even though Schmidt was an American citizen, FNG leaders believed that loyalty was determined by blood, not by the artifice of naturalized citizenship. He was precisely the type of recruit FNG was hoping to win.

However, FNG leaders were mistaken. Schmidt was neither disloyal nor angry. True, he had been born in Bavaria, and he was a U.S. veteran. Schmidt even had cause to be disillusioned with the U.S. government. Following the war, he had been hospitalized for six years with what today would be considered post-traumatic stress disorder. He suffered from chronic physical and emotional pain as a result of his military service and in 1930 had lost most of his disability pension when, in the wake of the stock market crash, Congress made sweeping budgetary cuts, which significantly reduced benefits to disabled veterans.

Yes, Schmidt should have been the perfect recruit for FNG; but he wasn't. Schmidt was a loyal and patriotic American. He was a member of the Americanism Committee and one of the city's several veterans organizations, the Disabled American Veterans of the World War (DAV). Schmidt was committed to the nation's defense, even as he carried the emotional scars, physical disabilities and financial wounds from his World War I service.

On Aug. 17, 1933, Schmidt went over to FNG headquarters on South Alvarado Street to check out the group. There he met FNG gauleiter Robert Pape, Herman Schwinn and bookstore co-owner Paul Themlitz. Schmidt then submitted his first written report on FNG to fellow Americanism Committee member Leon Lewis. Using code name "11," Schmidt described what he learned about Friends of the New Germany to Lewis. FNG's mission, Schmidt reported, was to fight communism. FNG leaders, he wrote, "show[ed] me plenty of literature proving without a doubt that Communism was part of the Jewish plan of things and that therefore we must all combine to show the Jew as the author of all our troubles in America and throughout the world." Pape told Schmidt that the purpose of FNG was to drive Jews and Catholics out of government in the United States and replace them with German-Americans. Pape told Schmidt that he was confident that, once in power, German-Americans would lead the movement to bring Hitlerism into America.

Pape was concerned that veterans misunderstood Friends of the New Germany. He told Schmidt that recent resolutions passed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the American Legion denouncing Nazism were misguided and misinformed. FNG was committed to defending Americanism and fighting communists, Pape told Schmidt. FNG wanted to ally with American veterans against their common enemy. Pape encouraged Schmidt to bring some of his American Legion and VFW friends to FNG's next membership meeting to help forge new friendships, and he invited Schmidt to speak at the meeting. Schmidt agreed to both requests.

Schmidt returned to 902 S. Alvarado St. a few days later with his wife, Alyce. They dined at the Alt Heidelberg restaurant. The ambience and the food, Schmidt wrote in his reports, were reminiscent of the old country. The Alt Heidelberg was decorated in the style of an old German beer hall. Dinner there was a Depression-era bargain: three courses for 60 cents and beer for a nickel. The restaurant attracted an older German-American crowd, but lately, a rowdier, younger crowd of pro-Nazi German nationals had also been frequenting the place.

During the dinner, Alyce got up and left the table to find the powder room. Making her way up the stairs to the second floor, she was stopped by a woman who was agitated to find Alyce on the landing.

"Verboten!" Alyce was told. Alyce turned around and went back downstairs to her table.

Schmidt wrote that he had the distinct impression that there were secrets on the upper floors: "I am sure they have arms and equipment someplace. If it is in the house, I will know it soon."

Schmidt's early visits to FNG convinced him that Friends of the New Germany was no friend of democracy. He related his early observations to the Disabled American Veterans post commander Captain Carl Sunderland and DAV state adjutant Major Bert Allen. Both men agreed to join Schmidt in his undercover investigation of L.A.'s Nazis.

Sunderland accompanied Schmidt to lunch at the Alt Heidelberg a week after Schmidt's first visit, in early September, to meet with bookstore owners Themlitz and Hans Winterhalder. At the end of the meeting, Sunderland was convinced that the Nazis were smart, systematic and dangerous: "You know, Schmidt, when you first brought me down here, I thought you were playing a joke on me, and when I first met these guys, I thought it was all kid's play. Now I'm convinced that if they ever find you out, they are going to massacre you so that your own mother wouldn't know you. These fellows are covering up an awful lot and I surely would like to get to the bottom of this matter."

Sunderland went on: "Such a mob has no place in the United States. These men are not only out to drive the Jews from their public positions and destroy their properties but also they would not stop at starting any kind of trouble in this country which would serve their purpose. ... The[se] Nazis are not just against Jews. ... [They are] out to overthrow the United States."

Anti-Hollywood handbill, 1938

CRC Papers

Socializing with FNG officers proved as informative as attending FNG meetings. Alcohol loosened them up. They shared more with their new American friends than they probably should have concerning the secret political objectives of their organization. One evening in late September 1933, the DAV volunteers learned about FNG's plans for der tag, "the day" when the Nazi revolution would begin in the United States. Sunderland, the Schmidts, and the Allens, with their wives, went out with Winterhalder and two FNG officers for an evening of drinking, dancing and political conversation to the Loralei Restaurant, a German-American beer hall patronized by Nazis. According to reports filed by all three DAV informants, FNG was training a private militia to foment a Nazi-led insurrection in the United States. The plan called for FNG to incite unrest among American workers to hasten a communist insurrection, whereupon FNG and veteran allies would come to the rescue, "consolidat[ing] and march[ing] in military phalanxes to take the government."

"The kikes ... run this country," stormtroop commander Diederich Gefken told his new DAV friends. Jews, Gefken asserted, were responsible for the rotten deal vets were getting, and he was confident that American veterans were ready to vindicate themselves just as German veterans had done. He told Sunderland, "Thousands of stormtroopers in the U.S. were ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. veterans when the time came ... to help them take back the government from Communists and Jews." The uprising would start in cities where FNG was most active, like St. Louis, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, and then spread across the country. Within two weeks of the insurrection, Protestant churches in the United States, led by the Lutheran Church, would launch a boycott of Jewish businesses. "That will take care of the 'Goddamn jews [sic].'"

Gefken, Pape and Schwinn also were eager to infiltrate the Los Angeles National Guard as part of their preparation for der tag. They peppered Schmidt with questions: How many Jews were in the U.S. armed forces? How many men were in the local National Guard? Would the National Guard be loyal in an uprising that targeted only Jews? Gefken and his friend Zimmerman were particularly eager to infiltrate the machine-gun company of the California National Guard to learn the American system of military training firsthand. Pape wanted to get into the National Guard to learn telegraphy. Could Schmidt get FNG men into key National Guard units in Southern California so that they could propagandize from within?

FNG had orders to secure the blueprints for the National Guard armories in San Diego and San Francisco. Gefken asked Sunderland if he could get the floor plans of the Southern California armory and of the National Guard aircraft unit in San Diego. Several FNG members had already joined the National Guard in San Francisco, Gefken reported, and had acquired the floor plan of the Northern California armory, which showed the precise storage location of munitions, supplies and weapons in the building.

Sunderland asked Gefken how FNG planned to acquire more arms. Gefken replied, "Well, it is difficult to smuggle them into the United States on ships. Ships have to go through the [Panama] Canal, where their cargo is checked. Guns can be smuggled in from Mexico and Canada. All stormtroops have personal weapons, but we've been instructed not to carry them in public because that would violate resident alien laws. When the zero hour comes, we will not hesitate to bring them out." In reporting this conversation, Sunderland reminded fellow Americanism Committee member Lewis that the movie studios had explosives. He recommended that background checks be conducted on German studio workers and that the studios take steps to secure their explosives.

Schmidt, with Lewis' assistance, proved his worth to FNG officers. Informing the National Guard's commander about the new recruits, Schmidt arranged positions for Gefken and Zimmerman in the machine gun company of the Southern California National Guard. Unfortunately, neither Gefken nor Zimmerman was admitted: Gefken because he had false teeth and Zimmerman because he could not promise to be punctual to drills because of his day job.

Nazi salute in court, Los Angeles Times, January 1934

Los Angeles Times

FNG's Aryan Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles also was critical to the political preparation for "der tag." To passersby, the store was just a shop that specialized in books on National Socialism. In reality, the shop was a front for Nazi headquarters in Los Angeles. Many of the books, magazines and newspapers sold at the shop were published in Germany by the Ministry of Propaganda and exported to America to cultivate Nazism in the United States. The anti-Semitic content in this literature ran the gamut from rabid Jew-bashing to more subtle analyses of both contemporary events and world history that disguised their anti-Semitic agenda in the cloak of "academic scholarship." Schmidt found orders to Pape from New York on managing the shop: Bookshop personnel were all to be educated in National Socialism and were required to have read Mein Kampf. All bookstore personnel were to be American, and women were to do all the selling.

The back rooms of the Aryan Bookstore in Los Angeles housed the headquarters for Friends of the New Germany. Schmidt's pencil drawing of the store's layout showed the shop's small retail space in the front, with a door that led to the back workroom and several private offices for FNG leaders. Schmidt's daily reports indicated that the back rooms often were busier than the retail space. FNG leaders used the offices to conduct daily business, responding to correspondence from New York, planning their next public rally, and receiving a parade of local allies including German vice consul Georg Gyssling and leaders of domestic right-wing groups the FNG was courting. Schmidt noted that the doors to the offices were padlocked when they were not in use. Alyce Schmidt, who did most of her work for Pape in the reading room, listened in on backroom conversations and reported what she heard to Lewis of the Americanism Committee.

A few weeks after John Schmidt submitted his first report to Lewis on Friends of the New Germany, Lewis called Red Squad captain William "Red" Hynes and asked to meet him. Hynes was in a hurry when Lewis called but told Lewis to meet him in front of the captain's office at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building, and Lewis could walk with him to his appointment at police headquarters. Lewis walked the few blocks from his office to the Chamber of Commerce building to meet Hynes. This was not the first time the two men had met. For several months, Lewis and Hynes had been sharing notes on Nazi activity in the city literally. Hynes shared police reports with Lewis and allowed him to copy them. Lewis, on the other hand, had secured private funding to pay for Hynes' undercover man. As the two men walked briskly toward police headquarters, Hynes told Lewis that he did not have the funds to continue paying agent "M" anymore. "It will cost us $150 per month in salary plus expenses to maintain this operation," Hynes told Lewis, "and we just don't have the money right now."

Lewis told Hynes that he had discussed the matter with Irving Lipsitch, president of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles. Lipsitch and Lewis had decided that Lewis, along with an unnamed local merchant and two other Jewish attorneys, would get Hynes the money he needed. "But, I'd rather that 'M' stay on your payroll," Lewis told Hynes. "I do not wish to have any direct dealings with a private detective."

"I don't blame you," Hynes replied. "And, of course," Lewis assured him, "there would be a piece of change in it for you, too." "That would be fine," Hynes said.

Was the "piece of change" that Lewis promised Hynes a bribe? Possibly. The LAPD was notoriously corrupt. It is possible that Lewis' offer of "a piece of change" was simply Lewis playing politics the way politics was played with the Red Squad. There is no further mention of payoffs to Hynes after this meeting. Hynes remained helpful to Lewis until the reform-minded mayor Fletcher Bowron disbanded the Red Squad in 1938.

Gastube Restaurant, Deutsches Haus, Los Angeles

CRC Papers

On March 13, 1934, a parade of cars carrying studio heads, directors, producers, screenwriters and actors rolled past Hillcrest's unmarked stone gates at 10000 W. Pico Blvd. on the edge of Beverly Hills. The minutes of the meeting, found in the Los Angeles archive, list the attendees, which included top studio executives and filmmakers from MGM, Columbia Pictures, Paramount Studios, RKO, Universal Pictures and United Artists.

The dinner guests took their seats around the banquet table, where they found copies of the anti-Semitic Silver Shirt newspapers, Liberation and The Silver Ranger. Both papers viciously attacked the Jews of Hollywood as enemies of Christian America. The Silver Ranger was published right in Los Angeles, and both were distributed nationally.

After dinner, the group adjourned to a meeting room, where Leon Lewis reported on the behind-the-headlines details of the recent local court case that Lewis and his DAV colleagues had engineered to exposed Nazi activity in Los Angeles. Lewis told his audience that the veterans who had testified at the trial had infiltrated FNG under his guidance.

"We knew that the evidence regarding Nazi activity was not properly admissible," Lewis told his guests, but the judge had allowed evidence into the record anyway for the sake of the publicity the trial would attract.

Lewis went on to explain that the undercover operation had cost him $7,000. Lewis told the moguls that in order to maintain this "anti-defamation work," their financial support was required. Lewis proposed that a full-time publicity man be hired to work in the tradition of the Anti-Defamation League to fight Nazism in the city. This would relieve Lewis of the task and allow him to return to his law practice, which "had been shot to hell" in the previous six months because of the investigation.

His dinner guests were attentive. The Jewish executives of the motion picture industry did not need a primer on the implications of Nazis in Los Angeles or on the implications of anti-Semitism for themselves. They had been in the crosshairs of anti-Semitic attacks for more than a decade from Protestant and Catholic groups concerned that motion pictures, in the hands of "former pants-pressers and button-holers," presented a direct threat to American virtue. In fact, just six months earlier, Catholic Church leaders had organized a nationwide protest against the industry and threatened a national boycott of motion pictures if the Jews of Hollywood did not capitulate to a production code written by, and monitored by, the church's chosen representatives. At a meeting with the archbishop of Los Angeles in 1933, the church's lay representative, attorney Joseph Scott, warned the moguls that "the dirty motion pictures they were making, along with other invidious activities on the part of the Jews, were serving to build up an enormous case against the Jews in the eyes of the American people." Scott reminded them that certain groups in America were sympathetic to the Nazi purpose and were organizing to attack Jews in America, and that "what was going on in Germany could happen here."

Scott's warning may have been ringing in their ears that night at Hillcrest as they discussed Lewis' proposal. Rabbi Magnin, Judge Roth, Marco Hellman and Irving Thalberg all spoke up in support of the proposed program. Louis B. Mayer was emphatic about continuing the operation: "There can be no doubt as to the necessity of carrying on, and I for one am not going to take it lying down. Two things are required, namely money and intelligent direction. It [is] the duty of the men present to help in both directions."

Following Mayer's comments, MGM producer Harry Rapf moved that a committee composed of one man from each studio be appointed. Each studio selected a representative, resulting in a studio subcommittee: Irving Thalberg (MGM), Harry Cohen (Columbia), Henry Henigson (Universal), Joseph Schenck (20th Century), Jack Warner (Warner Bros.), Emanuel Cohen (Paramount), Sol Wurtzel (Fox) and Pandro Berman (RKO). The members of the new Studio Committee publicly pledged to support the fact-finding work for one year. Thalberg committed MGM to $3,500. Emanuel Cohen committed Paramount to the same amount and promised to speak to Jack Warner about a similar pledge. Universal pledged $2,500, and Berman promised that RKO would contribute $1,500, pointing out that RKO had only eight Jewish executives. The smaller studios Fox, 20th Century and United Artists each pledged $1,500. Phil Goldstone and David Selznick were asked to raise $2,500 each from agents and independent producers. In less than an hour, Lewis had secured $22,000 in pledges. The studio committee itself met monthly to review the content of any production that might exacerbate the rising tide of anti-Jewish sentiment in the United States.

The threat of Nazism catalyzed the wealthiest Jews of Los Angeles to political action. Beginning in March 1934 and continuing through the end of World War II, the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee convened every Friday to hear reports from informants on escalating Nazi activity in the city and to deliberate on their response.

It took Lewis six long months to secure the funding. In doing so, he bridged a social chasm between the city's Jewish community and an unlikely political partner, the city's veterans, and transformed those former soldiers into "Hollywood's spies."

Excerpt adapted from Hollywood Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles by Laura B. Rosenzweig (published September 2017), with permission from New York University Press. 2017 by New York University.

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This Undercover Spy Operation Helped Foil a Nazi Plot in 1930s LA - L.A. Weekly

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