Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

The German Jewish community has been a vital part of Germanys cultural landscape for over 200 years, making significant contributions across business, the arts, medicine, and public service.

Actually, substitute Australian/Australia for German/Germany and you have the opening sentence of Australian Jewrys Say No to Antisemitism website that was published in November 2023.

The website message, objecting to anti-semitism, was published as a double-page ad in the Sydney Morning Herald. At the time, the war in Gaza had just started, and anti-semitism had started to rear its ugly head. Since then, anti-semitism has gone viral. The ad campaign did not achieve its aims. If anything, anti-semitism just got worse.

This anti-semitic tsunami is manifest around the world, even in places like Japan where there are almost no Jews. Weve seen university demonstrations for Gaza, marches, vandalism, violence, bullying, cancelling Jewish writers and artists, and Judenfrei campuses when rabbis called on Jewish students to stay home. Its not limited to universities: in France a woman was raped for being Jewish, and in New York, Jewish children were physically attacked while playing.

The Jewish community has reacted instinctively with a sense of fear, hiding visible signs of their Jewish identity, and selling fake security cameras to cover up their mezuzot.

Many realise that the golden age is over, as described in Franklin Foers piece in the Atlantic: The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending. But some are also complacent. Theyre assured that things will eventually pass, or believe they must stay and fight for liberal democracy: civil liberties and equity for all. In short, they want to return to what was before October 7th.

The German Jews in the 1930s were very comfortable, financially and culturally. They refused to believe they were no longer welcome in Germany. They believed that local anti-semitism would just fade into oblivion. Between 1933-1939, German Jews had a window of opportunity to leave. By 1939, approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany, but 202,000 remained, most of whom were murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.

When World War II started, people navely believed the Allies would conquer Hitler in a few months. Few people took Hitler seriously, he didnt even have a university degree. Fast-forward to 2024: how many actually consider the college riff-raff a threat, especially when theyre clueless about history and geography, and cant even argue in coherent sentences?

In a few years time, those kids will enter the workforce, and assume positions in the media, government, and law enforcement sectors. Most of them have already been educated in pro-Palestinian propaganda by faculty, who are at the helm of todays universities. Whats worse: hearing the lies they propagate, such as genocide in Gaza, or the complicit agreement shown by those interviewing them? Just watch some of these pro-Palestinian students pledge their commitment to the Palestinian struggle in Gaza, their denial of Israels right to exist, and their admission that October 7th was justified. Journalist Avi Yemini captures the baselessness of it all in his media report.

Its impossible to tell where their stupidity ends, and the wickedness begins. The line between ignorance and evil is very blurry indeed.

Anti-semitism is irrational and has been around since the beginning of the Jewish people, with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai coining the principle: Esau hates Jacob. The major difference between then and now is that today we have a sovereign Jewish country called Israel. In the 1930s there was no Jewish state to welcome German Jews.

Feeling a sense of responsibility towards my Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora, I wrote a letter in December 2023 with the title: The winds are changing: Time to come home. I asked family and friends not to wait until the waves of anti-semitism become a tsunami. Interestingly, the only ones who replied were two cousins who are both 2nd generation Holocaust survivors. My letter did not cause anyone to pack up and take the next flight to Israel.

In recent years, theres been a worldwide crisis in Jewish identity. Its no longer enough to say being Jewish is about practising a religion. Today, being Jewish means belonging to the nation of Israel. Observing the commandments (mitzvot) like keeping shabbat, eating matza on Pesach, and giving charity (tzedakah) to fellow Jews is very important, but its not the whole story.

The state of Israel now plays a central role in Jewish identity. Every Jew has a connection to the land of Israel, whether one is aware of it or not. Ultimately, the most fulfilling Jewish life can only be experienced in the land of Israel, where one is connected 24/7 to the nation of Israel and the God of Israel.

Practising the Jewish religion was good enough for us in the Diaspora, and it helped to preserve our Jewish identity over 2000 years. However, today, our goal is to build a model country in the state of Israel, and be a light to the nations. Many of us have forgotten that we were exiled from our native land, Israel, when the Romans destroyed the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. We were forced to leave as refugees and scattered to the four corners of the world.

In 1948 the state of Israel was born. For the first time in the long Roman-Western exile, the Jewish people regained sovereignty in their homeland. For the last 76 years, Jews have been returning to Israel to build the Jewish state: from its economic and national infrastructure, medical, legal and educational institutions, to agriculture, science, hi-tech and the arts, and an array of thriving, diverse communities.

The land of Israel is the only place in the world where a Jew can live as a Jew, but also contribute to modern Israeli society, in shaping the fabric of our everyday lives and improving the lives of others, both in Israel and abroad. Israel is no longer a developing country. Its a country of blessing: we have food aplenty, an unlimited water supply thanks to desalination plants, natural gas resources, first-class healthcare for everyone, jobs, and a high birth rate. Israel is a land where we witness miracles and wonders every day.

The only significant Jewish population with its own army, police force, and secret service is in Israel. Outside of Israel, theres no army or police to protect you.

When we connect ourselves to the people of Israel, to a story thats greater than our own individual story, we join something greater than ourselves. Its a first-class privilege to play an active role in rebuilding the modern Jewish homeland in the land of Israel.

Its true that Israel is far from perfect. But if it was, we wouldnt have work to do.

According to Rabbi Nachman Kahane, when the final redemption will approach, the gates of Israel will open and close, open and close. In the last few years weve seen airports close at a moments notice: for an extended period during corona, or recently during theSwords of Iron War.

Jewish people abroad say they will only come to Israel from their own free will, because the time is right, because it suits them, and when everything is ready. Not because theyre being forced to. In the meantime, Diaspora communities in places like Melbourne continue to hold rallies for Israel under heavy police protection, and show their support for Israel.

So in spite of all the anti-semitism abroad, and many Jews feeling attacked, theyre not planning on going anywhere soon.

The world can be burning around them, yet many will stubbornly cling to their right to live in the Diaspora, leverage the legal system to fight against racism, and beg the local authorities to protect them. For how much longer?

When will the comfort zone of the Diaspora become so uncomfortable that its not viable to live there? When will Jewish communities wake up and realise that Jewish destiny is not in the Diaspora? That the Jewish people belong to a collective, the nation of Israel, whose home is in Israel.

Religious Jews, including those in America, actually pray three times a day for G-d to gather his people to Israel: Sound the great shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles and gather us together from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are You Hashem, who gathers in the dispersed of His people Israel. The Bible refers a number of times to God gathering his people: I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and multiply (Jeremiah 23:3)

Whatever you believe in, this historical process has already started. The next wave of Jewish migration to Israel is on its way, and we better be ready.

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Diaspora Jewry: Winds of change or complacency? | Sara Stein | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

The federal government established the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, led by Justice Marie-Jose Hogue, in September 2023.

In Canada, foreign interference is defined as harmful activities undertaken by foreign states or their proxies that are clandestine, deceptive, or involve a threat to any person to advance the strategic objectives of those states to the detriment of Canadas national interests.

These threats and activities of state or non-state entities foster polarization, distrust and erode faith in democratic systems.

Hogues initial report found that foreign interference occurred in both of the last two federal elections held in 2019 and 2021 and is expected to continue.

In contrast to former Governor-General David Johnstons separate report on foreign interference, the commission made public the bulk of security and intelligence reports during the first stage of the hearings. Most of these documents were declassified and unredacted.

Among the few countries that the commission examined, the Peoples Republic of China was found to be the foremost perpetrator of foreign interference. Its sophisticated, pervasive and persistent activities target government officials, electoral candidates, political organizations and diaspora communities.

With billions of dollars poured into its global operation, China expends significantly more resources on foreign interference-related activities than any other country.

The commissions Stage 1 hearings featured a panel of diaspora community representatives who have been affected by foreign interference and transnational repression. Together with witness statements from members of Parliament and an ex-MP who dealt with foreign interference, a diaspora perspective emerged from this initial phase of the commissions hearings.

In her report, Hogue noted some diaspora communities are disproportionately affected by foreign interference. Targeted by China in its transnational repression efforts, five groups dubbed the Five Poisons by Chinese authorities particularly bear the brunt: Falun Gong adherents, Uyghurs, Tibetans, supporters of Taiwan and those advocating for democracy in mainland China and Hong Kong.

It was chilling to hear Mehmet Tohti from the Uyghur community tell the commission about a threatening phone call from Chinese state police announcing the death of his mother and two sisters in his homeland. Grace Dai Wollensak from the Falun Gong community broke into tears when she recounted 25 years of foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada.

Hogues report validated the Chinese diaspora groups lived experiences and their observations about Chinas power and motivation to silence dissidents, amplify Chinese Communist Party narratives, control public opinion and sow discord in diaspora communities.

Through its United Front Work Department, an entity under President Xi Jinpings direct command aimed at shaping international discourse and orchestrating transnational repression, China manipulates democratic institutions to serve Communist Party interests by using rewards and punishments.

Via friendly community organizations or trusted contacts working on behalf of China, the United Front Work Department co-ordinates its foreign interference activities via Chinese embassies or consulates to target activists, dissidents and politicians.

The commission heard that Chinese diaspora members face frightening overt and covert tactics from Chinese consulates, dissuading them from full participation in Canadian public life if they dont align with Chinas interests.

While Hogue determined that foreign interference didnt determine which party formed a government in either 2019 and 2021, results in certain ridings may have been impacted. For instance, misinformation and disinformation campaigns targeted former Conservative Party leader Erin OToole and Kenny Chiu, a former MP from British Columbia, due to their criticisms of Chinas human rights record.

Hogue recognized that foreign interference in the last two elections has tarnished Canadas electoral ecosystem, compromising some voters rights to make independent choices. Thats a detriment to democracy.

From a diaspora perspective, protection from foreign interference and transnational repression is of utmost importance.

As revealed in Hogues initial report, there were obvious communication gaps among related government departments and agencies during both election periods. There was also a lack of co-ordinated effort and attention to specific warnings about foreign interference that were provided by security and intelligence agencies like CSIS before and during both election campaigns. Diaspora communities were left unprotected because there were no warnings.

Diaspora communities have been failed by the governments efforts to address foreign interference. The government and political parties have seemingly only been concerned about the political implications and consequences, and not the harm caused to diaspora communities.

Ample intelligence reports on foreign threat activities have reached monitoring bodies like the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections SITE Task Force and the panel of five senior public servants tasked with monitoring foreign interference and issuing public warnings if they felt there was a threat to the integrity of the vote. The Prime Ministers Office was notified about these reports.

But the commission heard no incidents were found to have warranted a public statement.

This is likely because protocols on what does warrant a public statement do not reflect the realities of diaspora communities. There was also a probable under-reporting of cases and evidence because diaspora community members lack access to public information, like tip lines, because theyre only available in English and French.

Despite the fact that the commissions mandate in Stage 1 was confined to the last two general elections, there may now be greater public awareness of the damage foreign interference has done to Canadas democratic system.

The commission heard about several disturbing incidents, including the transfer of $250,000 for suspected foreign interference-related purposes, the Chinese consulates involvement in transporting international students to a nomination contest in the Toronto riding of Don Valley North and the ostracization of vocal MPs perceived as threats by China. But theyre only the tip of the iceberg.

Hogues initial report did not mention the struggles of diaspora communities because the members of those communities werent sworn in as witnesses they appeared at the Stage 1 hearings to raise awareness and provide context. They will likely appear as witnesses in the next phase of hearings, and their lived experiences should augment the intelligence reports and widen the scope of understanding about the threats and activities of state entities and their proxies in Canada.

Hogue has warned that foreign interference will not stop and indeed may become more intense in the future. The perspectives of those from diaspora communities on how to stop foreign interference can help strengthen Canadian democracy.

The Green Line is an award-winning, hyperlocal news outlet that investigates the way Torontonians live to help young and other underserved citizens survive and thrive in a rapidly changing city. Its ongoing series, Diasporic Conversations, is exploring why people living in a uniquely multicultural and pluralistic city like Toronto feel the impact of geopolitical conflicts much more intensely than those in other cities.

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New commission sheds light on how diaspora communities are impacted by foreign interference - The Conversation Indonesia

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

The Iran Prison Project is an interactive website experience that sheds light on testimonies from former political prisoners and dissidents that reflect the abuses of the Iranian Regime. Imagine a place where people are detained indefinitely, explains WongDoody.

Women, children, gay people, journalists. Where torture, rape and execution happen every day. You can be sent there for taking photographs, for dancing, for showing your hair. This is thetruth for tens of thousands of people inIranian prisons.

Iranian Diaspora Collective is a non-partisan, queer-led, multi-faith organisation of visionary agents for social change who understand the power of social influence, storytelling and youth-led activism as key tools for cultural revolution. They came to us with the hopethat we could help break the tendency of cognitive overload in the media and news space. How do we educate the world on this violation of human rights in the midst of all the noise?

The Iran Prison Project can be accessed through a web browser. Visitors can move about the 3D space and interact with stories from prisoners. Testimony features AI imagery and original art, as well as AI soundscapes. The audio is recorded by voice actors to protect victims. To speak to the world, we recreated one of the worst places on Earth in the metaverse a space without boundaries and borders and asked people to experience these stories and be their voice.

Credits: Design Studio: WongDoody

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Iranian Diaspora Collective: Iran Prison Project website - Creative Review

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

During these challenging times both for Israel and Jewish communities around the world, I found myself leaving Israel last week with an incredible group of CEOs and senior leaders of Israels hi-tech community. These business leaders took time out of their busy schedules to learn first-hand about the vibrancy, challenges, and opportunities of the American Jewish community.

Having just been in New York at the end of March on a similar mission, I expected that the issues we discussed might sound familiar. Instead, the escalation of antisemitism and the increased complexity of the war over the previous weeks made this visit all the more significant.

We met with students, both on campus and off. We witnessed protests and counter-protests. We heard of the awakening among so many Jews since October 7, and the intense desire on the part of these Jews to connect to their Jewish roots. We sensed a renewed exploration of Jewish identity by the young, previously unaffiliated, population.

Finally, we proudly represented Israel as we joined together with IATI Israel Advanced Technology Industries to ring the opening bell at NASDAQ. We signaled that through it all, the bond between Israels hi-tech community and its American counterpart continues to strengthen, pragmatically and warmly, to make the world a better place.

As part of the delegation, I had a chance to speak in one of the communities we visited. I shared that Sefirat Haomer (counting the omer) which connects Passover, when we became a nation, to Shavuot when we received the Torah is unique and critical in many ways. One way is that, unlike the two-day holidays celebrated outside of Israel in contrast to just one day in Israel, during the counting of the omer we all count the same number each night.

We dont invoke the concept of sfeika dyoma, the ancient notion of uncertainty of the exact day, which would mean in the days of the Talmud that we wouldnt have known if tonight is, say, Day 11 or Day 12. Many commentators explain that this because the core element of the commandment is a counting process, which has to be a specific number each day, without an awkward double-counting to cover two options. In short, we make the choice.

I offered another interpretation. Specifically now, in this time between Passover and Shavuot when we became a nation, ultimately receiving our Torah, we in Israel need to be on the same page as those Jews outside our borders. We need to be in sync. We need to count the same number. That was true 3,000 years ago and remains true today.

The counting every evening of the omer can serve as a daily reminder like the ringing of a bell to open the markets that a new day is upon us and we need to get to work to accomplish goals and effect change. The Jews of Israel and the Jews around the world are in this together.

We are one family. As such, we need to find ways to continue to strengthen one another, stick together, and bring light to a world that at times seems so dark. Especially now, as we feel challenged and threatened by enemies of all types, we need to have each others back. Ding, ding, ding. And, we do!

The writer is the international director of Gesher.

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Using Jewish tradition to unite Israeli and Diaspora Jews - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on May 21, 2024

Harvard University Interim President Alan Garber recently met with the head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) after nearly three weeks of a pro-Hamas encampment on campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which also coincided with the school maintaining an F grade from the organization concerning anti-Semitism.

As reported by The Harvard Crimson, President Garber met with ADL CEO Jonthan Greenblatt in a long meeting to discuss efforts to combat anti-Semitism both on and off campus..

Greenblatt praised Garber later that day for refusing to yield to protesters.

ADL welcomes [Garbers] decision not to negotiate with those in the encampment who violate the university code of conduct, Greenblatt posted to X on Friday, May 10. We look forward to working with Harvard to ensure all students, including Jewish and Israeli, feel welcomed on campus.

[RELATED: Over 10 people decline invite to speak at Harvard Class Day]

Greenblatt was also spotted leaving Garbers office by students in the encampment, named the Liberated Zone by protesters.

[H]ours after been spotted meeting with top administration, notable anti-Palestinian racist & president of the widely-discredited ADL Jonathan Greenblatt congratulates Garber for suspending students before EVER coming to the negotiating table, Harvard Out of Occupied Palestinewrote on Instagram.

In a recentreport card, ADL gave Harvard an F grade for its handling of anti-Semitism. The report cites various anti-Semitic incidents, including flyers depicting Israeli hostages being defaced with language such as kidnap the Zionists and a 1960s anti-Semitic cartoon that was allegedly shared online by two student groups and republished by Harvard Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.

After Garbers recent decision to negotiate with the encampment protesters on Tuesday, however, the ADL criticized the universitys course of action.

Student protesters ultimately agreed to end their encampment on May 14 after Harvard reinstated 22 students placed on leave of absence and offered a meeting with members of the Harvard Management Company regarding divestment from Israel.

ADL is deeply disappointed and believes that Harvard is absolving behavior that has fueled a hostile and threatening campus for Jewish students, the organizationstated the following day after the encampment ended. Like too many other universities across the country, Harvard is now rewarding and giving in to students who have violated its codes of conduct.

ADL is deeply disappointed and believes that Harvard is absolving behavior that has fueled a hostile and threatening campus for Jewish students, the group added.

[RELATED: Harvard negotiates with Hamas-endorsed students to end occupation, rescinds suspensions]

Six Jewish students filed alawsuit against Harvard in January, alleging that the Ivy League institution violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by enabling and directly ignoring severe anti-Semitism on its campus.

In 2022, Greenblatt released a novel, It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the UnthinkableAnd How We Can Stop It.

Follow Emma Dayton on X.

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ADL 'deeply disappointed' in Harvard's decision to cave to anti-Semitic demands - Campus Reform

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Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

When you think about the Holocaust, as we all do in a 21st century shaped by the cataclysms of the 20th, what images appear in your minds eye? I see Nazis marching into city squares. Jews crushed into airless cattle cars. An iron gate with the inscription arbeit macht frei, and beyond it, rows of spartan dormitories housing skeletal inmates in filthy striped uniforms, subjected to all manner of dehumanization. There are smokestacks, barbed wire, mass graves.

These awful tableaux are the products of a lifelong immersion in Holocaust narratives, from factual accounts in textbooks to visits to museums to documentaries screened at Hebrew school. But because I grew up in the era of Schindlers List and Life Is Beautiful, my most indelible impressions of the genocide come from pop culture. When I envision a concentration camp, I am seeing a collage of movie stills.

The very same imagery suffuses The Tattooist of Auschwitz, Peacocks new, six-part adaptation of Heather Morris internationally best-selling 2018 novel. Inspired by the authors conversations with Lali Sokolov, a Slovakian Jew who spent the final years of World War II tattooing ID numbers on new arrivals at the notorious death camp, it is ultimately, as Harvey Keitels elderly Lali explains to Heather (Melanie Lynskey), a love story. But that romance, between young Lali (Jonah Hauer-King) and another prisoner, Gita (Anna Prchniak), unfolds against what I can only describe as a familiar Holocaust backdrop. Viewers witness suffering that fits our broadest conceptions of the camps: sadistic Nazis; lines of naked bodies slouching towards death; Jews praying and singing to reassert their humanity.

The Tattooist is solidly made historical fiction, built on benign intentions and open-hearted performances. Its also the latestand, in that quotidian concentration-camp hell dominates the plot, the most genericexample of a dubious TV trend: the Holocaust drama. While the genre dates back decades, and isnt limited to the small screen, the past year has seen an explosion of such shows about Nazis and their prey, from We Were the Lucky Ones to The New Look to Transatlantic; A Small Light to All the Light We Cannot See.

Each of these series has its own angle. What unites most of them, however, is unwittingly exploitative imagery that long ago lost its power to shock and an adherence to tropes of individual suffering and perseverance, heroism and villainy, that abstract the Holocaust from any but the most anodyne political context: Nazis evil, Jews brave. This is a tumultuous moment for Jewish identity. Antisemitism and fascist ideology are surgingand that trend is driving Hollywoods demand for Holocaust scriptsas Jews weigh the morality of Israels ongoing assault on Gaza. Yet the stories TV keeps telling about the most painful years in modern Jewish history too often cling to sentiment and clich. What we need from these narrativespolitical insight, introspectionremains elusive.

In high school, I took two classes that happened to screen French New Wave filmmaker Alain Resnais documentary Night and Fog just weeks apart. Released in 1956, the half-hour film exposed an international audience to photographic evidence of the multifarious horrors of the camps. The first viewing was as enlightening as it was harrowing. But the second felt obscene. I was staring at those same distressing imagesslow pans across gas chambers disguised as showers, mounds of emaciated corpseswithout learning anything new. I had to excuse myself after a few minutes.

Susan Sontag recounted a similar experience in her 1977 book On Photography. The cultural critic wrote that when she first encountered photos from the camps, at 12, "something broke. Some limit had been reached, and not only that of horror; I felt irrevocably grieved, wounded, but a part of my feeling started to tighten; something went dead; something is still crying. But as the photos proliferated, she grew inuredevidence of a familiarity with atrocity that was alarming in itself: At the time of the first photographs of the Nazi camps, there was nothing banal about these images. After 30 years, a saturation point may have been reached. In these last decades, concerned photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it.

A half-century later, The New Look on Apple TV+, Lucky Ones on Hulu, and The Tattooistall based on true stories, cast with recognizable stars, and released in the past three monthscement a new era of Holocaust-fiction supersaturation. The New Look is an origin story for Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn), whose struggle to free a sister (Maisie Williams) condemned to the camps for her role in the French Resistance is contrasted with the brazen Nazi collaboration of his rival Coco Chanel (Juliette Binoche). In Lucky Ones, a family of Polish Jews fleeing the Nazis endures years of separation and hardship. The Tattooist is the most conventional concentration-camp narrative of the three, framed by Lalis conversations, in the early aughts, with the woman who would transform his reminiscences into a biographical novel.

Although their plots diverge, the shows have strikingly similar emotional arcs and moral agendas. Each one drags the viewer through endless human suffering, whether behind the gates of Auschwitz or in a Soviet work camp or even in a Paris atelier where Dior is all but forced to design gowns for the wives of the Nazi officers whose minions are holding his sister, Catherine, captive. At long last, the finales bring catharsis. Families and lovers reunite. Inspired by Catherine, Dior reinvents French fashion for an exuberant postwar era. Careful to temper happy endings with somber tributes to the millions who died while these heroes lived, albeit scarred by their experiences, the creators of these series nonetheless leave us to exult in the triumph of the human spirit over the swastika-draped forces of evil.

The morality that underlies these dramas tends to be simplistic. No one seriously disputes that the Nazis are the bad guys. (When Netflixs All the Light We Cannot See, which focuses on French resisters rather than Jewish captives, attempts to inject nuance into the depiction of Nazis, through the thought-experiment character of a brilliant orphan conscripted to fight for a cause he finds repugnant, the result is unintentionally funny.) But that doesnt mean the Reich must always be represented by one or two conniving, mid-level psychopath characters, plus dozens of faceless foot soldiers. The implication of such depictions is that Germany during the Second World War was populated by millions of extraordinarily deranged individuals, rather than overtaken by a regime that normalized, euphemized, and incentivized genocidal hatred to such an extent that only Europeans of remarkable courage resisted.

The impression that the Holocaust was an anomaly, perpetrated by avatars of rootless evil, isnt just a comforting misapprehension. With fascist ideology gaining traction in the U.S. and abroad, its a dangerous one, blind to the systemic workings of authoritarian populism. As the historian Dan Stone argues in The Holocaust: An Unfinished History: The Holocaust is not a lesson about the dangers of bullying, nor even a tale of the dangers of hatred. It is a warning that states, when elites become desperate to hold on to power, can do terrible, traumatic things, and that the deep psychology of modernity produces monsters the likes of which even the sleep of reason would struggle to generate.

The best recent representation of this phenomenon is The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazers Oscar-winning film about the family of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hss (Christian Friedel). Instead of reproducing the now-commonplace sights of the Holocaust, Glazer confines himself to this upwardly mobile home that shares a wall with Auschwitz, gazing with disdain upon the perfect flowers Rudolfs wife Hedwig (Sandra Hller) cultivates in her garden. That the Hsses are not remarkably evilthat they celebrate birthdays and reminisce about vacationsis the point. Like so many of their peers, they are beneficiaries of a system whose hateful leaders mobilized the manpower to implement their Final Solution, in part, by fulfilling the frustrated ambitions of an entitled, Christian working class.

Television has not been entirely bereft of politically aware histories of the Holocaust. Viewed by 120 million people in the U.S. and exported around the world, NBCs 1978 NBC miniseries Holocaust is like Lucky Ones if the family at its center wasnt so lucky. When it isnt mawkish, its stiff. Yet the presence of the gentile Erik Dorf (Michael Moriarty), a desperate, out-of-work lawyer with leftist sympathies, who nonetheless rises through the ranks of the SS to become a legal architect of the genocide, speaks to an understanding of the Holocaust as the product of a broken society seduced into fascism.

Last year, two TV series, Netflixs Transatlantic and Nat Geos A Small Light, illuminated the other side of the epochal struggle between Nazism and humanism, dramatizing the stories of real people who fought to save the lives of Jews and other targets of the Reich. Set amid the brave souls who led the Emergency Rescue Committee, in Marseille, helping artists and intellectuals escape German-occupied Europe, Transatlantic was disappointingly shallow. Much more perceptive, A Small Light follows Miep Gies (Bel Powley), the heroic young woman who hid Anne Franks family from the Nazis in Amsterdam. Through her bond with the Franks, she discovers an ethical obligation to join the Dutch resistance. While she risks her own life on a daily basis, the acquiescence of her friends to the Nazis assault on their Jewish and queer neighbors horrifies Miep. Its the one TV Holocaust drama from the past several years whose profound insight justifies reimmersing viewers in one of humanitys lowest moments.

This really happened continues to be the take-home message of most Holocaust series in 2024, as though Holocaust and Schindlers List (not to mention crucial works of nonfiction like Night and Fog, Hannah Arendts Eichmann in Jerusalem, Primo Levis memoir If This Is a Man, and Claude Lanzmanns nine-hour documentary Shoah) havent been part of Western pop culture for decades. The only subtext that sneaks through is: We can never let it happen again.

Its an obvious conclusion, though it can be depressingly divisive once you start breaking it downwhich is probably why most Holocaust TV declines to do so. Who, for one thing, is we? Is it individuals or governments? Citizens of the afflicted nation or the world at large? And what is itthe mass slaughter of Jews in particular or the attempted annihilation of any group of people based on their shared identity?

For contemporary art about the Holocaust to matter, it must engage with these questions, which are more central to Jewish identity in the present than ever before. On college campuses and in the streets, Jews in the U.S. and beyond are finding themselves on opposite sides of a conflict rooted in divergent interpretations of the Nazi genocide. Is the lesson of the Holocaust that Israel, a sanctuary state for the worlds vulnerable Jewish minority, must be protected at all costs? Or is it that the global community must stop the violence of powerful states against disempowered communities like the one in Gaza?

Levi meditated on the universal political implications of the Holocaust in If This Is a Man, observing that it is in the normal order of things that the privileged oppress the unprivileged: the social structure of the camp is based on this human law. But despite its obsession with Nazis and death camps, television has yet to forge a thoughtful connection between this history and the matter that consumes the consciences of Jews in the present. With the exception of an empathetic season of Transparent that sent the central Jewish family to Israel and the West Bank, and a smattering of American and Israeli thrillers that too often stereotype Arabs as terrorists, the medium has, likely in its reticence to offend, barely touched the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Maybe there are bold TV creators who are, right now, synthesizing the devastations of Oct. 7 and Israels assault on Gaza into art that will help us think through this polarizing conflict. If so, then the Holocaust will surely play a part in that storyjust as it is already informing a handful of stories that speak to our increasingly authoritarian moment. Whether for political or moral reasons, or simply in order to tell cathartic tales of resilience, we cant keep cordoning off history from a present to which its so urgently relevant.

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'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' and TV's Holocaust Obsession - TIME

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Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

A 1917 drawing by Egon Schiele is at the center of a restitution case that will soon head to court in New York.

The work in question, Portrait of the Artists Wife (1917), depicts Edith Schiele with her hands folded in her lap. The drawing was made a year before both Edith and the artist, both at 28 years old, during the 1918 influenza epidemic. Portrait of the Artists Wife is estimated to be worth several million dollars.

The heirs of two Jewish collectors, Karl Maylnder and Heinrich Rieger, have both claimed ownership of the work. Maylnder was a textile merchant; Schiele made at least two portraits of him. Rieger was Schieles dentist. Both were killed by the Nazis during World War II, and their respective heirs both claim their relatives lost the work during the Holocaust.

Philanthropist and art collector Robert Owen Lehman Sr., known for heading the Lehman Brothers investment firm through the Great Depression, bought Portrait of the Artists Wife from the London gallery Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd. for 2,000 ($5,600) in 1964. He then gifted the piece to his son, the award-winning documentary filmmaker Robert Owen Robin Lehman Jr., as a Christmas present. It remained with him until 1972, when Lehman Jr. briefly lost the work during his divorce; when his ex-wife died in 2013, the work was recovered from under her bed. In 2016, Lehman Jr. gifted the work to the Robert Owen Lehman Jr. Foundation.

The trial over the works ownership began in Rochester, New York, on Tuesday, with testimony expected to last until the end of May. In his ruling, State Supreme Court judge Daniel J. Doyle will consider circumstantial evidence, decades-old records, and a spotty provenance. Expert witnesses are expected to weigh in, with each party presenting evidence on their behalf.

Lehman Jr. testified not only to his frustration over the eight-year-long battle but also claimed that he had been open to resolving the ownership claim initially with the Maylnders. However, when a second claim emerged, Lehman said in court, I came to the conclusion that possibly two claims cant be correct.

The works whereabouts between 1930 through 1964 are disputed among the heirs. Lehman Jr. has said there are no surviving records, and his foundation claims that the drawing was not considered lost because it was not listed in a stolen or looted works database. The heirs, however, claim to have documents demonstrating their relatives ownership. They believe the foundation did not adequately investigate the provenance.

It wasnt until the foundation had planned to sell the work that these questions of ownership came to the forefront. After the foundation consigned the work with Christies, the auction house reviewed its database, where it found potential connections to Maylnder and Rieger. Christies subsequently contacted the heirs representatives; the auction house continues to hold the work.

Maylnder was deported to the Lodz ghetto in Poland in 1941 and was later killed. An acquaintance, Etelka Hofmann, took possession of Maylnders artworks after the war and later sold some of the pieces to a collector in 1960, including a Schiele work identified in a signed contract by the collector and Hofmann as Edith Schiele, seated, watercolored drawing, signed and dated 1917.

Rieger died in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942. Prior to his death, Rieger collected 120 to 150 of Schieles watercolors.

The Lehman foundation argues that neither Maylnder nor Rieger owned the portrait of Edith Schiele that was purchased by Lehman Sr.

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Ownership of Egon Schiele Drawing Lost During Holocaust to Be Decided by New York Court - ARTnews

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Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

Everyone has a book in them and that, in most cases, is where it should stay, grumbled the influential British-American author, journalist, and educator Christopher Hitchens. Helen Joyce, however, is not like most cases.

With an extraordinary story to tell and an exceptional gift for storytelling, her debut novel, Good for a Single Journey, provides a rare glimpse into the lives of her ancestors, starting with her great-grandparents in early 20th-century Poland. It then takes us through two world wars and the Holocaust, where many of her relatives were murdered, and ultimately to modern-day Israel, where Joyce now lives.

I recently met with Joyce for an interview about her book. I was particularly interested to find out why at an age when most people are enjoying their retirement she took on the daunting task of penning her first novel.

Born in 1953 in post-war London to a Viennese mother and a German father, Joyce had an upbringing that was not a happy one. Her mother having been violently separated from her parents in Prague, where she was fortunate enough to get the Good for Single Journey visa to Britain, which undoubtedly saved her life suffered from severe depression, sometimes resulting in suicidal thoughts. After the separation, Joyces grandparents were trapped and first sent to Theresienstadt, and then to Auschwitz, where they perished.

Because of this, Joyce spent her own childhood isolated from the outside world with a mother who overshared every detail of her childhood: the good stuff and the dark stuff. With no friends and very little idea of what the real world was like, she unwittingly absorbed all of her mothers stories, which later formed the basis of her book. I stored everything in my brain, and it came out in the book.

Vicariously carrying her mothers burden for all those years is ultimately what led Joyce to write the novel. I wanted to write the book because my mother was a beautiful, intelligent woman, but she had such an unhappy life, she began. As a child, I always wanted to make her happy, and now I want to give her life some meaning her story should count.

WHEN IT came to putting pen to paper, Joyce was able to rely on the information she had gleaned from her mother, as far as it went. In order to give the book deeper meaning and proper historical context, she had to delve further into her past. When I [looked into] my family history, I realized I had to go back two steps, to my great-grandparents, she said.

This, as you would imagine, wasnt so straightforward, as they lived in a remote Polish village in the early years of the 20th century. She knew from her mother that they had five children two girls, and three boys. But apart from their names and what happened to the girls (her grandmother and aunt perished in the Holocaust), the information she had on her great-uncles was sketchy, at best. Consequently, she had to rely on her cousins memoirs to fill in the gaps about how they came to live in Palestine, as it was known.

A significant portion of Joyces research for this part of the novel which spanned the years after World War I was carried out on the Internet, as it was important to her to include accurate historical details surrounding Jews moving to the Land of Israel around this time. It is crucial that Jews are recognized as indigenous people of this land, she stressed.

While she was keen to set out the history of the time, including details of the San Remo conference, which spawned the British Mandate for Palestine, Joyce was determined that her book should be written along the lines of a novel. I wanted to tell the history, but I also wanted a novel.

With that, she hit on a format whereby each chapter began with a historical introduction, after which she let the characters tell the story.

Joyce also made a point of weaving her ancestors who, as time went on, moved from Poland, across Europe, and to the Middle East in and out of the story, to circle around events happening at the same time in different regions.

Joyce, whose background is in psychology and education, described the writing of her first book as a visual process that required proper organization. Writing the book was the easy part, she confirmed: I spewed it out. Her mornings were set aside for writing, with a re-read after lunch.

And it didnt stop there. After going to bed, she described entering a twilight zone when the characters, came and visited me.

Although it felt strange, she said, to have the characters her ancestors guiding her, this helped her to connect with them in a way that wouldnt have been possible otherwise.

WHILE JOYCE enjoyed writing the book, she was relieved when it was finished, despite the fact that she then had the daunting task of finding a publisher.

As luck would have it, she was put in touch with Liesbeth Heenk, the owner of Amsterdam Publishers, the largest publisher of Holocaust memoirs in Europe. Unlike other publishers who showed little interest in her book, despite not even bothering to read the manuscript, Heenk was captivated by it from the start, and a book deal between the two women was signed in 2022.

Joyces debut novel, Good for a Single Journey, came out the following year on Holocaust Remembrance Day and earned significant acclaim and success in its first year of publication.

Before we wound up the interview, the author reflected on how her mother would have reacted to the current situation, particularly in light of the antisemitism that has flared up since Oct. 7. You think youre safe, she would often tell her daughter, but it can happen again.

With the horrors of the Holocaust never far from Joyces mind, she is reminded of her mothers words: This is our turn; we needed to know it, she said, regretfully. She was keen to stress, however, that she believes our survival is assured, as our history teaches us to be resilient.

Keeping that history alive is something that Joyce believes is incumbent on her and, indeed all of us.

My mothers generation has entirely died out, she said. Thats why we write books so their stories live on.

The writer is a former lawyer from the UK who now lives and works in Israel as a freelance writer for The Jerusalem Post.

GOOD FOR A SINGLE JOURNEYHOLOCAUST SURVIVOR TRUE STORIESBy Helen JoyceAmsterdam Publishers352 pages; $18

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A single journey: Holocaust survivor's daughter keeps family memories alive with debut novel - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J.

The U.S. Army Reserves 99th Readiness Division hosted its annual Holocaust Remembrance and Liberation Observation on May 7 at division headquarters here.

The Department of Defense theme for this years observance of the Days of Remembrance is, Behind Every Name a Story: The Courageous.

Days of Remembrance was established by the U.S. Congress to honor the lives of more than 6 million Jewish victims, as well as the millions of others not accepted by the Nazi and other fascist regimes during World War II, explained Mr. Stephen Harlan, 99th RD command historian.

This years DoD observance focuses on Adolfo Kaminsky, an Argentine-born member of the French resistance who forged identification papers, passports, food ration cards, and other documents to save the lives of over 10,000 Jews during the Second World War.

The math was simple in one hour, I made 30 fake documents; if I slept one hour, 30 people would die, said Harlan, quoting Kaminsky.

The guest speaker for the event was Chap. (Capt.) Yitzhak Hochman, chaplain for the U.S. Army Reserves 8th Medical Brigade.

I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, Hochman said. My entire community was founded by Holocaust Survivors.

Hochman explained that his inspiration for joining the Army was Chaplain Herschel Schacter, also known as the Rabbi of Buchenwald. Schacter arrived at the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945 and found hundreds of Survivors living in squalor.

Schacter thought, How do we tell them that their suffering is over? Hochman said. Instinctively, (Schacter) blurted out in his native tongue of Yiddish, My brothers, you are free it is over! And that was the Survivors introduction to the American Flag.

The American Flag means a lot, Hochman continued. This uniform means a lot to a lot of people out there.

In 1992, the 99th Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the U.S. Armys Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The 99th ID liberated Dachau subcamps near the town of Muhldorf in May 1945.

It is up to us to keep that memory going because the first-person observers of the camps and the liberations are passing from this world, Harlan said. The Holocaust must be acknowledged and remembered, and we must all have the selflessness to protect our fellow human beings.

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Army Reserve division hosts annual Holocaust Remembrance > U.S - usar.army.mil

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Posted By admin on May 11, 2024

Stern was born in Nuremberg, Germany in March 1936. From 1941 to 1945, his family lived in various holding, work, and concentration camps throughout Europe and Russia during World War II. Once his family was liberated, they remained in Germany before immigrating to the United States in 1947.

My name is Peter Guenter Stern. My brother's name is Samuel and I'm going to spend a little time talking about why the difference in names, said Stern.

In 1935 in Nuremberg, laws were passed laws that restricted the life of Jews. Restricted in the sense that doctors could no longer practice in a hospital, lawyers could not practice in court, teachers were fired from the public school systems. You could no longer run a business. The ability for Jews to function as citizens, andmembers of the community was taken away. These were called the Nuremberg Laws, he said.

One of those laws was that all Jewish children would be born and given a name that was out of the first book of the Bible. So, if you were a girl, you could have the name of Sarah, Esther, andRuth. Boys could be Abraham, Moses, Israel, or Samuel, he said. And that's what my parents named my brother,who wasborn in 1939.

That law was passed in 1935. I was born in 1936 and yet my name is still what it is, he said. Thething was, theGermans were wise enough to know that this was a real bad publicity thing, so they waited till after the Summer Olympics of 1936 to start enforcement of that law.

Sterns father, Artur, was an auto mechanic and shop owner but had to get rid of his business, so he started to work in a Jewish school, teaching young boys general shop and auto mechanic skills.

We all lived in the same house, and this was a Jew house, he said. What Nuremberg did was to get all the Jews who remained in Nuremberg to live in specific houses. It wasn't a ghetto. It wasn't a fenced-in area and the houses were scattered throughout the city, said Stern as he shared and reflected on a photograph from a childs birthday party.

I don't know whose birthday it was, but I'm the guy with the dark suspenders holding onto the tricycle. The next picture shows my father with some of those students, he said. The hope was that they would have the makings of a trade, so when they got to whatever country they were going to, they would have the ability to make a living.

My father was teaching in that school, but come November 1941, an order was issued saying that 1,000 Jews would come out of the area of southern Germany, and they would be shipped to Riga [Latvia], said Stern.

Of those 1,000 Jews, 520 came from Nuremberg, and Sterns family was deported from Germany to a holding camp in Latvia.

In 1942 they were transferred to the Riga ghetto. Stern noted that the ghetto was a crowded place but was less crowded as the Germans took thousands of people out, walked them into the woods, and executed them.

The concentration camps were designed for killing. People were killed in every concentration camp, I am sure. And there was a pretense for quite a while, hidden by the Germans that some of them were camps thatwe'llwork, he said.

In 1943 Sterns family was transferred to a work camp in Russia. One day his father saved a German officers life during a Russian attack, and the officer sent his family to a Riga prison to be hidden, instead of returning to the ghetto. In January 1944 they were deported back to Germany. His father was imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he died. Peter, Samuel, and his mother were transferred to Ravensbruck and Bergen-Belsen concentration campsuntil they were liberated in April 1945.

I want to say how bad Bergen-Belsen was because, by the time that the British came, they'd had stopped feeding [us]. They had stopped burying people, and one of the first things they had to do was dig mass graves, they buried about 20,000 corpses, which the German guards had to put onto trucks, then take and put into the graves, he said.

The stench was horrible. The stench of all the camps was very noticeable. You could not have been near a camp and not known that something was going on that had no validity whatsoever, said Stern.

Stern noted that at the end of the war, there were 17 survivors from the 520 shipped out from Nuremberg, which included his mother, brother, and himself.

Each year, the Navy honors the victims and survivors of the genocide that killed more than six million Jewish people and millions of others during the week that runs from the Sunday before Holocaust Remembrance Day through the following Sunday.

Understanding these lessons from the past and taking responsibility for our future is the key to treating each other with dignity, courtesy, and respect, regardless of our religion, said Capt. DavidD. Carnal, commanding officer, NAVSUP BSC.

Bryant Esendencia, chairman for the Equal Employment Opportunity Committee at NAVSUP BSC moderated the event.

Listening to a person who wants to share their personal experiences helps us better understand their world and how it fits with ours, said Esendencia. With that knowledge, we can all be more empathetic in the people that come across our life. Its those collective experiences that contributes to our success in protecting our country and allies.

This year, the Navy observes Holocaust Days of Remembrance from May 5-12, with Holocaust Remembrance Day occurring on May 6. This year's observance theme, Behind Every Name A Story: The Courageous, is in honor of the late Adolfo Kaminsky, whose forged identification papers are estimated to have saved 10,000-14,000 Jewish people from concentration camps.

While the number of people that directly survived the Holocaust is dwindling, their legacy continues in the form of their stories, which we must never forget, said Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro in a message to all Department of the Navy personnel on April 30.

For more information about the Holocaust and scheduled events to remember survivors and victims, visit the National Archives at https://www.archives.gov/, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum at https://www.ushmm.org/, or https://www.defenseculture.mil/Special-Observances/#days-of-remembrance-holocaust-remembrance-day.

For more information about NAVSUP BSC visit, https://www.navsup.navy.mil/NAVSUP-Enterprise/NAVSUP-Business-Systems-Center/.

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Holocaust Survivor Speaks at NAVSUP Business Systems Center Days of Remembrance Event - navy.mil

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