Kristallnacht Remembered

I remember how a dozen years ago, a rash of arsons burned more than 30 Black churches, mostly in the Southern tier of the United States. In response, the Anti-Defamation League urged investigations by the Justice Department and published full-page ads in many of America's major newspapers deploring these acts, asking for letters of support that we passed on to the victimized congregations. We also established a Rebuild the Churches Fund. The response across America was heartening.

As Jews, we felt a special kinship with the victims of these arsons, because we lived with the memory of Kristallnacht - the Night of Broken Glass -- when ordinary Germans committed a so-called "spontaneous" pogrom against synagogues, Jewish shops, homes, hospitals, cemeteries, and against their fellow Jewish citizens.  In response, the world was essentially silent.

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Financial crisis brings out the anti-semites

It never fails. Whenever there is a financial crisis or trading scandal in the stock markets, the anti-Semites come out of the woodwork.  The classic stereotype of the Jewish Shylock out to have his Christian pound of flesh dies very hard, if at all.  The Jew as economic opportunist sucking the financial life-blood out of a nation or of the whole world is continually reborn.

So the crude anti-Semitic postings at extremist or financial websites and comment boards, and at Internet blogs available for viewing over the past couple of weeks, should not come as a total surprise. Still, I have to admit being dismayed to see these lasting age-old canards about Jews and money finding fresh outlet. 

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Germany, the Jews, and business with Iran

Germany's relations with the Jewish people since the Holocaust have been very complicated. For years, many Jews would have nothing to do with Germany -- no visits, no products bought. As time passed, the predominant sentiment was to engage Germany to make sure it afforded some measure of justice to the survivors and to educate their own people, and particularly the young, about the horrors of the past.
 
At the same time, Germany, as part of its coming to grips with its past, became Israel's leading ally in Europe. As the years passed, as Israel's relations with European countries deteriorated, Germany could generally be counted on as a "friend."
 
This complicated history is important for those of us who try to educate our own community about Germany -- never forgetting what happened, insisting that Germany's relations with Israel and the Jewish people can not be "normal," but also letting our community know about the positions in German behavior, democracy, their support of Israel, their full-fledged democracy, their financial support of survivors.

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Blaming the Jews as a form of intimidation

At a time when both Israel and American Jews are struggling about how to manage the growing threat of a nuclear Iran, it is fascinating and disturbing to see how the canard that America's war in Iraq was a product of Jewish influence is alive and well. The connection is not a coincidence.
 
The notion of powerful Jews working for their own interests against the interests of their own country has a long and sordid history, even in America. The most famous example was the speech Charles Lindbergh gave in Des Moines, Iowa on September 11, 1941 claiming that Jews were driving America to war against Germany to serve their own interests. At the time, millions of Americans heard and sympathized with his message.

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ADL at 95: Battling old hatreds in new forms

As the 95th anniversary of the founding of the Anti-Defamation League approaches on July 10th, I can't help but think that its founder, Sigmund Livingston, probably would have wished we had not reached this milestone. After all, when you create an organization with the aim of ending anti-Semitism and seeking to erase bigotry in all its forms, you can't help but want to achieve your goal and put yourself out of business.

The hard realist in me tells me that Livingston, a Chicago lawyer and nobody's fool, likely knew that ADL was to be his life's work - and that it would take generations beyond his own to come to the end of a difficult road. Today, more than 60 years after World War II and the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, we know only too well that not only did anti-Semitism not end in the ashes of that global war stamped with Hitler's genocidal Jew-hatred, but that a new if not improved kind of Jew-hate has replaced it.

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Mearsheimer and Walt in Israel

The title of the event is: "The Israel Lobby - Helping or Hurting Israel?" It will take place at Beit Sokolov in Tel Aviv on Thursday, June 12. The presenters are American professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

A few preliminary comments are in order. Israel is truly a democratic country where freedom of expression is a prized value, not something to pay lip service to. So the very fact that two professors who for several years have been lambasting Israel and American Jews all over the world are welcomed to Israel, speaks volumes.

Secondly, the subject of the Israel lobby and its impact in America is a legitimate matter for examination. It is always helpful to take a look at the institutions of Israel and American Jews and to ask questions about how they operate and their value to the Jewish State.

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Playing the 'Nakba' Card

As Israelis watched fireworks, went to barbeques and celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut, American media coverage of Israel's 60th anniversary was overwhelmingly canned and formulaic. For every veteran of the Haganah featured, there was an accompanying interview with a Palestinian who left his home in Israel in 1948. For every examination of the significance of six decades of Israel's independence, there was a reference to what Palestinians call the "nakba," or catastrophe.

This symmetry, evident in features, articles, op-eds and interviews that appeared over the weeks leading up to the start of the 60th celebrations, may have made self-satisfied editors believe they were demonstrating their impartiality.  In fact, they established a false moral equivalency between the founding of Israel and a Palestinian "catastrophe," feeding into a dangerous misperception of what happened 60 years ago and what must happen today.

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Reflections on Nazi book burning 75 years later

Seventy-five years ago -- a mere 100 days after Hitler rose to power -- a series of organized book burnings took place throughout Germany. The Nazi assault on reason, and the Jews, had begun.

As I write this from Israel, ten days after commemorating Yam Hashoah, I don't want to let this day pass without thinking about what this fateful event meant to European Jewry and what it means for us today.

I'm sure you have seen the pictures. On May 10, 1933, perhaps the most notable bonfire was the one that took place on Berlin's Opernplatz - Opera House Square -- opposite Humboldt University. This was the fruit of a month-long campaign by the German Student Association to "cleanse" German language and literature. The mission of these right-wing rabble rousers was in line with Joseph Goebbels's propaganda machinery on behalf of the Reich.

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The Pope and the Jews

By most accounts, Pope Benedict XVI's historic first trip to America was a resounding success. While his visits to Washington, D.C. and New York City were primarily an opportunity for him to interact with American Catholics, the media attention brought him as up close and personal as most people will ever get to a Pope.

Despite the brevity of the visit, the pontiff made time to reach out to the Jewish community in symbolic ways. In Washington, he met with Jewish representatives following a larger interfaith gathering at which I was present. In New York City on erev Shabbat, as well as the eve of Passover, he visited an Orthodox synagogue. It was the first time a Pope visited an American synagogue and only the third time in history for any pope to visit a Jewish house of worship (the first being Pope John Paul II's visit to the Rome synagogue, and the second, Benedict XVI's visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Germany).

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'Neutral' on Israel's security

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey's visit to Teheran was billed as an opportunity to deliver a stern message about the need for Iran to end its human rights violations and its threats to destroy Israel. This was according to the government's official announcement of her March 17 diplomatic visit.

As a secondary matter, the announcement noted, Calmy-Rey would attend the signing of a gas deal between Iran and a Swiss energy company.

But Calmy-Rey herself inadvertently exposed the flimsy human rights pretext when she acknowledged on the day of her departure that she was traveling to Teheran in response to Iran's invitation.

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