Premier: Ethiopia World News: Israel & Ethiopian Migration to Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p3fqRjz1YA&feature=related

recall from Part 7, "Falasha," that Israel's goal in allying with Ethiopia was to ensure security of Red Sea, pathway to Persian Gulf.

see also, Arthur Ruppin:

Mark Regev: "Collective mass immigration is behind us."

"Falasha" Torah Believing Ethiopians

Falasha - A certain religious group that were denied the ownership of land.









Graenum Berger(1908-1999) was an American Communal administrator, institutional and communal planner, educator, world traveler, and the founding President of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews.

Born in Gloversville, New York of Jewish immigrant parents, in 1955, Graenum Berger met a group of Ethiopian Jewish students in Israel. He had known there was a Jewish tribe in Ethiopia, but knew little about them. He began reading, and writing letters, and in ten years accumulated a vast file of information. In Ethiopia in 1965, he found penniless Jews (known as Falasha) trying to eke out a primitive living in a country that discriminated against them in every aspect of their lives. As a Jewish communal executive who knew all the professional and volunteer leaders in the American Jewish community, he assumed all he had to do was bring the problems of the Ethiopian Jews to their attention and they would be solved. He also presumed Israel would rise to the occasion and undertake a resettlement effort. He was wrong on both counts. So began his 35 year effort to bring the 50,000 member Ethiopian Jewish community to Israel, which eventually led to Operation Moses in 1984-85, and Operation Solomon in 1991. Shortly before his death, Dr. Berger was asked to comment on the "Felash Mura", descendants if ancient Falasha whose families had long abandoned Judaism. He felt they were not Jews and should not be granted the right to go to Israel under the Law of Return. Regardless, the aliyah of the Felash Mura eventually began and continues to this day at the rate of 300 per month.

Berger was given an old prayer book written in Ge'ez and a circumcision knife by the community that he originally contacted as a thanks. After his death, they were given by his family to the rabbi of a synagogue in New York he was a founding member of, the Pelham Jewish Center.

After 43 years of professional leadership, Berger retired in 1973. He authored a number of books including The Jewish Community as a Fourth Force in American Jewish Life (1966); Black Jews in America (1978); The Turbulent Decades, vol. I and II (1981); an autobiography, Graenum (1987); a biography about his brother, Ambassador Samuel D. Berger, A Not So Silent Envoy in 1992, and a memoir, Rescue the Ethiopian Jews! (1996), the story of his quest. Yeshiva University awarded Graenum the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1973. In 1989, the Graenum Berger Bronx Jewish Federation Service Center, a social welfare agency, was named in his honor. Dr. Berger died in 1999.







Part 7 (1983)

Talking Back to Mondoweiss: 92nd Street Y, J Street, and Perfidy Mar 7 2011

the event at 92nd St Y was scheduled to be video-linked to at least one other location. Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh placed radio ads on the local NPR affiliate -- a week before, then again for two days before the event. It was advertised as "open to the entire community," to hold a "civil discussion" of Israel-Palestine conflict.

I attend most of the J Street events at Temple Sinai or the nearby Jewish Community Center, and have come to know and respect the founder of the local group, Nancy Bernstein, and also have become acquainted with other regular participants in discussions that J Street conducts about every 6 weeks. I'm usually the only non-Jewish person in the group; early on, another non-Jew attended but he has not returned.

The meeting yesterday evening was scheduled to begin at 7:30 but I didn't arrive until 8:00: I was not sure it was a good idea for me to attend; I was afraid I would embarrass myself or say something out of line, so I called a dear friend to discuss with her the advisability of participating in an event that might get heated. I told her that I called her at 6:45 pm so that I would be talking when I should be leaving for the meeting, and our discussion would force a decision-by-default. We talked until 7:45, then I decided to go anyway, hurriedly jumped into the car and got to the event just in time to hear the Rabbi explain that 92nd St Y had "inexplicably" canceled the event in NYC, so we would not hear Christiane Amanpour.

Instead, four members of the congregation who were going to moderate the 92nd Street program, were called upon to pinch hit: each of the four spoke for 5 minutes (the Rabbi timed each and kept the event under tight order). Then, members of the audience were given one minute (timed by the Rabbi) to ask a question, and the four member panel responded. Only 4 or 5 questions from the audience were handled in that way.
Although the event was advertised to and for the broad community, once again, I'm pretty sure I was the only non-Jew among the 50 to 75 participants. No person who was not Jewish made any comment or was heard.
Phil and Adam, you know that I am an antisemite; that's why you banned me.
I wasn't always an antisemite. Years ago I lived in the home of a Jewish family who were members of Temple Sinai. My position in the family was as a companion to the family's elderly matriarch; I had accompanied her to Temple Sinai on numerous occasions. I loved Ida K. and she loved me, like mother and daughter.

Perhaps that's why it is so painful to hear hate and mendacity that I heard last night at Temple Sinai.

God bless Dr. Naftali, who spoke first, and, I thought, laid a foundation for what seemed to suggest a very different approach to the issue. Naftali said he wished to speak "not about what has happened but what is possible." He told the audience he was born in Haifa in 1951, and that from his early childhood he remembered how much he enjoyed the fine wood and beautiful details of the home where he lived with his parents, holocaust survivors. The house had been the home of a Palestinian family. He knew that in one part of his being; it was a fact like any other that a child knows. Dr. Naftali said that he matured, he realized that "the catastrophe of others was the price of his good life." Naftali spoke of the excitement and joy of the 1967 war, and also of the thrill of fear that he can still feel from that event. He marked it as the moment when Israel lost its soul. He called the twelve years after intifada (? or Oslo? my notes are fragmented) a "moral wasteland" for Israel.

In discussing his military service, Naftali noted that he lost 3 friends, who for some unknown reason were in Beirut when Israel started "that disgusting and immoral war" against Lebanon that was waged "for no reason other than to maintain dominance of power."

Similarly, Naftali registered abhorrence at the Gaza campaign, in which he lost three dear friends -- Dr. Abuelaish's children, who were known to him and were friends of his. This was the ONLY TIME in the entire duration of the event that Dr. Abuelaish was mentioned.

Then the other three persons began their comments. It was appalling. Nancy was first; even she slid into the standard Israel first rhetoric that someone like me recognizes all too frequently. Jewish people seem to have silos of thinking and speaking, and a rehearsed set of statements; it's as if their brains are cast in a mould that can comprehend and express only a pre-formed thought process and is incapable of even acknowledging that a different way of assessing facts, or a different set of facts, might exist. Nancy's comments were otherwise unremarkable: "growing up in DC I know the pain of My People . . .two-state is possible; 2400 people in DC; 500 students from 128 colleges -- the BEST colleges; 700 people lobbied Congress; Israel faces a threat to its Jewish character . . ."

The other two speakers were repugnantly and repulsively anti-Palestinian. One of those two, a past head of the local AIPAC, insisted that "Israel wants peace," then recited a list of headlines from Palestinian Authority media with the purpose of demonstrating that there IS no partner for peace. He said that Palestinians had squandered every opportunity for peace, listing from 1937 to the present the 6 or 7 opportunities that Palestinians had jettisoned. The former AIPAC leader was incensed at the notion that the US administration should be involved in pressuring Israel to make peace; it's condescending and patronizing." [So why was he a part of AIPAC, whose mission is to lobby US Congress on behalf of Israel?] He insisted that "settlements are not the issue; it's not about land," but rather, about the "existential threat to the Jewish people," and, his coup de grâce: the Palestinian Authority refuses to teach their children about the Holocaust. "We need to look into the education of Palestinian children; they need to learn about the holocaust."

Nancy affirmed Mr. AIPAC's declaration-- "Many children are not exposed" to holocaust education." She registered disappointment that no Palestinians were in the audience or on the panel, and said that future events would attempt to change that.

Mr. AIPAC said "J Street is the wrong tool to use,"

Most of the discussion between the panel members and between panel-and-audience devolved into "J Street good" "J Street bad" inside-Jewish-baseball attacks and counter-attacks.

As I recall them, the questions from the audience raised these issues:
Question 1. "Most Palestinians are Jordanian, so shouldn't they go back to Jordan." Responders corrected the Questioner's misapprehension, and asserted that "Jews should be able to live in Palestine and Palestinians should be able to live in Israel."

Question 2. "Al Jazeera reported that Wikileaks revealed that Palestinians made many, many concessions that were ignored." Response: [this is a direct quote]: IN THEIR MINDS they made concessions -- they've lost so many wars, they SHOULD make concessions." The responder continued, The Israelis are wise to proceed as they have; I trust Israel's government; they have been elected by the people.

Question 3. "First, Israel treats people badly. My second point, when Gershom Gorenberg spoke here he told us that settlements are illegal, and that Israel knows that the settlements are illegal." Can you comment? [I was at the Gershom Gorenberg talk. He showed on the large screen the document stating that the Israeli settlements are illegal. He came upon the document in archives that he spent five years attempting to search.]

My notes about the response to that questioner say only that Mr. AIPAC said, "thank god for Christian zionists."

I'm afraid I didn't stay and mingle after the panel was dismissed and people made their exits. I should have at least offered Dr. Naftali my hand in support; he was badly outnumbered. As I recall, 'Naftali' is a Sephardic name. I further recall David Sasha's explanation of pilpul-- it is an Ashkenazi technique, not practiced by Sephardic scholars. Facts are sometimes inconvenient things; Dr. Naftali has taken account of facts as they are, not as the received (Ashkenazi) narrative declares them to be. Since his mind is not pre-formed, he is able to make adjustment for other versions of reality without losing his identity.

And as I review my notes on the questions, it is heartening to see that most of the questioners were, like Dr. Naftali, far more rational and critical in their understanding than were three of the four panelists. "If the people lead, the leaders will follow."

The Rabbi closed the event with a brief explanation of a Torah passage (sorry, I don't have the citation) -- about two kinds of argument: "argument NOT for the sake of heaven," and "argument FOR the sake of heaven." He urged the group to argue FOR the sake of heaven.

Arthur Ruppin and Nazi Eugenics as Model for Hebrew Culture

Selections from, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture a dissertation submitted by Etan Bloom for the PhD at Tel Aviv University, December 2008.

"Throughout most of his career, Ruppin was in close relations with the academic field of German race scientists, who operated during the thirties with Nazi support and provided them with scientific legitimization and ideas. This group was not only among the first scientists to join the Nazi party, they were also involved in shaping the general lines of its policy to exclude the handicapped, Gypsies and Jews. Until the final solution stage of the Nazi policy, which began sometime at the end of the thirties, Ruppin was able to understand them perfectly, and to agree that their attitude towards the Jews was only natural."166

165 On the use of Ruppin and other Jewish resarchers by Nazi scholarship see: (Steinweis 2006, 19-22).
166 Ruppin’s relationship with the Nazi scientist Hans Günter and an assessment of his weltanschauung with regard to the Nazis, will be discussed at the end of this work.

3.9 The End of Theory [pp 146-147]
At the end of the 19th century, there was not a major thinker in any movement (from
liberalism and socialism to Zionism and nationalism) who did not use at least
Darwinian or biological arguments and often eugenic ones. In this regard, Ruppin is
typical and not an anomaly. Indeed, Ruppin was following many other Jewish and
Zionist racial scientists, including Elias Auerbach, Aron Sandler, Felix Theilhaber,
Ignaz Zollschan, S.A. Weissenberg, Redcliffe N. Salman and Joseph Jacobs, who
wrote the foreword to the English version of Ruppin’s The Jews of Today, and whom
Efron calls the first “racial Jewish scientist” (Efron 1994, 58). All of them were
motivated by a perceived need to end Jewish intermarriage and preserve Jewish racial
purity. Most of them believed that only by creating a Jewish homeland and by
reducing the assimilatory influences of the Diaspora, could Jews preserve their unique racial heritage (Gilman 1993, 109; Efron 1994, 136, 155). Race was at the essence of Zionist cultural identity. Since Zionism lacked many of the attributes associated with nationhood – common territory, language conduct and customs – race was an Archimedean point for constituting a nation (Hart 1995, 166; Falk 2006).
The Jewish racial scientists and thinkers became the subject of intensive and vibrant
research in the second part of the 1990s. Efron’s The Defenders of Race, Mitchel
Hart’s Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity and many others
described their theories and cultural identity and included Ruppin among them.
Nevertheless, what makes Ruppin’s case so different from that of the other social scientists is that he was able, like only few other eugenicists (e.g. Galton), to undertake a practical implementation of his ideas, as will be discussed in chapter five.
Indeed, as Penslar notes, there were other attempts at social engineering of the Jews, and at linking Jewish economic and physical health with planned colonization. This frame of work was shared by a variety of Jewish international relief agencies that experimented, from the 1870s until the 1930s, with social engineering in South
America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East (Penslar 2001, 223). Nevertheless, the
Palestinian-Zionist project was the only one of these experiments to succeed in
radically transforming modern Jewish identity and, in particular, the Jewish body. The successes of Zionism cannot be overestimated: from one of the many political and cultural options for identity in the culture space of the turn of the century it became, at the end of the twentieth century, a cultural synonym for Judaism.

Zionist ideology was for Ruppin – like, previously, religion – a vehicle
for eugenic codes and practices. When Ruppin wrote, at the beginning of the 1940s,
about the modern Hebrews who were born in the Land of Israel (the so-called Sabars),
he referred to them as a new sub-race, “the Maccabean type,” which had emerged, in
his opinion, as a result of his culture planning activities:182 “Most of the young
generation in the Land display a new type of Jew, a kind of Maccabean type from the
past” (Ruppin 1940b, 287). [Bloom p. 144]

181 (Sadeh 1945, 155-158). Sadeh’s story and images are prevalent in Israeli education system until today. See for example the Institute for Holidays, an internet site that provides stories and other texts
for teachers in kindergartens and schools [www.chagim.org.il/d.html#1].
182 As we shall see, Ruppin believed that his eugenic culture plan was working, see e.g. what he wrote at the end of the 1920s: “If today the level of the diligence of the agriculture workers is greater then 10 or 15 years ago we must first of all give the credit for that to the work of selection among the groups [kvutzot]. From the thousands that passed through the groups, a large part was discarded, maybe most of them. Those who stayed were those who passed the test of fire” (Ruppin 1928, 42).

Selections from, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture a dissertation submitted for the PhD at Tel Aviv University, December 2008.

"Throughout most of his career, Ruppin was in close relations with the academic field of German race scientists, who operated during the thirties with Nazi support and provided them with scientific legitimization and ideas. This group was not only among the first scientists to join the Nazi party, they were also involved in shaping the general lines of its policy to exclude the handicapped, Gypsies and Jews. Until the final solution stage of the Nazi policy, which began sometime at the end of the thirties, Ruppin was able to understand them perfectly, and to agree that their attitude towards the Jews was only natural."166

165 On the use of Ruppin and other Jewish resarchers by Nazi scholarship see: (Steinweis 2006, 19-22).
166 Ruppin’s relationship with the Nazi scientist Hans Günter and an assessment of his weltanschauung with regard to the Nazis, will be discussed at the end of this work.

3.9 The End of Theory [pp 146-147]
At the end of the 19th century, there was not a major thinker in any movement (from liberalism and socialism to Zionism and nationalism) who did not use at least Darwinian or biological arguments and often eugenic ones. In this regard, Ruppin is typical and not an anomaly. Indeed, Ruppin was following many other Jewish and Zionist racial scientists, including Elias Auerbach, Aron Sandler, Felix Theilhaber, Ignaz Zollschan, S.A. Weissenberg, Redcliffe N. Salman and Joseph Jacobs, who wrote the foreword to the English version of Ruppin’s The Jews of Today, and whom Efron calls the first “racial Jewish scientist” (Efron 1994, 58). All of them were motivated by a perceived need to end Jewish intermarriage and preserve Jewish racial purity. Most of them believed that only by creating a Jewish homeland and by reducing the assimilatory influences of the Diaspora, could Jews preserve their unique racial heritage (Gilman 1993, 109; Efron 1994, 136, 155). Race was at the essence of Zionist cultural identity. Since Zionism lacked many of the attributes associated with nationhood – common territory, language conduct and customs – race was an Archimedean point for constituting a nation (Hart 1995, 166; Falk 2006).
The Jewish racial scientists and thinkers became the subject of intensive and vibrant research in the second part of the 1990s. Efron’s The Defenders of Race, Mitchel Hart’s Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity and many others described their theories and cultural identity and included Ruppin among them.
Nevertheless, what makes Ruppin’s case so different from that of the other social scientists is that he was able, like only few other eugenicists (e.g. Galton), to undertake a practical implementation of his ideas, as will be discussed in chapter five.
Indeed, as Penslar notes, there were other attempts at social engineering of the Jews, and at linking Jewish economic and physical health with planned colonization. This frame of work was shared by a variety of Jewish international relief agencies that experimented, from the 1870s until the 1930s, with social engineering in South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East (Penslar 2001, 223). Nevertheless, the Palestinian-Zionist project was the only one of these experiments to succeed in radically transforming modern Jewish identity and, in particular, the Jewish body. The successes of Zionism cannot be overestimated: from one of the many political and cultural options for identity in the culture space of the turn of the century it became, at the end of the twentieth century, a cultural synonym for Judaism.

Zionist ideology was for Ruppin – like, previously, religion – a vehicle for eugenic codes and practices. When Ruppin wrote, at the beginning of the 1940s, about the modern Hebrews who were born in the Land of Israel (the so-called Sabars), he referred to them as a new sub-race, “the Maccabean type,” which had emerged, in his opinion, as a result of his culture planning activities:182 “Most of the young generation in the Land display a new type of Jew, a kind of Maccabean type from the past” (Ruppin 1940b, 287). [Bloom p. 144]

181 (Sadeh 1945, 155-158). Sadeh’s story and images are prevalent in Israeli education system until today. See for example the Institute for Holidays, an internet site that provides stories and other texts
for teachers in kindergartens and schools [www.chagim.org.il/d.html#1].
182 As we shall see, Ruppin believed that his eugenic culture plan was working, see e.g. what he wrote at the end of the 1920s: “If today the level of the diligence of the agriculture workers is greater then 10 or 15 years ago we must first of all give the credit for that to the work of selection among the groups [kvutzot]. From the thousands that passed through the groups, a large part was discarded, maybe most of them. Those who stayed were those who passed the test of fire” (Ruppin 1928, 42).

5.1.8. The Borders of the Modern Hebrew Social Space
[…] there is not a single nation of the white race that is racially pure […] Only a part of any nation will correspond to the description of a particular racial group given by the anthropologists, and may thus be regarded as of pure race Ruppin, 194031 . . .

In his memorandum of 1907, Ruppin repeated, in a general way, the analysis he had presented in The Jews of Today. He described the groups existing at the time in the social field of Palestine and analyzed their position with regard to the new social field he planned to establish. As mentioned in the weltanschauung chapter, Ruppin aspired to create a new biological type for the new Jewish society in Palestine, and, as the new source or “gene pool” for this new Jewish Volkskorper, he chose the East European Jews (Ruppin also made divisions within that group, as will be described later).
The two groups that Ruppin saw as unsuitable and even antagonistic to his plans were, on the one hand, the Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews and, on the other, theSephardic and Oriental Jews whom, as he put it, he “lumped together” and defined disparagingly as “Oriental or Eastern Jews” [Heb. yehudey hamizrach].

31 (Ruppin 1940, 18). The title of the chapter in which this text appears is: Race; the conception of race; racial purity.

204
In his lecture The Land of Israel in the Year 1907, which he delivered to The Jewish Settlement Association in Vienna in 1908, Ruppin divided the Jewish population of Palestine into what he defined as four “distinct strata” (Ruppin 1908, 1):
“The first is made up of those Sephardic Jews who have lived in the country for centuries, have become closely assimilated, in mores and in their general mode of life, to the local Arabs and who, side by side with Ladino, speak Arabic too. A good picture of the life of these Jews is furnished by the town of Saida (the ancient Sidon) where 2,000 Jews – all of them Sephardic – may be found. They receive no Chalukkah, earn a difficult and pitiful living as small merchants and artisans, are poorly educated and of a not particularly high moral standing. The Jews of Morocco, Persia and the Yemen, who have come into Palestine in recent years, may be lumped together with this group” (ibid). This group, according to Ruppin, though “poorly educated” and lacking a “particularly high moral standing,” had one advantage: “They receive no Chalukkah”; an important sign of their productivity. In these early definitions we can detect Ruppin’s constant urge to verify his theoretical writings concerning the Semites through his observations in the Middle Eastern and Palestinian social field. As described at length, the ‘Orientals’ were always marked by him as unintelligent, nonmodern, bestial and immoral. Their only good quality and path for regeneration lay in their ability to be useful as an unskilled workforce.
The second group, as defined by Ruppin, was the Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox, (Heb. Charedim) who consisted mostly of an unproductive and aged population that was almost entirely dependent on the Chalukkah. The attitude of Ruppin to orthodox Jewry has already been described, and, as in other cases, his observations in Palestine corroborated his theory for he believed that, at least in Palestine, this group was in gradual decline.33
Ruppin’s hostility to these two groups intensified during the 1920s and he saw them as a constant threat to the new social field he was creating. In a letter to Jakobson in1922 he described these two groups – the Orthodox and the

33 As with many other models, this perception became part of the labor movement leadership’s

205
Sephardic – as the “hidden opponents” of the New Yishuv, which he characterized in this letter as the “organized ethnic group” [Heb. eda meurgenet] (Bein 1968, III, 32).
The third group defined by Ruppin was that of the so-called First Aliyah, which
suffered, according to his analysis, from several weaknesses caused by their economic structure being heavily based on the generosity of Baron de Rothschild. The Baron’s unconditional philanthropy led to an ever-weakening connection between them and the land, since it was not developed through their efforts and work but fell into their hands “as a present” (Ruppin 1908/1998, 209). It is important to emphasize that this specific criticism will shape his attitude to the young immigrants of the Second Aliyah.
According to Ruppin, this indifference to the land was the reason for the First Aliyah’s declining “enthusiasm,” – equated in Ruppin’s vocabulary with the “vital force” that his monistic weltanschauung regarded as the most important “element” or “energy” and the necessary quality for becoming a part of the New Yishuv’s Volkskorper. The failure of the First Aliyah is made evident by the fact that their children, the next generation, emigrated permanently from the country, leaving their places for Arab workers (Ruppin 1908/1998, 210).34
Having dismissed these three groups out of hand, Ruppin did however find a fourth, group that he considered a positive asset. This was composed of young immigrants from Eastern Europe who, according to his analysis, were in the first stage of constructive organization. This was the group that Ruppin felt included the best candidates for the mission at hand, which was to constitute the foundation of the healthy Volkskorper but “naturally,” they could succeed only if treated and molded according to the scientific conceptions of modern social sciences and eugenics.
According to Ruppin, this group could become a new “species” or “type” of Jew that would not suffer from the problems of the other groups, those that had to be held back, limited, marginalized or even rejected from the new social space and certainly from its dominant groups.
To Ruppin, reducing the dominance of the first three groups was a mission of no less importance than that of furthering the fourth group and was connected with his attempts to “inherit the land” as rapidly as possible; the same urgency that he exhibited in occupying the land had its parallel in his haste to occupy the social space by creating a new species of Jew, i.e., the Modern Hebrew, to be selected from the pool of young East European immigrants:




34 Needless to say, Ruppin’s assessments and differentiations as sketched above were a result of his weltanschauung and efforts to promote his culture plan rather than of the Palestinian “reality.” E.g., in his accounts, Ruppin ignored the fact that the upper class of the Sephardic community cooperated from the first stages with the “Ashkenazi modernists” and constituted an important link with the Ottoman rulers (Halpern & Reinharz 2000, 198-200). On many of the Second Aliyah working sites, the Sephardic and Oriental Jews– both natives and immigrants – had an important role in the labor and guard forces, and, as we shall see later, those of them who aspired to a greater involvement in creating the modern Hebrew space were usually rejected. The same goes for Ruppin’s assessment of the First Aliyah’s contribution as well as for his premise that there is an essential contradiction between modernity and religion.
206
“We must see most of the Eastern Europeans as desirable Olim [immigrants].
[…] because by transferring people considered morally inferior from one land to
another we are not enhancing their value, and what is more, these morally
inferior people are in most cases, ruining good social institutions” (Ruppin
1919e, 373).
Nevertheless, the fact that the “desirable” immigrants were East Europeans, i.e.
Ashkenazi, did not on its own qualify them. More than anyone else in the Zionist
movement, Ruppin emphasized in his writings and implemented in his practice, the
importance of selecting what he defined as Menschmaterial:

“We devoted ourselves extensively to the question of the economic, legal and
social structure of the Jewish society which we were erecting in Palestine but in
this we proceeded very much like a physicist who makes his calculation on
motion without taking into account the pressure of the atmosphere. We assumed
that all we needed to do was find a good social structure, proclaim it by fiat, and
presto, it would be there. We seemed to forget that even the best of social
structures become flesh and blood realities only by virtue of the individuals who
fit into them and that if the individuals who make up the society do not, in their
education, occupation and character, belong to that structure, they will either
alter its form or else reduce it to an empty shell” (Ruppin 1919d, 373).

This text reflects how Ruppin took the Zionist enterprise from its ideological phase into a phase of culture planning based on eugenic perceptions and, in particular, on the practice of selection. The Jews now became “human material,” a perception which legitimized and enabled the PO to increase its intervention in molding that “material.”

5.2 The Selection of Human Material for Palestine 5.2.1 “Enthusiasm” as “vital force”
The years to come will pass judgment on my work in Palestine. I can only say that I have always considered it my principal object to keep alive in those with whom I have worked the enthusiasm which they brought with them to Palestine. I have tried to guard the flame of this enthusiasm and work by its light .Ruppin36
In the Jews of the East [Europe], he [Ruppin] saw the starting point for the contin-uation of the line; in the most enthusiastic among them, the ancient genealogy. A.Tz’ioni37
As in Ruppin’s vocabulary in general, the meaning of the concept “enthusiasm” or “enthusiast,” (derived, in Hebrew, from the word for flame=lehava) in the above quotations is pregnant with eugenic meaning.38 As already mentioned, the concept of the “vital force” was linked to the concept of “energy” and to Ruppin’s monistic weltanschauung. According his bio-Volkisch perception, the appropriate match between the racial type and the particular type of soil that suited it was a necessary condition for the vitality and creativity of a given type. According to this logic, Ruppin figured that the immigrants who were more “enthusiastic” for the land, who were more connected to it and interacted well with its soil, were more likely to belong to the “ancient genealogy,” as Tz’ioni put it, or to the “Continuität des Keimplasmas” (the continuation of the germ plasma) as Ruppin described it (Ruppin 1903c, 197); i.e. they were more likely to be related biologically to the ancient, “Ur” (original) or “pure race Jews.” In other words, since Ruppin’s bio-historical proposition was that his Darwinismus und Sozialwissenschaft as “the vital force”
This concept – elaborated by Alfred Ploetz (1860-1940), is connected with the concept of Vitalrasse which means a stock with a good intersection of genetic lines of transmission

35 The most positive characteristic of the “desirable element” was what Ruppin had defined already in . (Erblinien). Vitalism saw life as driven by a harmonious final stage. It meant that cells and organisms had an innate drive towards a whole or harmonious form (Hutton 2005, 17, 27). On the particular vitalism of Ruppin, see also: (Penslar 1987; Bein 1968, I, 22).
36 (Ruppin 1936a, 152).
37 (Tzioni 1943, 4).
38 The particular quality that Ruppin sought in the young immigrants was what hardly any writer, from Renan to Ruppin, fails to mention, that is “indomitable ambition as an outstanding feature of the Jews, and added to their other qualities enumerated above it naturally makes them formidable exponents of the will to power, and ruthless competitors in any contest for influence and ascen-dancy.” The Jews, and the Jews in England, (Cobbet 1938) chapter IV, Character of the Jews.
. . .
341
5.2.8 The Kulturkampf of the Workers and Ruppin’s Educational Principles
The term “culture war” (Heb. milchemet tarbut or milchemet koltura) and even the original German expression Kulturkampf was used explicitly and frequently in the workers’ leading magazine Hapoel Hatzair with regard to various forms of Diaspora Judaism. The Kulturkampf was not directed only against the mentalities of the religious or assimilated Jews of the Diaspora or that of the ultra-orthodox communities in the holy cities of Palestine, but mainly against what might be termed the internal galut, the one that the Second Aliya people carried in their memories and bodies. . . .

The educational perceptions of the Degania members, their attitude to their galut parents and to their “ghetto bodies” reflected Ruppin’s weltanschauung and suggest that the rejection of the intellectual and of intellectualism was one of the dominant factors in the natural selection of the groups. As already noted, and contrary to some of the impressions prevailing in Germany and America, the Second Aliya workers opposed any sign of intellectualism, and many of them were even against reading. In 1910, one of the workers wrote that in the Galilee:

“neither the farmers’ sons nor the workers read much […] the place is ruled by the axiom that anyone who reads too many books is not qualified for work and doesn’t have the talent for it. This [not reading] is the sign of a ‘natural farmer’ and ‘natural worker’ […]” (Yardeni,Shochat 1930, 36).
Thus, as this quote reaffirms, many of the Second Aliyah workers not only lacked education, they actually celebrated ignorance as a sign of a healthy mind and body (Elboim-Dror 1996, 118, 127).
These poetic and ideological views were always connected in Ruppin’s weltanschauung to race and biology. The intellectual Jew who was exposed to the temptations of the modern Christian world would always tend to assimilate. The paradox was that the “excessive intellectualism” of the Jewish race was actually one of the reasons for its degeneration. Using the same logic that made the social Darwinists perceive the “excessive treatment” of modern medicine as an impingement
on natural selection, Ruppin saw in the Intellectualismus of the Jews one of their dysgenic fac-tors. As Gilman points out, Ruppin’s view that those who were labeled ‘intellectuals’ (intelligensia) tended to leave the faith and undergo baptism was a common turn of the century perception.
“In Vienna, fully one quarter of the Jews baptized belonged to the Intelligensia.
In the discourse of the time, on the superior Jewish intelligence, belonging to the
intelligentsia might signal a rejection of one’s Jewish identity and a flight into
mixed-race relationships with all their attendant dangers” (Gilman 1996, 78).
As noted already, Ruppin’s eugenic plan, and his constant anti-intellectualist position,
was devised to curb this trend of European Jews.227

223 As already discussed, according to Ruppin’s racial theories, the preservation and improvement of the Jew could occur only if there was a wide base of agricultural Jews. For him the “pathological” condition of the galut Jews could be solved only by a reversal of the pyramid of Jewish occupations, which was build on a wide base of merchants.
224 E.g. Oppenheimer: “For certainly in the situation in which most Jews in the Diaspora find
themselves today, this intellectualism is very nearly their only weapon in the struggle for existence, but it is unhealthy, it represents a one-sided, almost monstrous development, and the goal of all education and all true humanism (Menschentum) is the harmony of body and soul, a healthy soul in a healthy body” (Oppenheimer 1931, 220).
225 Ruppin’s ideas are similar to those of Borochov (Levita 1966, III, 776-777), but also to those of the Monist League which believed that, since man is limited by his animal nature, he can only weaken himself by attempting to impose upon life an erroneous intellectualism and rationalism (Gasman 1971, 35).

Gilad Atzmon: Zionism is AntiSemitic

Milton Friedman: Capitalism & Jews (video)

There are problems with Milton Friedman's version of history:

1. he insists that "governments did not protect Jews."
a. But did "governments protect" ANYBODY? Was it not just Jews that were not protected by government? Was it ONLY Jews who were oppressed by governments? ie. Bank of St George: did that bank protect Italians in preference to Jews?

2. Friedman says, since governments don't protect Jews, and Jews have been persecuted for 2000 years, Jews do better in free competition. Therefore, Jews prefer free markets and minimal government -- "it's good for the Jews." BUT IT'S NOT GOOD FOR EVERYBODY ELSE. Jews don't care: as Friedman says, Jews have never had universalist ethics, only tribal.

3. Alan Greensapan's theory was WRONG; he said so in Senate Hearing Aug 23 2009 (I think). The entire US and much of West suffered because Greenspan was wrong.
Friedman was WRONG. Presumably, it was at his insistence that Glass Steagall was struck down, via Phil Gramm. The entire US and must of the West suffered because Friedman was wrong -- but it was good for Jews: Jewish bankers like Citicorp, AIG, Goldman, got government bailouts.
see Chalmers Johnson on Apr 21, 2000, C Span, re "Blowback," and Jacob Heilbrunn's refutation of Johnson's thesis. Heilbrunn ended his comments with: "Was Chalmers right or wrong? Was he a prophet or King Canute?" Heilbrunn had argued that Robert Kagan's theory, that US should impose democracy throughout the world, was "right" and, presumably, would bring about Canute-style peace at home and abroad. Eleven years later, we see that Heillbrunn/Kagan were wrong; Johnson was Prophet.
If these Jewish intellectuals have such a record of being so wrong, with such negative consequences for so many, why are they still revered as intellectual giants, or even competents? They are faqirs!

4. Friedman said that Jews did not thrive in Nazi/socialist Germany, but he is wrong. Rothschild and Warburg set WWI in motion and also profited from WWII, as well as in zionism. Reasonable hypothesis that Nazism was a resistance movement to zionism.
1933 Transfer Agreement: the thousands of Jews who took money out of Germany.

Friedman says Jews thrived in Hollywood because they created the industry, but he's incorrect: Jews in Hollywood followed on Germany creativity, traded mostly with Germany, UNTIL 1933, when Jews in the US, flush with money taken out of Germany in Transfer Agreement, were able to separate themselves from Germany and started to create propaganda films AGAINST Germany, and so urged US to wage war ON Germany, in suppport of British imperialist wars, waged by Churchill, contrary to FDR preference.

re WWI, see Chris Hedges: European bankers forced Wilson into war. (Recall: Jekyll Island, 1913; WWI, 1914. Niall Ferguson: Rothschild most powerful man in Europe; if he wanted war, there was war.

Friedmann twists history to suit his narrative.


from Gilad Atzmon,

Monday, January 3, 2011 at 9:37PM AuthorGilad Atzmon

Given the severity and uncertainty of the economic crisis we are all experiencing, I suggest we look once more at the work of Milton Friedman, the leading economist and a staunch advocate of hard capitalism.

During the 1960s -80s Friedman was regarded by many academics, politicians and world leaders as the most important post- World War Two economist. Friedman was chief economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Menachem Begin. He also went on record advising the Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

It is far from surprising to note that more and more commentators have realised in recent years that it was Friedman’s ideology and advocacy of free enterprise, zero governmental intervention and privatisation that has led to the current financial turmoil. It was Milton Friedman’s philosophy that also contributed to the transformation of the West into a service economy.

But Friedman wasn’t just an economist: he was also a devout Zionist and a very proud Jew. Friedman was interested in the role of the Jews in world finance and politics. He also attempted to analyse and understand the attitude of Jews towards wealth. In 1972 Friedman spoke to The Mont Pelerin Society about “Capitalism and the Jews”. In 1978 he repeated the same talk, addressing Jewish students at the Chicago University’s Hillel institute.

I'd suggest that Friedman deserves our immediate attention, since he contributed to the rise of an ideology and school of thought that bears some responsibility for the rearrangement (some might say dismantling ) of the West's economy.

The Jewish Paradox

Friedman was, no doubt, a sharp intellect, and could offer sharp and succinct criticism. Yet, Friedman was not entirely 'a cosmopolitan' in every sense of that word, since he was deeply involved in Jewish concerns and Zionist affairs, and he was deliberately open and transparent about being so.

In the talks he gave in 1972 and 1978, Friedman examined a unique Jewish paradox : “Here are two propositions,” he said. “Each of them are validated by evidence yet they are both incompatible one with the other.”

The first proposition is that “there are few peoples if any in the world who owe so great a debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism as the Jews.“

The second proposition is that “there are few peoples or any in the world who have done so much to undermine the intellectual foundation of capitalism as the Jews.”

How do we reconcile these two contradictory propositions?

As one may gather by now, Friedman, the free enterprise advocate, was clearly convinced that monopoly and government intervention were bad news in general; but, more crucially for him, they were also very bad for the Jews.

“Wherever there is a monopoly, whether it be private or governmental, there is room for the application of arbitrary criteria in the selection of the beneficiaries of the monopoly—whether these criteria be color of skin, religion, national origin or what not. Where there is free competition, only performance counts.”

Friedman, clearly prefers competition. According to him “the market is color blind. No one who goes to the market to buy bread knows or cares whether the wheat was grown by a Jew, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, or atheist; by whites or blacks.”

Friedman’s elaborates further: “Any miller who wishes to express his personal prejudices by buying only from preferred groups is at a competitive disadvantage, since he is keeping himself from buying from the cheapest source. He can express his prejudice, but he will have to do so at his own expense, accepting a lower monetary income than he could otherwise earn.”

“Jews” Friedman continues, “have flourished most in those countries in which competitive capitalism had the greatest scope: Holland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Britain and the U.S. in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.”

According to Friedman, it is also no accident that Jews suffered the most in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, for these countries clearly defied free market ideology.

One may suggest at this point, that though it is undoubtedly true that Jews suffered in Soviet Russia and in Nazi Germany, and though it is also true that these countries defied free market ideology -- Friedman fails to establish a causal or even rational relationship between the opposition to the free market, and anti Jewish policies.

However, the message Friedman conveys is clear -- Jews do benefit from hard capitalism and competitive markets.

Yet, Friedman is also genuinely intrigued by Jewish intellectuals' affinity with anti-Capitalism : “Jews have been a stronghold of anti-capitalist sentiment. From Karl Marx through Leon Trotsky to Herbert Marcuse, a sizable fraction of the revolutionary anti-capitalist literature has been authored by Jews.”

How could that be, Friedman wonders? Why is it that, despite the historical record of the benefits of competitive capitalism to the Jews; despite the intellectual explanation of this phenomenon that is implicit or explicit in much liberal literature from at least Adam Smith onwards, the Jews have been disproportionately anti-capitalist?

Friedman considers some answers --

Rather often we hear from Jews on the left that their affinity to humanitarian issues is driven by their ‘Jewish humanist heritage’. More than once I myself have commented that this is an utter lie. There is no such a Jewish heritage. Driven by tribal precepts, both Judaism and 'Jewish ideology' are devoid of universal ethics. If there are some remote patches of humanism in Jewish culture, these are certainly far from being universal.

Friedman, however, offered a further take on the subject: In direct reference to Lawrence Fuchs who argues that the anti-capitalism of the Jews is a “direct reflection of values derived from the Jewish religion and culture,” Friedman wonders -- if Jewish culture is, indeed, inherently anti capitalist (as Fuchs suggests) how is it then, that Jews failed to successfully combat Capitalism and free markets throughout their history? Friedman analyses that whilst “Jewish religion and culture date back over two millennia; the Jewish opposition to capitalism and attachment to socialism, is at the most, less than two centuries.”

Being a sharp intellect then, Friedman managed to dismantle Fuchs’s argument. He managed to counter the argument that Jewish culture is inherently socialist or humanist. If Judaism is, indeed, inherently and innately bound to such ethics, how is it that this humanism failed to become dominant throughout Jewish history?

Friedman also reflects in a surprisingly respectful manner, on the writing of alleged anti Semite Werner Sombart’s The Jews and Modern Capitalism. Sombart identifies Jewish ideology at the heart of capitalism. “Throughout the centuries, the Jews championed the cause of individual liberty in economic activity against the dominating view of the time. The individual was not to be hampered by regulations of any sort. I think that the Jewish religion has the same leading ideas as capitalism . . . “(1)

Though Jewish intellectuals at the time were largely unhappy with Sombart’s book, Milton Friedman is brave enough to admit that there is nothing in Sombart’s book itself to justify any charge of anti-Semitism (though, he argues, there certainly is in Sombart’s later work). Friedman, a proud capitalist, tends actually to interpret Sombart’s book as “philo-Semitic”.

“If, like me”, says Friedman, “you regard competitive capitalism as the economic system that is most favorable to individual freedom, to creative accomplishments in technology and the arts, and to the widest possible opportunities for the ordinary man, then you will regard Sombart’s assignment to the Jews of a key role in the development of capitalism as high praise. You will, as I do, regard his book as philo-Semitic. “

Milton Friedman may even agree with early Marx, that Capitalism is Jewish 'by nature'. Yet, while Marx believed that in order for the world to liberate itself from Capitalism it had better emancipate itself from the Jews (3), for Friedman capitalism is of profound value and to be respected, and Jews should be praised for their inherent bond with this philosophy and its diverse ramifications. As far as Friedman is concerned, for Capitalism to prevail, Jews should continue to do what they are good at: and that is to trade freely in an open and competitive market.

Friedman seems to dismiss the presumed 'intellectual honesty' behind Jewish affiliation with the left and anti capitalism: He tends to argue that the Jewish intellectual inclination towards the left is a direct outcome of some political and historical circumstances, rather than ethical or ideological choice. He explains that, in his view, Jewish affiliation with the left is the product of a particular occurrence in Europe in the nineteenth century.

“Beginning with the era of the French revolution, the European political spectrum became divided into a “Left” and a “Right” along an axis that involved the issue of secularism. The Right (conservative, Monarchical, “clerical”) maintained that there must be a place for the church in the public order; the left (democratic, liberal, radical) held that there can be no Church at all . . . .”

It was only natural, then, for the Jews to join the left -- in fact Jews could only join the left.

“The axis separating left from right also formed a natural boundary for the pale of Jewish political participation. It was the left, with its new secular concept of citizenship, that had accomplished the Emancipation, and it was only the left that could see a place for the Jews in public life.”

Such a reasoning, then, views Jewish affiliation with the left as a politically opportunistic move instead of a form of ‘moral awakening’.

Such a reading of the 'Jewish left' reaffirms my own critical assessment. It also explains why some Jews join the left -- they support cosmopolitanism, solidarity, an international working class; and yet, they themselves often seem to prefer to operate within ‘Jews only’ racially orientated cells such as the Bund, Jewish Socialists or even Jews For Boycott of Israeli Goods. Friedman’s reasoning might also explain why so many Jews who had their roots in the so- called ‘left’, ended up preaching moral interventionism and Neo Conservatism.(4)

Friedman argues also, that Jewish affiliation with the left might be better understood as an attempt to disown some anti Semitic stereotypes of the Jew as being “a merchant or moneylender who put commercial interests ahead of human values.”

According to Friedman, the Jewish anti capitalist is there to prove that, far from being money-grabbing, selfish and heartless, Jews are really public spirited, generous, and concerned with ideals rather than material goods. “How better to do so than to attack the market with its reliance on monetary values and impersonal transactions and to glorify the political process, to take as an ideal a state run by well-meaning people for the benefit of their fellow men?”

And yet, in Friedman's logic then, it is not a ‘moral awakening’ that moves the Jew to the left; it is neither humanism, nor solidarity and nor is it kindness, but, instead, it seems to be a desperate attempt to replace or amend the Jewish image.

Surprisingly enough, I find myself in total agreement with Friedman, though I would phrase it differently. I do differentiate between ‘the leftist who happen to be Jewish’- an innocent category inspired by humanism, and ‘the Jewish leftist- which seems to me to be a contradiction in terms, for the left aims to universally transcends itself beyond ethnicity, religion or race. Clearly ‘Jewish left’ is there to maintain a Jewish tribal ethno-centric identity at the heart of working class philosophy. 'Jewish left' is there to primarily serve Jewish interests

I noticed that Richard Kuper, the European Jewish activist behind the recent Jewish Boat to Gaza, was quoted as saying that their goal was to show that “not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians.”

It seems to me that the message Kuper conveyed was pretty clear: Rather than being driven entirely by a genuine care for the Palestinians in Gaza, the Jewish boat was also engaged in a symbolic exchange. It was also there to save the image of the Jews rather than solely providing humanitarian support. This fact alone may explain why the Jewish boat hardly carried any humanitarian aid for the Gazans. Rather than a ‘humanitarian aid mission for the Palestinians,’ it was probably also an ‘image rescue for the Jews’.

Seemingly then, Friedman managed to resolve the paradox between his two initial propositions (Jews being the benefactors capitalism vs. Jews being profoundly anti-capitalist) by offering an historical and political explanation: Jews or Jewish intellectuals are not really against capitalism; it was just the “special circumstances of nineteenth-century that drove Jews to the left, and the subconscious attempts by Jews to demonstrate to themselves and the world the fallacy of the anti-Semitic stereotype.” It was neither ideology nor ethics.

This interpretation explains why left Zionism was doomed to disappear. During his talks, Friedman reviewed the right/left political division in Israel. He noticed that two opposing traditions were at work in the Jewish State: “an ancient one--going back nearly two thousand years-- of finding ways around governmental restrictions (and) a modern one-- going back a century-- of belief in “democratic socialism” and “central planning.” Friedman was clever enough to gather already in 1972 that it is the “Jewish tradition”, rather than ‘socialism’, that would prevail. Friedman noticed already in the 1970’s that Israel was capitalist to the bone. He predicted that the short phase of Zionist ‘pseudo socialism’ was foreign to Jewish culture.

Yet. It isn’t just Israeli left that was doomed to die. Friedman's reading of Jewish culture also explains why the Bund (5) died; it didn’t really spread to the West; it also explains why the legendary Mazpen and other Jewish tribal anti Zionist revolutionary groups have never attracted the Jewish masses.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Friedman is not free of fault. In spite of his succinct reading of the Jewish left/right divide there are a few crucial points that have to be made about Friedman’s reading of Jewish culture, and his reading of capitalism.

Friedman argues that the free market and competition is good for the Jews. Yet he is also adamant that Government intervention is a disaster that leads to anti Semitism and other forms of institutional bigotry. If Friedman’s model is valid, then Jews in the West had better brace themselves, for Western Governments are currently intervening in the markets in a desperate attempt to slowdown the inevitable collapse of what is left of our economy and relative wealth.

If Friedman’s model is correct, and intervention is indeed bad for the Jews, then anti Jewish bigotry could be immanent, especially considering the gigantic bailout intervention schemes put up by states in an attempt to save what remains of the Western economy.

But it goes further -- it is also plainly clear that the bailout schemes are there to amend a colossal disaster caused by the endorsement of Friedman’s own ideology. We are all paying a very heavy price for free enterprise, hard capitalism, or, in general, the ideologies Friedman was so enthusiastic about.

There is something Friedman didn’t tell his listeners in the 1970s -- He himself probably did not realise the full meaning of his economic model. He himself did not realise that the adoption of his philosophy by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would eventually bring the West to its knees. He himself did not realise that it was his own advocacy of hard capitalism that would lead Western continents to poverty and deprivation. He perhaps did not realise back in the 1970s that it was his model that would eventually eliminate productivity, and every positive aspect of the welfare state. Milton Friedman did not realise at the time that service economy that suited some ethnic minorities for two millennia wouldn’t necessarily be a successful model once adopted into a macro model. As Friedman had gathered, throughout their history Jews and other ethnic minorities were very effective operating as service economy within competitive and productive markets. However, Jews and other ethnic or religious minorities did well because others were there to work around them. The transforming of the West into a service economy driven by relentless greed, a process that followed Friedman’s economic precepts, is now proving to be a disaster. It means poverty and global depression. It is translated into alienation from labour and productivity.

Friedman may have been correct when he predicted that governmental intervention may lead to anti Semitism -- yet, he probably failed to realise that it was largely his own intellectual heritage that would be responsible for the current financial disaster. It is in fact his own economic model and prophecy that could also introduce Jews to far more suffering.





(1)(http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/sombart_werner/Jews_and_modern_capitalism/sombart_jews_capitalism.pdf (pg’109-110)

(2)ibid 174

(3)“What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.” Karl Marx On The Jewish Question, 1844

(4)David Miliband, David Aaronovitch and Nick Cohen are all good examples of the above.

(5) East European Jewish Socialist Party was formed in 1897 as the tthe General Jewish Labour Bund of Lithuania, Poland and Russia.

re Helen Thomas: Pavlov's Dog Didn't Bark June 7 2010

June 7 2010
Question of the morning on Wash Journ was, Should Helen Thomas be asked to resign from the White House press pool because of her response to an anonymous blogger's question about Jews in Israel.

C Span pivoted from a statement by Lani Davis that Thomas was an anti-Jewish bigot. In other words, C Span focused on whether Thomas could continue as an impartial reporter from the White House because she made a statement that was not supportive of Jews.

I think the question about Helen Thomas's capacity to report from the White House should be whether she is mindful of American interests, rather than Jewish or Israel's interests.

I further think that the Question and reaction of the blogger who asked the question is an essential part of the story. After Ms. Thomas made her first statement, that Jews should leave Palestine because they were occupying land stolen from Palestinians, the blogger said, "Whoa...." He did not anticipate that response. In other words, his was not a question to elicit an authentic opinion, it was the lab technician checking on whether Pavlov's dog was still trained. He rang the bell, Helen Thomas did not bark.

That non-bark, that failure of the 63 years of Jewish sensitivity training of the American people is the silence heard round the country.

C Span moderator was out of his depth as a journalist; his listeners and callers were far better informed than he is. For example, the Moderator tried several times to beat back the caller who stated that a member of AIPAC spies on the US. The caller said, "I read it in the Washington Post; don't you know about that?" He said, "It's Steve Weissman" [actually Keith Weissman]." Which is correct.

The Moderator terminated the call at that point.

The question is, can C Span be educated?
If not C Span, then WHO can guide the United States through an honest and vigorous discussion of the US relationship with Israel, with AIPAC, with Jews in the United States, with zionism?

To stifle that conversation is precisely the approach that will result in more, not less, harm to Jews in America. Most people will automatically point to Germany as an example of a situation where "antisemitism got out of hand and resulted in the Holocaust of 6 million Jews." That would be inaccurate. That response would be the Pavlovian response.

Hitler's first major piece of writing was an exploration of "principled antisemitism." Renan's was much the same. Why were the German people resentful of Jews? Both Renan and Hitler concluded that the old, religious issues, that "Jews killed Christ," were bogus. The complaints of the German people involved economic and financial issues, matters of Jewish dominance of German institutions and media. Hitler tried to defuse the anger of the people.

AISH, Rabbi Ken Spiro.... "Jews expect to be persecuted again."

US must do things differently. We must not allow the United States to be led by zionists down the same path that Germany was led by zionists. We must call to account Israel and the Jews in the US who have suborned the interests of the United STates in preference for the interests of Israel.

I suggest several action to take:
1. A truth and reconciliation commission.
2. Seize the assets of zionist billionaires who support activities that work against the interests of the US -- Schusterman, Adelson, Haim Saban,
3. Dismantle the US Treasury office of antiterrorism. US Treasury should be focusing on US economy, not attempting to destroy Iran's economy for the benefit of Israel.
4. Close the Holocaust Museum
5. Demand that lobbyists for Israel register as foreign agents.
6. Include Israel and Israel lobbyists in the Campaign reform rules of _____ .
7.



The question is,