Tag Archives: Holocaust

Muslim to run Holocaust center

Posted on June 19, 2011 | Comments Off on Muslim to run Holocaust center

Not only is the new director of Manhattan (NYC) College’s Holocaust Center a Muslim woman, but she isn’t sure who the Land of Israel belongs to;

“….criticism of Afridi was partially provoked by an article she wrote for Common Ground but widely circulated by the Khaleej Times (Aug. 11, 2008), an Arab newspaper.

“In the article, Afridi recalls an exchange at a Jerusalem bar that happened 18 years before, when she was studying archeology in Israel. An Israeli Jew at the bar, not knowing Afridi wasn’t Jewish, voiced the opinion that ‘surely you know, as a Jew, that this is our ancestral homeland.’

“She responded, ‘Well, no … First, I am not Jewish, and second, I am not quite sure whose land this is.’”

Oh, yes, her new appointment is going to work out really, really well.

Comments Off on Muslim to run Holocaust center

Posted in Israel, Scribbles, The War

Tagged , ,

Yad Vashem

Posted on April 23, 2011 | Comments Off on Yad Vashem

This is the main hall of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Yes, the walls really do lean in that way, giving you the feeling of being trapped and about to be crushed. One is not supposed to take pictures there, but I wanted this one and so I did it secretly. Most of the exhibits are in the rooms off this disquieting hall.

Most of it I knew, having read a dozen survivor narratives over the years and taken a college history course on the Nazis in the 1960s before the teaching of history slid into its present relativistic swamp.

The pictures, the faces and names of the dead, were the emotional part of the exhibits for me. And the simple quotes, especially the short ones: “Today they came and took my only child away.”

For the first time, though, I got a real understanding of why there was not more resistance among the lambs driven to the slaughter: because the Nazis were very careful, right up until they turned on the gas, to make the people think that death was not the aim of it all.

No one getting off those freight cars at the extermination camps, however already grossly humiliated, could be sure what would happen to them and their families until it was too late.

Comments Off on Yad Vashem

Posted in Israel, Library, Obituaries, Scribbles

Tagged , ,

Obamalot’s Holocaust supporter

Posted on March 31, 2010 | Comments Off on Obamalot’s Holocaust supporter

It’s bad enough, the double-standard Washington applies to Israel, always scolding them for “provoking” the Palestinians and not making enough “gestures,” such as releasing jailed terrorists. Never scolding the Pals for anything. Such as their rocket-launching from Gaza. Nada.

But the recent bashing for building apartments in northeast Jerusalem is just too much. Especially when you learn that one of Obamalot’s concerns is that they would be built on “the site of the Shepherd Hotel, the former home of the late Haj Amin Husseini, a former mufti, or Islamic law scholar,” according to the Washington Post.

Turns out Haj Amin Husseini was more than a “scholar.” He was a Nazi favorite who spent much of World War II in Berlin trying to convince Hitler and Eichmann to extend their Final Solution to the “Jewish problem,” i.e. the Holocaust, to the Middle East. Has Obamalot no shame? Apparently not.

Comments Off on Obamalot’s Holocaust supporter

Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Obamalot

Tagged , , , ,

The J-Word

Posted on March 19, 2010 | Comments Off on The J-Word

This is a wonderful novel about the Jews of London, observant and secular, and their struggles with identity and anti-Jewish hostility  (“In every generation…”). Jack Silver, who thought he raised a secular like himself discovers otherwise and is charmingly transformed by a tradition-seeking grandchild. There is also the fractured, multicultural British welfare state and the delays, indifference and friction it inevitably produces. I was already smitten with author Andrew Sanger’s 4th edition of “Fodor’s Exploring Israel” (which is a visit all by itself) so I was not surprised to find he had such a good story in him and the talent to convey it with humor and substance. I can’t imagine how anyone could be anything but pleased with either volume. And in light of the probability that “The J-Word” will not be seconded for some time, I have begun reading it again.

UPDATE:  A good interview with the author on his intentions. And a nice link from him, as well. Thank you.

Comments Off on The J-Word

Posted in Israel, Library

Tagged , , , , , ,

LBJ: stranger than fiction

Posted on March 6, 2010 | Comments Off on LBJ: stranger than fiction

Seems old Lyndon Baines broke some laws for other than personal gain and one fellow is out to see him declared righteous for it, at least in Israel. LBJ, we hardly knew ye. Nor did your granddaughter, but she’s on the right path.

Comments Off on LBJ: stranger than fiction

Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Scribbles, Texana

Tagged , ,

I Have Lived A Thousand Years

Posted on October 28, 2009 | Comments Off on I Have Lived A Thousand Years

Livia Bitton-Jackson’s 1999 young-adult book is not the first Holocaust memoir I’ve read, but it may be the most memorable. Not an easy read, of course, none of them are. I had to put it down several times and go off and do something else to forestall being consumed by anger and tears.

Especially affecting is the fact that she was only thirteen when her Czechoslovakian family was humiliated by the invading Hungarians, turned over to the SS and shipped to Auschwitz. Only the infamous Dr. Mengele saved her from the gas, telling her at "selection" to lie that she was sixteen, because she was tall for her age and he was struck by her blond hair and blue-green eyes. He’d apparently never seen a Jew who looked Aryan.

All the pertinent details of the experience are revealed, slowly in dramatic fashion. The recreated scenes and dialogue (and telescoped events) are more historical fiction than unadulterated fact. Which is not to question their truth, however. In the end, her story of strength and survival in the face of so much cruelty and heartbreak is inspiring. Some of us really can survive almost anything. Of course, she was left with much to work through: "My friends, my family, all those achingly dear to me, my entire world, rose up in smoke, vanished."

The book’s dedication is especially touching: "…to the children in Israel who, unsung and unacclaimed, risk their lives every day just by traveling to school…the only guarantee that a Holocaust will never happen again."

That, and the fact that they are protected by the IDF.

Comments Off on I Have Lived A Thousand Years

Posted in Israel, Library

Tagged , , , , , ,

Manuel Zelaya’s “fear” of Israel is no fluke

Posted on October 7, 2009 | Comments Off on Manuel Zelaya’s “fear” of Israel is no fluke

The would-be Honduras dictator who Barry and his secretary of state are working so hard to get reinstated doesn’t just occasionally pop off about Israeli mercenaries directing mind-altering radiation at his brain. His chief propagandist also tells Hondurans on the radio that Hitler should have been allowed to finish the Holocaust. Tell me again now, how did we wind up with a U.S. president who backs these creeps? Is this the new Chicago Way?

Via Simply Jews.

Comments Off on Manuel Zelaya’s “fear” of Israel is no fluke

Posted in Israel, Obamalot, South of the Border

Tagged , , , ,