Sometimes we need a smile. Whenever I need one, I often turn to Bradley Smith's Report.
Here is a smile for you, from one of his past issues, written by CODOH contributor, Tom Ehrlich:
[START]
In a small plot of land adjacent to a garbage dump, one can make out two lonely wine bottles, covered with dust, and adorned with flowers. As unprepossessing as they may appear, they betoken a priceless legacy.
The plot is tended by an elderly Mexican farmer named Juan. His tattered panama drenched with sweat in the Southwestern heat, he patiently adorns the bottles with wreaths of dandelions he has crafted himself. This is the Shrine of the Righteous Jews.
Juan relates how he got the idea for setting up the shrine.
"I was in Los Angeles to visit my daughter there, and on the way back I decided to stop at the Museum of Tolerance. There I was able to see videotapes in Spanish about the Garden for Righteous Gentiles the Israelis have in their country. It seems that for every gentile who saved the life of a Jew in the Holocaust, they planted a tree there. I thought, why can't I do something like that?"
Thousands of trees at Yad Vashem indicate the gratitude of the Jewish people for those few non-Jews who, by saving the life of a Jew, saved the whole world. The other 280 million Europeans, it appears, did nothing.
"I decided that, if the Jews can have a garden to plant trees for non-Jews, why shouldn't I, as a non-Jew, set up a garden for Jews?"
So Juan patiently set to work, cleaning the broken glass, plastic bags, und used tires from the designated plot, and carefully raking the hard-stubble ground that cannot support plant life.
And so it was that Juan decided to adorn his shrine with empty wine bottles, garlanded with flowers. But, unlike the garden at Yad Vashem, which requires expensive documentation that a non-Jew has, in fact, saved a Jewish life, and which boasts a stringent vetting process, Juan's standards are different - almost, we might say, more humanistic. To qualify for memorialization in the Shrine of Righteous Jews, one doesn't have to show that a Jew has saved a non-Jewish life, all that is necessary is to show that a Jews has done something nice for a non-Jew.
"I didn't want to have to wait a long time to set up the shrine," confided Juan. "I am sure that Jews have saved the lives of many, many non-Jews, since 40% of Nobel Prize winners are either Jewish or of Jewish background and the Nobel Prize is awarded only to those who have contributed the most to the betterment of mankind," continued Juan, quoting from a Jewish encyclopedia.
But do the two bottles in Juan's shrine represent two of these Jewish "Nobelists"? Elie Wiesel, perhaps, or Yitzhak Shamir? No. The first bottle is dedicated to the attorney who arranged for Juan's divorce, while the second commemorates the attorney who helped Juan through the bankruptcy proceedings afterwards.
Here, in a desolate spot, lies a monument to interfaith understanding and communication. A glorious legacy honoring those few Jews who, by extraordinary acts, made a difference in the life of non-Jews. A monument that bluntly implies the humanity of a few, and the depravity of the rest.
Just like at Yad Vashem.
[END]
As I was reading this, I thought that since I now own a couple of acres of unspoiled Tennessee mountain, I ought to start a Garden of the Righteous Jews Who Helped Ernst Zündel in his Struggle for Freedom of Speech. I can already do better than Juan. I can come up with three.
I know of Joseph Burg, a German-Jewish author who courageously testified in 1988 that he investigated Auschwitz already in 1945 and found no "gas chambers" - and who, as a consequence of his heresy, was not allowed to be buried in Munich's Jewish cemetery and had to find rest for his honest bones in a Catholic cemetery instead. (Ernst and "Nazi" General, Otto Ernst Remer, gave the eulogy at his gravesite!)
I also know of an orthodox Rabbi - trust me, not a spy; Ernst checked him out - who is spreading the word of Ernst Zundel's travails to four other Rabbis, believe it or not! How do I know? Because one of the four wrote me a letter just the other day, saying: "Oy vey! If my father knew what is lying by my bed as nighttime reading..." referring to the booklet "Did Six Million Really Die?"
And, finally, I know of a third who insists that he isn't a Jew even though he was born in Israel and even served in the Israeli Army because his father, Twist-of-Fate, smuggled himself in, pretending, it would seem, to be Jewish.
One of the oddest stories I have ever heard! But be this as it may, this one is a truly "good Jew", as my Mother always stressed when she encountered one because she thought a qualifier was in order. I shall call him Tony. Tony and I had the following e-mail exchange, quoted here from memory:
Tony: "I will send you my 10% required by my synagogue as a donation."
Ingrid: "Thank you very much! You have earned your place in Revisionist heaven."
Tony: "Just what I always dreamed of, growing up in Israel."
So you see? There's good will on both sides, even though the Kommissars that make a living from the Hate Industry will tell you otherwise because their livelihood depends on it to have us hate each other.
Thought for the Day:
"I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views...I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men, everywhere, could be free.
(Abraham Lincoln)
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