The Zundelsite - The poor dears!

June 29, 2003

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny: Now more than ever!

One of the lighter moments of the otherwise dreary and sometimes brutal 5-year "Human Rights" Tribunal Marathon around the question of who owned the Zundelsite occurred around the definition of who, exactly, is a Jew.

The question the defense posed was as follows: Why is it that a Jew can criticize a Jew without a penalty, whereas if a non-Jew allows himself to criticize a Jew, he gets invariably assaulted with the charge of "antisemitism"?

After some back-and-forth, the Witness for the Prosecution came up with an interesting bit of wisdom. If Jews criticize Jews, that is "a family quarrel". However, if someone like Ernst Zündel criticizes Jews, that is "lethal antisemitism."

That's right! The Witness actually said "lethal"!

So then, asked Zundel Counsel, Christie, how do you know who is a Jew? What's your definition of a Jew?

The palaver that ensued determined that a Jew was someone who "felt" like a Jew.

The Zundel Legal Team went home, had dinner, and mulled over what had been said. Mr. Zundel came up with a solution.

"You wouldn't!" cried a shuddering Christie.

"Oh yes I would!" said Zundel.

The next morning, Defense Attorney Christie drew himself up to his impressive lawyerly height and declared:

"This morning my client feels like a Jew!"

Thereupon Ernst Zundel fished for a beanie in his trouser pockets and ceremoneously put it in his baldie!

Can't you just see this scene in a movie where Ernst Zundel's beanie allows him to criticize Jews? I call that scene delicious! It's one of many scenes already forming in my head that I am saving up for the screen-play-in-progress which I will finalize and pitch to Mel Gibson as soon as I have time! :)

The article below made me recall this incident. Read it and ponder the Jewish psyche that needs to "define" itself in such a pathological way as this essay reveals!

[START]

"Jews unable to define themselves except in terms of the hatred of others"

ANTI-SEMITISM WITHOUT ANTI-SEMITES

by Jonathan Rosenblum

When otherwise sane and intelligent people affirm nonsense, it behooves us to inquire into the reason. Falling into that category is the recent finding by the American Jewish Committee that American Jews believe antisemitism is a greater threat than intermarriage by a margin of 57% to 38%.

In order to reach that conclusion, American Jews have to ignore the evidence in front of their eyes to a startling degree.

And they do. In a 1985 survey of Jews in Northern California, for instance, a full third expressed the belief that non-Jews would not vote for a Jewish candidate for Congress, At that time, all three Congressmen from the area were Jewish.

As Leonard Dinerstein concluded in his 1994 work, Antisemitism in America, "Today antisemitism in the Unites States is neither virulent nor growing. It is not a powerful social or political force. [It] has declined in potency and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future."

But if Poland has proven that antisemitism can persist even in the absence of Jews, says National Review literary editor, David Klinghoffer, so America today proves that antisemitism persists in the minds of Jews even in the absence of antisemites.

At the same time, intermarriage - about which only a little more than a third of American Jews are concerned - coupled with low fertility rates, is projected to reduce American Jewry to between one-third and one-sixth of its present size within two generations.

The professed fear of resurgent antisemitism goes hand in hand with the elevation of the Holocaust as the defining element in Jewish self-identity.

All surveys of American Jewry place the Holocaust way ahead of any other factor in Jewish self-identity. Between 75%and 85% of American Jews rate the Holocaust as a very important factor in their sense of themselves as Jews, far higher than belief in God, Torah or Israel.

When they think of themselves as Jews, then, American Jews overwhelmingly identify themselves as victims. Their sense of themselves as Jews is purely negative, unless one thinks that a history of persecution tells us something fundamental about the victim. For them Jews are nothing more than a social construct of antisemites, an occasion for fevered conspiracy theories of Jew-haters.

And, indeed, Judaism is devoid of positive content for most American Jews.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans, according to a 1989 Gallup study of religiosity in American, view religion as very important in their lives; only 14% say that it is not at all important. Among Jews, however, the figures are nearly reversed. 39% say that religion is important; 35% that it is of no importance.

While American Jews claim to be concerned about antisemitism, they do not act upon those fears, apart from the occasional check in response to a scare letter from the Anti-Defamation League or some other Jewish defense group.

But if American Jews are, in their heart of hearts, not really that scared of resurgent antisemitism, why do they insist on keeping the specter of antisemitism alive? Why do they react so strongly to every crackpot Holocaust denier who would deny them their status as history's champion victims?

The answer is that antisemitism is a convenient balm for the pangs of conscience. Antisemites, even imagined ones, provide confirmation that one is a proud, loyal Jew, linked to all those other Jews throughout history who knew too well what real Jew-hatred was. To paraphrase Descartes: I am hated, therefore I am. If Hitler would have killed my grandchild, let no one deny that my grandchild is Jewish.

It is more convenient to focus on what others do to us, or want to do, than to consider what we are doing to ourselves. Far easier to conjure up imaginary Hitlers than to wonder whether we have failed when our children intermarry and show little interest in even the vague ethnic identity with which we provided them.

As long as we can cite the names of relatives killed by the Nazis, we assure ourselves that our Jewish bona fides are intact, and we are indeed proper heirs to two thousand years of victimhood.

We focus on the Holocaust as the defining event in Jewish history without even asking ourselves the real question: What power did our ancestors find in their Judaism that enabled them to withstand and survive all the Torquemadas, Chmelnicis and Hitlers?

To ask that question would force us to admit that Judaism has content and is not defined by our enemies. That admission would, in turn, force us to confront the possibility that we have failed our ancestors by not even inquiring into the source of their spiritual strength.

Jewish "worry" about antisemitism would be funny but for the deeper tragedy it seeks to mask - Jews unable to define themselves except in terms of the hatred of others.

(Source: http://www.jerusalemletter.co.il/archives/July20,1998/anti.htm )

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Thought for the Day:

"Deep down, I believe that a little anti-Semitism is a good thing for the Jews - reminds us who we are."

--Jay Lefkowitz (NYT Magazine. 12 F. 1995, 65) Jay Lefkowitz is now Deputy assistant to President Bush and Director of Domestic Policy Council.