Why a blog on Jewish Denial?

26 December, 2007

History does not repeat itself. But it does serve as precedent.

Early in the Enlightenment, the revolution which transformed Europe from theocratic to secular, Jews were viewed as different from Christian Europeans, and that difference was assumed based on their geographic-linguistic origins. Jews, although residing in Europe for more than two thousand years, were considered “Semites,” arrivals from the Middle East, while European Christians were presumed to have their origins in a mythic people migrating from Eurasia, the “Aryans.” Eventually the scientific search for difference turned to biology, and the notion of a Jewish "race" was born. Antisemitism as a political movement arrived with the 19th Century.

But why the Jews, how do so small, generally impoverished and defenseless a minority become so prominent, deserve so much thought and animus from some of the greatest minds of modern European science, arts and politics?

Antisemitism was not an invention of modern society, but the secular adaptation of a long established precedent, Christian anti-Judaism. With the gospel charge of deicide, the accusation the "the Jews" murdered Christ, they became the pariah people, enemies of Christ, Christianity and Christians. Crusaders on their way to liberate the Holy Land from the Moslems attacked first the Jewish enemy living in their midst. Later the Inquisition, intent on ridding Christendom of heretics tortured Jews until they agreed to accept Jesus, tortured and burned alive those who refused. One respected population study estimates that, had Jews been free of persecution since the fall of Jerusalem their numbers today would equal that of the entire British Isles.

Which is the backdrop against which we are compelled to understand Europe’s Holocaust, Christendom’s most recent and nearly successful attempt to solve its Jewish Problem. With all the talent and intelligence dedicated to planning and executing the Final Solution there was little that was really new or innovative. Armbands, ghettoes, all medieval in origin. What did make the effort so successful was the introduction of 20th Century technology. IBM provided primitive but effective computers to trace third generation Christians back to their single Jewish grandparent; Hitler’s idol, Henry Ford, provided the Holocaust the assembly line needed to efficiently transport, turn Jews into corpses, dispose of their remains; and bureaucracy made the entire process impersonal and free of guilt. But for all intents and purposes the Holocaust was only the next, not the last, logical step in a process begun 2000 years earlier. And 21st Century technology is far more efficient than that available in the 1940’s.

For those among us who prefer to believe the Holocaust a unique event in history foisted by a half-crazed if charismatic leader upon his hapless and otherwise innocent countrymen, were the residents of the Polish village of Jawabne Nazis, were they under the spell of Hitler when they rounded up their 1600 Jewish friends and neighbors, herded them into that barn and burned it to the ground? Were the Ukrainians captured on film beating to death with clubs their long-time Jewish friends and neighbors; were the French police who rounded up the Jews of Paris for deportation to death in Auschwitz; were all these Nazis also? Was all Europe under the evil influence of the madman from Germany?

And what of the non-continental countries, particularly the United States and Britain who, in full knowledge of the unfolding horror, closed their eyes and borders to our refugees, passively stood by for two years allowing the machinery of murder to run its course unhindered? How justify Roosevelt allowing the SS St. Louis to steam up and back the American shoreline, the captain pleading for permission to offload his cargo of 900 Jews fleeing Germany, forcing them back to their fate. How justify Roosevelt’s excuse not to bomb Auschwitz (it would kill innocent Jewish inmates; it would distract from winning the war was the excuse given) when allied bombers regularly over flew the camps and rail lines carrying Europe’s Jews to what the president knew was their certain end? Is not passive and silent acquiescence also complicity?

For centuries past Jews had few options but to suffer the wrath of our neighbors. Since Shoah we have another option, to join our destiny with that of the Jewish state. That we choose to disregard the clear warning of recent history, that we know but interpret it other all the time subjecting our children and theirs to a risk bordering on eventual certainty; such rationalizing and self-deception is, by definition, Denial.

Of course Israel-as-refuge presumes that the Jewish state acknowledges and accepts its Zionist responsibility towards the Diaspora. This commitment is not always obvious and will be one of the questions, along with those raised above, that will be the focus of this forum.