Monday, June 26, 2023
Report on Beth Israel vigil 06-24-23
Coffee with Rabbi Caine
Rabbi Nadav Caine of Beth Israel Congregation broke 4+ years of relative silence with an email invitation to this writer for some coffee. Naturally, the invitation was accepted, and we shared a respectful hour discussing our similarities and differences on June 14. Nadav wanted to see what kind of document it would take to convince us to end our 19+ year vigil, and I presented him with some guidelines, specifically the Letter to the Editor by vigiler Sol Metz [deceased …hh] of July 7, 2009. Sol had outlined under what circumstances Witness for Peace would be willing to end the vigils.
Nadav indicated he would like a second meeting where he could present his document, and a date prior to July 31 was agreed upon. In the meantime, we have generated our own document, which embodies more clearly the points raised in Sol’s letter.
Addressing City Council
We received an email from revisionist Diane King after our address to Council on April 17. She gently advised us against using the word “Nazi”, as it was pejorative, and never used by National Socialists to describe themselves. Since we were unaware of this newly acquired information, we addressed Council again on June 5. Watch here (fast forward to 43:25) to observe seven Councilmen walk out on my talk, as well as two former supporters. Truth sometimes is a terrible thing to face. Text of this talk follows signature.
Getting the Attention of Jonathan Greenblatt
The Anti-Defamation League (aka the Defamation League) has seen fit to publish its list of “Who’s Who of Holocaust Denial”, and this writer finds himself listed alongside friends Alison Chabloz and Michael Hoffmann, as well as heavyweights Ernst Zundel, Arthur Butz, David Erving, David Duke and Robert Faurisson. Have our signs made a difference?
A Child’s Reaction to our vigil
Readers may remember the comments of Roger Cone, an Ann Arbor resident living close to the vigils. In helping Beth Israel Congregation convince City Council to pass a resolution condemning our 1A-supported expressions of free speech, he employed hearsay when he stated: “One of the neighbors heard a mother walking her child past the protesters, who asked ‘Mom, is that man going to hurt me?’”
Readers are asked to contrast Roger’s hearsay with the 10-second clip of an actual child reacting to our presence, and judge for themselves.
Scorecard
Date/For-Against
20-May 12-11
27-May 9-5
3-Jun 19-14
10-Jun 14-6
17-Jun 25-12
24-Jun 9-4
Henry Herskovitz
Witness for Peace
176 Palestinians killed this year by “Israel”
ALL SO THAT JEWS CAN HAVE A “HOMELAND”
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Address to City Council June 5, 2023 (367 words)
Good Evening,
It appears that historical revisionism never rests. After distributing my address to Council on April 17 to a wider audience via email and Facebook, I received a reply from Diane King of Texas. She was going to disseminate my address to her email list, and cautioned me against using the word “Nazi”, claiming it a derogatory term. She wrote “We abhor this term. The Germans never referred to themselves that way. It’s equivalent to the other ethnic slurs that are verboten, but it’s ok to disparage Germans?”
I already knew that the term “Nazi” originated from a country-bumpkin reference to Germans, a slur based on the common farm-boy, or simpleton name “Ignatz”, and the shortening of that name to “Nazi”. This knowledge was supplied by Benton Bradberry’s book The Myth of German Villainy. But I did not know that National Socialists never referred to themselves by that name. In my ignorance, I thought everyone used the term.
I asked myself whether Diane could be correct, and asked the Facebook public for evidence to counter her claim. I wanted to be shown a reference by a German National Socialist who used the term “Nazi” in a correspondence or speech. I ask anyone here if they have corroborative evidence of National Socialists self-describing as “Nazi”.
No one on Facebook supplied such information. One respondent, though, alerted me to an article that explained exactly what Diane was claiming. The article reports that a powerful Jewish journalist named Konrad Heiden popularized this term in the 1920’s as an epithet meant to degrade members of the National Socialist Workers Party of Germany.
Apparently, this name calling stuck: we are left with the impression that everyone used the term, because we –mistakenly - are continuing to use it.
Two takeaways: one, people and groups should be referred to as they deem fit. How would our Black community react to being referred to by the N-word? How would our Jewish community appreciate being called the K-word? I doubt either group would appreciate it. It wouldn’t be right.
Second takeaway: perhaps this successful name calling technique was yet another reason why German Jews were found in disfavor by their countrymen.
I think our students deserve to be presented with this information
Thank you
