Grapevine November 5, 2023: Resurgent Holocaust denial

More than 20 years have passed since British historian David Irving sued American history professor Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books for libel – and lost. Irving is a notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier.

Lipstadt, who is now the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, had authored a book Denying the Holocaust in which she charged Irving with falsifying history. The trial lasted six years, and even after losing on appeal, Irving, who had written several books on the Third Reich, when asked whether he would finally cease to deny the Holocaust, replied, “Good Lord, no!”

The trial was later shown in a film.

Irving continued to distort and manipulate history, a habit that not only cost him a lot of money, but also loss of freedom. In 2006, an Austrian court sentenced him to three years in prison for Holocaust denial.

Irving is one of several writers whose income and reputation are based on Holocaust denial. Some of these books are now being advertised and sold on social media.

Remembering Kristallnacht

■ IN GERMANY and Austria, the Holocaust was preceded by Kristallnacht – the Night of the Shattered Glass – in which Jewish homes, commercial enterprises, and houses of worship were attacked and vandalized; many Jews were beaten. Many elderly people who lived in Austria and Germany at the time still remember the November 9, 1938, horrors of Kristallnacht. Some, including 99-year-old journalist Walter Bingham, (born Wolfgang Billig in Germany), whose articles occasionally appear in The Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Report, were fortunate to be placed on the Kindertransport and sent to England. In many cases, these children – who are now parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents – survived the war years, but their parents did not. A large Kindertransport delegation was scheduled to meet with President Herzog last month, but as was the case with so many other events, the meeting was either canceled or postponed because of the war.

Declare war on antisemitism

■ YAD VASHEM chairman Dani Dayan – who was sharply critical of Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan for wearing a yellow star at the forum, as did all the members of the Israeli UN delegation – has called on political, cultural, religious, and academic leaders all over the world to declare war on antisemitism.

In castigating Erdan, whose yellow star included the words Never Again, Dayan chose to highlight the fact that the yellow star, which so many Jews were forced to place on their clothing during the Holocaust years, had served as a guideline for the Nazis’ Final Solution – the annihilation of the Jewish people – which today is the goal of Hamas. It was important to Erdan to draw that parallel, and many Holocaust survivors and their descendants have agreed that wearing the yellow star was an essential reminder that despite pledges of Never Again, it is happening again – and much of the world is silent. 

According to Dayan, “the yellow badge symbolizes the historical vulnerability of the Jewish people and their dependence on the mercy of others... Today the scenario has changed. We have an independent nation and a formidable army. We determine our own fate. Instead of a yellow badge, we should be proudly displaying a blue-and-white flag.”

The blue-and-white flag is being amply displayed, but it is simultaneously important to remind the world that the evils of history repeat themselves unless something is done to stop them.

In Poland, on Warsaw Ghetto Remembrance Day, Jews and non-Jews alike wear a paper yellow daffodil, which, when spread flat, resembles a Star of David, which in Hebrew is called Magen David, meaning Shield of David. Perhaps Dayan should look at Erdan’s yellow star in that context.

The existential threat facing Jews

■ HOWEVER, IN the fight against antisemitism, it has been pointed out by Dayan, President Herzog and other influential people, as well as in this column, that what starts with the Jews does not necessarily end with the Jews. Certainly, as far as Muslim fundamentalists are concerned, Christians are no less infidels than Jews, though most Muslims, especially those who are well integrated into the non-Muslim countries in which they live, apparently bear no animosity towards people of other faiths.

Dayan has warned that in addition to the mainstreaming of neo-Nazism and White Supremacist antisemitism, there is now an existential threat to the Jewish People, which has been clearly demonstrated by recent events.

Was Meir Kahane right about something?

■ SOMETIMES, IN the interest of self-preservation, we have to overlook some things that seem repulsive to us. Last week, followers marked the 33rd anniversary of the assassination in New York of radical right-wing political leader Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose views were abhorrent to many Israelis who considered him a vicious racist. But in the days when he still lived in America and led the Jewish Defense League (JDL), he made sure that his followers were well-trained in the martial arts and could fearlessly fight antisemites. This is a measure that should be adopted in all schools in Israel as well as in Jewish Day Schools and community centers in the diaspora. Jews must be equipped to defend themselves and to defend other Jews. In the days when the JDL would stalk Soviet officials in the US as part of the ‘Let My People Go’ campaign, they earned the respect and affection of tens of thousands of Diaspora Jews.

Isaac Herzog's message: Let people grieve

■ IN HIS address to the nation last Wednesday night, President Isaac Herzog underscored the importance of allowing people to give way to their grief. Herzog, who before the war had given considerable support to organizations dedicated to mental health and to the patients of such organizations, said: “Degrees of grief overflow in a way that cannot be contained at all, in a way that cannot be grasped in heart or mind. It surrounds and rocks us. We all feel it, for ourselves, for the parents, for the children. The displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, hundreds of thousands of reservists, recruits, and the war being fought – from the front line to the back – affects us, all of us, mentally, both personally and nationally. And the fallen – the best of our children, whom we have mourned over the last days – only adds to the pendulum of pain that we are all experiencing at this time. We will forever remember those who fought bravely and fiercely in the mission of defending the people and our homeland. We embrace their families and pray that they will know no more sorrow.

“In war, each of us endures moments which are simply unbearable. Every day, I meet families and communities displaced from their homes; I visit the wounded in the hospitals and families of those missing or being held hostage. Truly an Israeli mosaic like no other. The pain of the families of the hostages and the missing is simply unfathomable. My conversations with them are the most painful conversations I have held in all of my life. Mothers and fathers, families, spouses and partners, have not slept for more than three weeks. The cruelest and darkest abyss engulfed these families and us as a nation. I say to you what I told the families, unequivocally: The hostages are in our thoughts, and their return is an integral part of the success of this campaign – of course, alongside victory in this decisive war against the enemy and restoring security to all Israeli citizens.”

These two objectives are repeated over and over again with slight variations in wording by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, and others. It is important to reiterate them in order to give hope and assurances to the families of the hostages and to boost the morale of the nation.

Influential Diaspora Jews try to help free hostages from Hamas

■ INFLUENTIAL DIASPORA Jews are also heavily engaged in trying to secure the release of the hostages from Hamas. A delegation led by World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder – including leaders of Jewish communities in the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland – held high level meetings in recent days with prominent representatives of Qatar. Lauder made it known that Jews the world over are deeply concerned about the Israeli hostages, who, it appears, are being treated differently than hostages of other nationalities.

Over the years, Lauder has been involved in a number of missions on Israel’s behalf, but none as vital as this one.

Veteran journalist helps farm

■ VETERAN JOURNALIST Rina Matzliach, who a year ago retired from Channel 12, where she was an anchor and hard-hitting interviewer, returned soon after to the genesis of her career on Radio Reshet Bet, where she co-hosts a weekly morning program. Today, Sunday, she is going even further back to her youth, and, together with friends and colleagues of that period is embarking on a project to help short-staffed farmers. Matzliach will be harvesting and packing fruits and vegetables. Even at the risk of having untrained volunteer workers sometimes doing more harm than good, farmers, whose foreign workers have fled and returned to their home countries, are desperate to get their produce to market and have issued a call for volunteers.

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