When I was 10, my father recommended a movie called “Where Eagles Dare,” the story of a few Allied soldiers who go behind enemy lines during World War II and wreak incredible havoc. When I asked if it was any good, my father just gave me a look. “Four guys kill like a thousand Nazis,” he said. “It’s one of the best movies ever made.”
In those years, my father, judging war films, used a Nazi-to-American kill ratio: If a lot of Nazis died, the movie was good; if those Nazis were killed by just a few Americans, the movie was potentially great.
This second criterion had everything to do with the fact that we were Jews, therefore members of a community small in number but gaudy in incident. In this way, the commandos in the Hollywood epic — I’m thinking of “The Dirty Dozen,” among others — were a stand-in for Jews as a whole. A few of us killing a lot of them — it’s a satisfying fantasy.
I’ve thought a lot about this since the release of “Inglourious Basterds,” the revenge fantasy we’ve been working toward for the last half-century. Like all masterpieces, Quentin Tarantino’s movie shows where and why other artistic expressions of this fantasy — some being very good novels and films — have failed: Simply put, they were not crazy enough, nor wild enough, nor did they go far enough.
Movies like Ed Zwick’s “Defiance,” which chronicles the exploits of Jewish partisans in occupied Poland, are crippled by their adherence to the real-life particulars of the Second World War. From the moment such a film starts, you know how the bigger story will end: The ghettos will fill and empty, the box cars will rattle down the track, the chimneys will send up plumes of black smoke. No matter how you subtract the numbers, you always wind up with the same answer: six million.
“Inglourious Basterds” succeeds as fantasy because Tarantino, who does not know better, broke every rule. (The funky spelling in the title is a warning of coming trespass.) The plot unfolds with a pleasant sense of shock — you keep expecting him to swing back and rejoin the historical narrative, but he instead keeps on, past every decency, into the black book itself, where he re-writes the most terrible moments of history, culminating in the ultimate money shot: a big, heavily armed Jew, a mountain Jew, the big Yid of yore, standing over the Führer, raking his face with machine-gun fire.
Off the charts on the Herb Cohen Nazi-to-American kill ratio, the greatest scene ever filmed, the meaning of Hollywood, why Jack Warner quit Youngstown and moved out West, though he never knew this himself.
Like all good fantasies, it works because the real world remains visible — the dream diverges, but not entirely. Simply put, there were Jews not very unlike the Jews in the movie. I wrote about a group of them in my 2000 book “The Avengers,” the story of the poet-partisan Abba Kovner, who, in the last days of the Second World War, trained a unit of Jewish partisans to kill as many Germans as possible. Plan A, which fortunately failed, was to poison the water system of a German city. Plan B was to poison the bread served daily to members of the Nazi SS being held in a prison camp awaiting prosecution for war crimes. Hundreds were hospitalized as a result, though none died.
The Inglourious Basterds are the fantasy; the Avengers were the reality. Here’s what they had in common: Both wanted to kill Nazis, both were unshaven and ragged, both were wholly unbelievable and thus often not believed in.
More interesting are the points of difference, for therein lies the answer to a great mystery: How do you continue on after the world has fallen?
For starters, Kovner did not want to hunt and kill Nazis one by one. The war had made him crazy, and in his crazed, war-ravaged mind, he believed Germans were not entitled to individualized deaths — I see you, you see me, you beg for your life, I shoot you, then you die. He believed Germans should instead be killed at random, en masse, from an emotional remove, as Germans had done to Jews.
What’s more, in its Hollywood incarnations, Jewish revenge is carried out or enabled by a righteous goy. In Tarantino’s case, this is Aldo Raine, the American lieutenant brilliantly played by Brad Pitt. But Kovner believed Jews, led by Jews and leading Jews, must take their own revenge, must carry out the retribution that God Himself, were there a God (Kovner became an atheist in the war), would have carried out. It was a point of revenge — not merely to punish the Germans but to rehabilitate the Hebrews. The Avengers would kill their way back to life, in the process leaving a marker for future generations: This is what happens if you…
“Better to die as free men fighting” — that’s how Kovner put it at the start of the war. By the end, he might as well have said: Better to kill as dead men living.
Following the war, Kovner returned slowly to life, accepting that the world had not ended and history would go on. In these months, he did something so miraculous it’s never been caught on film. He changed. He grew. He did not give up revenge so much as alter it’s meaning. He never publicly spoke of plans A and B. For him, victory would be measured not by the death of Germans but by the existence of Jews. Survival is the best answer to annihilation. As Kovner himself said, “Every Jewish town that thrives in Israel, every child that is raised, every tree that is planted — that is our revenge.”
Or, as Herb Cohen put it, “I’m here, watching a movie. Where the hell are the Nazis?”
Rich Cohen is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. He is the author of several books, including “The Avengers: A Jewish War Story” (Knopf, 2000) and, most recently, “Israel Is Real: An Obsessive Quest to Understand the Jewish Nation and Its History” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
As First Maharats Graduate, Orthodox Women Leap Forward
Why a Rabbi Should Not Marry Outside the Faith
Why I Only Date Jewish Guys
Taking Aim at Corporate Jewish Burial Business
Barbra Streisand Visits Western Wall After Landing in Israel With Puppy
You've successfully signed up!
,
Regarding the film, "Inglorious Bastards, " which I viewed, My parents, holocaust survivors, of blessed memory, would not have found this Holocaust dark humor very amusing. If only the leadership of the Nazi party was as stupid as portrayed in the movie, and Hitler a complete idiot, perhaps my siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins would 'not have been murdered and gone up in smoke in the chimneys of Auschwitz'.The Jews did not take scalps and brand people with swastikas on their foreheads. I wish there was a Jewish brigade who could have annihilated the Nazis. This movie had very little to do with Jews as victims and more to do with showing the victims, in this case Jews , as rats. Was this a commercial for Hitler and Goebels. I am sure the producers and actors are laughing all the way to the bank. .Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Rabbi Rosenberg is absolutely correct.
With this cock-and-bull story, Tarantino is pandering to those Jews who want to feel better about themselves. Tarantino claims to know that Jews have nothing better to do than fantasize about revenge and how they would go about it to transcend Nazi methods.
Tarantino puts the Jews on a equal footing with the Nazis and shows that the Nazis didn't have the upper hand, and all that happened was an exchange of brutalities. And now, the Tarantino fans applaud his movie and ignore that it is a falsification of the Holocaust. Falsification of the Holocaust is more insidious than its denial. Tarantino has provided the world with positive proof that what happened was a fair, two-sided, fight with tit-for-tat brutality, a humorous affair, a light-hearted comedy, and certainly not a Holocaust.
Heinz Wartski
I'm a big Quentin Tarantino fan. The fact that I was viscrally revolted by Inglorious Basterds surprised me, and to its credit the film provoked me to think deeply. At the end of the day however, I remain revolted by its fetishizing of violence and human beauty and marrying the two together. The members of my family who died, along with the millions of Jews, Socialists, Gypsies, and Gays does not deserve to be trivialized as the foil for Quentin's prodigious cinematic skills. One can intellectualize it all you want, but beating helpless people to death with a baseball bat SHOULD revolt us. If it does not we need to investigate why. The brilliance of the performances and the beauty of the actresses were galvanizing and kept my attention riveted for the slow-motion explosions of blood bags and squibs. I had the same argument once with film director Walter Hill, arguing that balletic, slow-motion deaths, romanticizes and sexualizes that which you are professing to detest. This movie was made because it COULD be made. Quentin's skill and standing, his friendship with Brad Pitt made the tools and technology and money available to him. Whether it SHOULD have been made is a different story. Perhaps if I knew who it might have helped I might feel differently about it. But I don't...and I don't, I'm sorry to say.
The Nazis are just a means to sell this fetish, because it is this type of brutality that Tarantino's fans fantasize about. Since Tarantino creates these images for money, it is not he who needs help but his fans certainly do. To paraphrase the Bard: "Get thee to thy head-shrink".
Tarantino shows the correlation between the flow of blood and the eradication of evil, and that brutality is the best way to bring comfort to those who were wronged by the Nazis. He knows that Holocaust survivors, and Jews in general, should want to retaliate against Nazis with equal and transcending methods - which will then make us all good Nazis. Is that what Jews want to be?
Heinz Wartski
Unfortunately, the answer to your fathers question, "Where are the Nazis." is here. All you need do is turn on the TV (or worse, listen to talk radio) and you can hear echoes of the 1930s. Some use code words and some don't even bother to try.
Martin E. Cobern
Dear Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg,
As the grandson of Dr. Bruno Blumklotz who got out of Germany in 1933 I grew up with the stories of our family history and watched lots of serious documentaries and films on the subject of the Holocaust. I have studied it as a history major in college. I collected oral histories of my family and those of family friends. And yet I find your response to Inglorious Bastards laughable at best.
I know you are a learned man. Yet you seemed to have missed or lost an important part of being a survivor or the decedent of survivors, the ability to make absurd or laugh at the truly horrific. Because sometimes the only way through the pain is humor, the grotesque, and/or the absurd.
Quentin Tarantino did not attempt show the Jews as rats or make a Nazi propaganda film. That scene you take out of context involving the central villain of the movie referring Jews as rats was there to show that behind the genial mask of the "Jew Hunter" was a monster. The Nazis in this film are the villains through and through and like all Grindhouse movie villains they die a gruesome death (or get there comeuppance in the end).
Inglorious Bastards is not history. Or a rewrite of history. Its a revenge fantasy with buckets of blood. The most telling moment during this movie (and when I knew it was great film) was when my wife turned to me and said, "They can kill Hitler?" Yep, because it is a fantasy.
In the balance of life, there are thousands of films like Shindler's List or documentaries like Night and Fog to remind me of the brutality of the Holocaust. My heart can only take so much pain.
So open up your heart and mind Rabbi to the idea that we can mock our own tragic history for one film. Revel in the fantasy. I did.
The fact that “Inglourious Basterds” is apparently a box office success is another sad example of the inability of so many young people (along with some older ones who posted on this site) to separate what is plausible from near-fantasy, as well as a near total ignorance of history. Should we expect any more from Americans who communicate with each other by way of giggles, seldom read newpapers, are "enlightened" through media sound bites and enjoy the attention span of a gnat?
The movie has lead to interesting discussion with my children who often hear talk from their nonjewish friends about movies like the Boy in the Stripped Pajamas and now Inglorious Basterds. We have talked about the expropriation of Jewish history for other cultural uses and reasons. What Mr. Cohen should ask is not whether survival is in and of itself sufficient revenge, but whether a survival, so grossly mischaracterized, becomes insufficient revenge.
To: Bryan Blumklotz
Being a Holocaust survivor, I admit that I'm writing with prejudice, but only those who have no idea what the Holocaust was about can enjoy Tarantino's falsification and trivialization of it. It is beyond my comprehension that anyone who is related to victims of the Holocaust can even think that Tarantino's movie is a work of art and has redeeming values for its humor. Since you are obviously mesmerized with Tarantino, I can assure you that there was absolutely nothing humorous about the Holocaust. Tarantino teaches us that Hitler was right after all, because the world needed to be protected from blood-thirsty Jews.
Heinz Wartski
This is not a critique on the movie but a question. When I first heard about the movie it jarred a memory of mine. As a teenager in Bklyn 1964-65 I heard the following rumor/story. Jewish GI's who either helped liberate the concentration camps or were on the front in Germany banded together and went out at night to kill Germans who they thought were Nazis. This was stopped by a verbal command from above before it became publicized or out of control. Has anybody else heard this rumor/story?
Nobody "liberated" any concentration camps. The allied armies happened stumble over them, more often than not by accident. My father was in the Red Army and fought from Leningrad to Berlin. He had two bullet holes in his very thick thighs. My mother was saved by a Polish Christian farm family, and the only thing approaching any degree of credibility in "Inglorious Basterds" were the very first scenes with the French farmer hiding some Jews. That was as close as the movie briefly got. The rest was just totally silliness, albeit there was some well acted scenes. But the Holocaust theme is definitely now being exploited, trivialized and distorted to make money for many non-Jews these days. Unfortunately, it was Jew, Mel Brooks, whom I once adored, who opened up the barn door with his "Producers." If a Jew can make light of the Holocaust, how can we blame anyone else for following suit?
I just wanted to add that "The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas," by contrast, is the BEST Holocaust-theme movie since Schindler's List, in my opinion. I really do recommend that one very highly. I'm surprised that it got such little notice. The end in particular is totally heart-rending. If anyone leaves it with a dry eye, then he's just not human.
Comments shared by all bring light to this horrific period in history. All of you have made excellent points to consider when looking at Mr.Tarantino's film. I am the son, whose mother had endured and survived the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Unlike my peers I never had the opportunity to be held and kissed by my grandparents. I know only too well the dark places one search's to find the answers as to why my family and my relatives were murder because of their Jewish faith. Along with the thoughts of the six million Jews who were murdered we must grieve for the additional five million plus that shared the same fate because of who they were and for what they believed. Along with the bad there were some good Nazis and civilians alike. Within the sub-camps and main camps there were those that had compassion for Jews. Hearing this from my own mother was difficult to believe. In her circumstances the slightest gesture of decency and compassion meant the difference of life and death (the will to go on). Mother explained when she could no longer walk with the other female inmates during the labor detail a female SS guard escorting the women order the other girls to place my mother in the cart so she did not have to walk this continued until she regained her strenght. During Christmas in Mittlestein (Gross Rosen Sub-camp) one of the female SS guards gave my mother a pair of wool socks. One can almost understand the mind of 17 year old separated from her older sisters, aunts and cousins when such compassion was shown. Tarantino's film was so lacking for a hint of any compassion by the "Nazi's" in this film, bravo Mr.Tarantino. With this and only this in mind Mr.Tarantino's film throughout was 99.9% accurate,he in fact he did get something correct. My father (Modern-Orthodox Jew) on the other hand was in the Czech Legion 1942-1946 attached to the Red Army. As the war came to an end he along with other Jews and Russian comrades entered the Sudetenland - Czech region to search for SS and Nazi deserters who attempted to make their way back home to their families that lived in this Germany speaking part of Czechoslovakia. Intelligence given to my father's unit on wanted SS and collaborators ordered that swift justice be dealt to any one caught by his special unit. Those that were caught along with the numerous know collaborators were taken to the woods never to emerge again. The Jewish soldiers made sure that those known collaborators that helped the nazis round up innocent civilians and Jews for personal gains never lived to enjoy their blood money. This unlike the case with the allies was the order of the day, straight from Stalin himself. General Patton would have agreed along with many American GI's who would have been more then happy to send these murder's to their graves. Only if the Russians had more say at the Nuremberg Trials, they for sure would have exacted the appropriate justice that American, English, Canadian's and French failed to do. How ironic it is today sixty five years later after 9/11 those that murdered almost 3,000 Americans are allowed the protection of the very same Americans they tried to murder. To see History unfold repeat itself in our own US court system only brings comfort to our enemy's and sends a clear message to all Americans which congress fails to understand.
To Bryan Blumklotz. Thank G-d your grandfather and others got out of Germany in the early years. My parents who were polish suffered in Concentration camps. Even though I am considered a Holocaust Scholar and have written 5 books on the sunbject and taught the subject for l5 years including on the Graduate school level, I did not need to read documents. I heard it first hand from my parents and I was reminded every day of their horrors my viewing my fathers concentration number on his arm. I cannot imagine them laughing at this movie. When they were still alive , I would often watch the T.V.show Hogan's Heroes. My mother would say " If they only reall y knew the yiddisha Tzuras( troubles).
Why some Jews woould enjoy Tarantino's moronic film will always remain a mystery to me. A group of doltic "Jews" led by a gentile (how could Jewish soldiers be led by a Jewish officer, right?) hillbilly officer perform mindless mayhem on the Nazis is supposedly a fantasy retelling of WWII. The "Jews" never reveal any Jewishness, never talk about the war/Holocaust experience. What do they know, why are they motivated to do what they do? How have they been chosen? Why does Hadassah, after supposedly surviving a Nazi massacre, appear to have chosen a non-Jewish future? Why are some of the "Jews" such brutes? Why does pornography occupy such a prominent place in this "acclaimed" film? Etc., etc., etc. Never mind, the glowing reviews (mostly by adolescent-minded "critics"), American culture is at a very low ebb, indeed.
Two words: Generation Gap.
Those born before 1960, who experienced the Holocaust or had their childhoods shaped by its ghosts, seem to have a much more difficult time accepting this movie. For you, the Holocaust is an event of experience, and anything which deviates from a faithful historical retelling is gaudy or opportunistic.
While it might be hard for the older generations to understand, those of us born a little later have experienced the Holocaust almost entirely through movies. While your generations found strength in the cinematic glorification of survival, we watched the same movie over and over---prisoners to a history that gave us no voice.
Tarantino's movie wasn't made for Holocaust survivors. It was made for those of us born after 1960, who have seen "Schindler's List" and "Europa Europa" but deep within ourselves (perhaps not even consciously) wanted to imagine an alternative universe, where the Indians beat the Cowboys, or the slaves rose up against their masters.
There's nothing wrong with this. Every Jew under 40 I know has found the movie strangely cathartic. We're so accustomed to being treated as weak (through no fault of our own) it's almost a relief to be portrayed as strong. No, we don't want scalps or to bash brains in. We're no less civilized or humanitarian. All the same, we want to see ourselves as strong and brave, and this can be difficult when every onscreen image is a relative obediently marching to their death.
Regarding the generation gap. I suggest people read books and not only view movies most of which are based on little historical validity. My children who range from l9 -26 thought this movie and movies like it are ridiculous. Maybe it is because they all have actually studied the Holocaust and took a tour to Poland to view the concentration camps and learn more about the Holocaust.By the way, I wrote a book " The Holocaust As Seen Through Film " and have taught graduate courses on this theme.
Rabbi, with all due respect, I think you're being rather judgemental. I majored in European History in college---specifically 20th century European history. I've been to Auschwitz. Simply because something does not connect with you emotionally doesn't mean it serves no constructive purpose.
And just because someone disagrees with your views doesn't make them poorly educated, or mean they have no true historical appreciation for what happened. Films by nature are manipulative. When Spielberg hauled all of those women and children into the gas chamber in Schindler's List, but show water came out instead, that was dramatic manipulation in its own right.
As for your sons, I wonder if you asked them what they thought, or if you just told them it was shameful and they quietly decided to agree with you. The younger generation's view of the Holocaust is different from yours. Not inferior, different. Maybe before you judge us, you should spend some time talking with Jews 20-40 about the film and understand where we're coming from---as oppossed to telling us what to think. You, too, still have things to learn in this life. We all do.
Dear Daniel. My kids are very outspoken and think for themselves..I do not judge you or anyone but this is my opinion. Schindler' list has numerous sex scenes which have no other purpose than to see the movie and urinating while your girlfriend watches is not needed . The historical accuracy is much to be desired and Schindler do not forget was a NAZI. My mother was in that camp called Plashav. The age group I teach is l8-26 plus. I never mentioned you or anyone else being inferior.What IO did say is that many of these movies are not historically accurate and it would be a good idea to study the history of the Holocaust. I have two boys and two girls and they think for themselves .
I teach all my students to watch out when one says "with all due respect." I ask Holocaust survivors to please comment on the accuracy of most Holocaust movies. You are the only ones that were really there and it is your opinion I respect the most. By the way I find watching the history channel very beneficial in learning the history about the Holocaust.Schindler's list was an excellent movie in that it showed the insanity of the Nazis and the desire of Jews to survive.I recently visited the factory sight when I was in Krakow Poland.
I said "with all due respect" because you're a Rabbi and a Doctor and I felt you deserved it...even though I believe you're wrong. Here's why: Comparing documentaries with Hollywood films is apples and oranges. One if history, the other is art. Tarantino's film is not meant to be a historical representation. What it tries to do is use violence as catharsis--which given the nature of the Holocaust is a fair cinematic display of fighting fire with fire. It's audacious, yes, but films exist to provide emotional impact.
Moreover, there's nothing wrong with that. I have a friend who's the child of survivors and she loved the movie. Like the Nazis melting in Indiana Jones, this isn't about truth, it's about feeling. It's a movie made for those of us born in the 60's, 70's and 80's, not for the baby boomers, and certainly not for those who suffered in reality.
Please try to understand. We have been inundated with the historical record our entire lives and made to feel like victims. For once, we wanted the fantasy of winning. I'd encourage you to talk with more people my age (35) and younger to gain a better understanding of how our view of the Holocaust differs from yours. Afer all, if we want blood, you as our teacher played some role in creating that bloodlust.
If you want a fantasy of winning , go on aliyah. The State of Israel needs bright young people such as yourself. In my life I have won and Hitler lost. It is no fantasy. I have 4 children who are religiously observant Jews and 3 beautiful grandchildren.I lead a religious life in the United States of America which I love and I live in a religious neighborhood with kosher restaurants and , Yeshivot and synagogues. This is no fantasy.Dan, I admire your spirit and courage to speak out. Enroll in one of my classes , you would make an outstanding contribution.
Dan. I agree with much of what you have said and I have enjoyed this intellectual debate. Consider being a Rabbi or lawyer. Have a happy and healthy New Year to you and all the readers.
I'm fascinated by all of the comments I've read here. I did not know of this article on Friday but coincidentally had a lively discussion with a college student who had recently seen the film. He compared it to "Das Boot". He believed this film to be "great". I couldn't see the correlation but felt uncomfortable with the comparison of an account grounded in some reality to a revenge fantasy pandering to our baser desires.
I'm not a big Tarantino fan as over the top gratuitous violence is not my cup of tea. I must say that my own un-informed biases remain solidly intact.
We hear and read too many lightly considered comparisons today such as likening President Obama to Hitler. We can not afford to trivialize or confuse facts that to this day still find resistance amongst Holocaust deniers. The power to entertain can't be divorced from the power to educate and stimulate. We talk about events "fading" into history. The horrible lessons of Nazism can not be allowed to fade or be diluted or trivialized.
Regardless of what we debate here, ticket sales will be the measurement and the movie industry will put to film any topic that might enhance a bottom line.
As I think back to the pre-release of "The Passion of the Christ" and the heated debates that took place, I wonder what all the energy spent ever really amounted to? My kids in public school experienced an uptick in nasty comments from non-Jewish students. To be fair however, the experiences were quite subdued to experiences I had in school.
For me, I'll cast my vote NO to purchasing a ticket to see this film. I'll risk the failing of missing something that might be "great". I don't wish to add to the blur of history as it's edges are purposely eroded in the name of entertainment. I also accept the fact that this will happen whether I with hold my support or not.
This movie is true to the teachings of the talmud.And is a good window on the jewish soul.
"...Four guys kill like a thousand Nazis,” he said. “It’s one of the best movies ever made.”
Good flick, "Where Eagles Dare".I don't want to nitpick, but it was actually 2 guys(Richard Burton & Clint Eastwood)and two chicks. The other two were traitors. One of the best parts of the film is toward the end when the two traitors have the snot beat exqisitley out of them by a thoroughly fed-up Burton on top of a cable car. They go to their deaths screaming like girls. While not the visceral smorgasbord that is "Ingloroius Basterds", it was quite satisfying all the same. Its analogous to drooling over a stack of Playboys. After awhile, you just wanna' see a girl with her clothes on, just to make sure your imagination still works.
That being said, I think this subject has been over-intellectualized (if thats not a word, please forgive me). The film is nothing more than a Jewish Rambo. In Rambo, the US defeat in Vietnam is turned into a victory. In "Inglorious Basterds" we kill Hitler, and just as I did with Rambo, I got a kick out of it. Lighten' up dudes and break out the milk duds.
I do not think those who suffered through he holocaust are dudes nor do they wish to lighten up.
To Mr. Yam. Show respect to those who died in the Holocaust and to the survivors. Only by remembering the past can we protect the future. Your comments are insulting and do not call me Bernie. Those who survived the Holocaust were not failures and those who died were martys.The only failure was that the world stood silent while 6 million Jews were murdered.
I am truly surprised your disrespectful remarks have not been caught by the sensor. I learned a long time ago not to respond to those who obviously wish not to enter into intelligent civil discourse.As my mother of blessed memory would say in Yiddish "speak to the wall" To the readers may I wish you a happy New Year with your families. .
Let me play middle-man here. Shoded Yam is walking that fine line between being provacative and insulting. He's leaning both ways on that wire. But hard verbal tactics set aside, I think he makes some valid points.
"It's the device by which our civic organizations extort money from the Jewish Community to build yet another maudlin Holocaust museum, while JCC's all over the country are either closing or under funded. As an interesting aside, I find it fascinating that millions can be raised to construct these paens to American Jewish guilt, but yet not a dime can be found to secure the remaining years of those survivors who are in need and poverty stricken."
We should never forget what happened, but we shouldn't sell our future to beat our breasts over the past. Mourning has its place but life is for the living. I, too, am very troubled by the priorities of the Jewish community. There's too much looking back and not enough look forward. Too much rigid idealism and not enough flexible thought and debate.
Unless that changes, they won't need another Holocaust. We'll wipe ourselves out.
Rosh Hashannah is now at an end. We are in the midst of the Ten Days of Repentance.May we all have a year of health and happiness. G-d bless you all.May we fight on behalf of Jews everywhere and on behalf of the State of Israel. At the same time may we never forget the past and fight for the future.
Yam, by the way . Did you loose immediate relatives in the Holocaust. What gives you the right to judge one's piety or to demean the memory of the 6 million Who made you judge and executioner.? I would not vote for you to be dog catcher.
Yam. I was a student in Graduate school of Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg who taught Holocaust education. He is a brilliant scholar and an unbelievable human being. His reputation as a clergyman and scholar is well known. You should be ashamed and asked for forgiveness. I have never seen such disrespect and rudeness. I am sure you never met or spoke to him.