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That’s SIR Peres, thank you!

16 years ago
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by grandmuffti
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grandmuffti

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44 Comments

  • When will people finally learn to stick (sorry!) to the missionary position?

  • The King (obm) learned some of those moves from Sir Tom.

    Speaking of “I can’t walk out…” this group, Footsteps, was mentioned on the news tonight in a piece about Orthos looking for kinky sex on craigslist.
    http://www.footstepsorg.org/challenge.php

    I think it addresses some of the topic above.

  • Chutzpah,

    I don’t see what is wrong with acknowledging America’s feats of heroism and extraordinary decency while also acknowledging its shortcomings and faults. History is not just about choosing a side to cheer for or to demonize. That said, I don’t know the degree to which restricting immigration was (aside from anti-Semitism) a result of legitimate social concerns, demogoguery, or demogoguery that the cognoscenti widely (both here and abroad) accepted as legitimate social concerns at the time, but were still reflective of appeals to demogoguery nonetheless.

    All of these questions help parse down exactly what historical lessons can be learned from these events, even if that goal comes at the expense of seeing America (or any other country) as only either “100% good” or “100% bad”. Patriotism and good will are fine, but it’s important that those things not get in the way of drawing historical lessons.

  • I think we should let FDR and US immigration policies off the hook. A country can only take in so many sick and destitute people at one time without putting itself at risk of overloading its social services system.

    You can call restricting refugees anti-semitism if it makes you feel better,and that was no doubt a large factor, but I think the U.S.A. deserves a slight bit more appreciation that that. There were countries that did not allow any refugees to come in.

    Would U.S. Jews today be happy to let in the same number of refugees from Darfur and other impoverished and war-torn areas as FDR let in after WWII? I highly doubt it.

  • MUL, I completely agree– I don’t think we should let FDR or US immigration policy off the hook. I find the counterfactual game tiresome and insufferably arrogant, however.

    I’ll bet Ephraim is right, except for one thing– Hitler overran most of Europe and with it, most European Jews. At that point, expulsion was not the preferred option.

  • All righty then…
    … I think it’s time to take things down a notch.

    Morning Tom,

    I apologize for calling you a gimp with a bottle. No cynicism, no quip, no retort. Just a simple “I’m sorry”.

    Froylein – thanks for setting me straight.
    I guess I realized that when the best I could come up with was “he started it” that the time had come to make amends.

    Obviously the Holocaust is the sole responsibility of the Nazi regime and its supporters.

    The dimensions of the catastrophe could have been different IF, should have been different IF, would have been different IF – but they aren’t.

    What makes the whole thing so obscene is that history’s lessons in this case have not been learned. Modern day genocides – Darfur, Rwanda, Yugoslavia go on unchecked for the most part for many of the same reasons.

    in the 30’s and 40’s we could still collectively claim that “we don’t know” that “it’s to horrible to be true”
    but today we haven’t even that excuse any more and the guilt belongs to all of us.

    Mike
    “I tweet @pop_art & trot straw men”

  • Israel didn’t give Peres this honor, it was conferred by the British Crown. I’d still like to know what he got it for.

    Mike, if you refrain from ever saying anything bad about anyone who is not Israeli, I will refrain from voicing my opinions about Israeli politicians.

    Or, ck and company can rename this blog “Israelicious” and make it off limits to gollus Yidden like me. And Catholics like Tom.

    Of course, I’ve met plenty of Israelis who share my opinion of Peres, so Mike’s position is just one amongst many.

    Also, believe it or not, I agree that the best thing for Israel, and the US, would be for Israel to be able to cut the apron strings to the US. The relationship is distorted and distorting.

    And Mike is right about one thing: Hitler realized he would be able to murder the Jews and get away with it when he saw that no one wanted the refugees he was creating. Had the doors been open, I think he probably would have been satisfied with just robbing them and kicking them out. Easier than killing them.

  • Tom, I think any intellectually honest person has to admit that the course of history is multicausal. Obviously the evil of Hitler and his Nazis is so unparalleled as to provide the ultimate moral lesson of the horrifying scope of humanity’s potential for industrialized democide in the pursuit of xenophobic ends. But surely the country that led the Allies to victory over the Third Reich and re-made the world order and proclaimed its moral underpinnings in the wake of that, should not shy away from being forthcoming in how its own shortcomings left the prey open to poaching. Counterfactuals are counterfactuals, but acknowledging America’s own shortcomings should negate neither its own heroism nor that displayed within Europe during the war. And Mike’s point, that it doesn’t give Americans, Jewish or otherwise, any more standing to pronounce on how the democratic state of Israel’s actions or political honors should be decided, should be a given, shouldn’t it?

  • ‘Gimp with the bottle’ is pretty cool. Yeah, let’s go with that…. Mike, nice work in trotting out a straw man and changing the subject. Blaming the Holocaust on US immigration policies isn’t fair to the Nazis. Who knows how long they were prepared to content themselves with compelling Jews to emigrate, as they were in the 30s. Their methods changed once the war broke out, right? Returning us to the reality that the Nazis had to be defeated on the battlefield.

    Besides, we can likewise speculate that the Germans came very close to killing far, far more Jews. Imagine if Britain had accepted Hitler’s peace terms or hadn’t developed radar in time to defeat the Luftwaffe offensive. Or if the Soviets hadn’t scraped together forces to mount their offensive outside Moscow in December 1941– or had lost the battle of Stalingrad. Or if Hitler hadn’t invaded Yugoslavia in spring 1941, delaying the Russian campaign. Or if Hitler hadn’t gratuitously declared war on the USA in 12/41. Or if the Danes hadn’t hidden their Jews, or the Bulgarians theirs. Or if Horthy hadn’t initially resisted the Nazi takeover of Hungary. Your impertinent speculations cut both ways, with a vengeance.

    Does it make you feel better to some hapless American rabbi for what Hitler did?

  • The “gimp with the bottle” is a highly valued, long-time reader of and commenter on Jewlicious whose integrity is beyond doubt.

  • For the gimp with the bottle:
    ”
    1938
    July — President Roosevelt, who was supported by the Jewish vote nearly unanimously, convenes “The Evian Conference” in France to discuss refugee problem. Little is accomplished and most Western countries remain unwilling to accept Jewish refugees.

    1939
    February – June
    Wagner-Rogers Bill proposes admitting 20,000 German refugee children to the U.S. The bill dies in committee.

    May – June
    The S.S. St. Louis, carrying 930 Jewish refugees, is turned away by Cuba. The U.S. refuses to admit the refugees, who are forced to return to Europe.

    1941
    June
    New rules in the U.S. cut refugee immigration to about 25% of the relevant quotas.

    By July the same year the Yiddish dailies in the states are already beginning to report that thousands of Jewish civilians have been already massacred in Nazi conquered areas. No one can claim at this point that “they didn’t know”

    1942
    June
    The World Jewish Congress announce, at a press conference in London, that the Nazis have already killed over a million Jews.

    July
    20,000 people convene in New York’s Madison Square Garden to protest the Nazi atrocities.
    20,000 – that’s one for every 500 killed.
    The Palestinians do better than that.

    I suggest you read Ben Hecht’s account of this event – http://brothersjuddblog.com/archives/2005/05/too_quiet_they_whispered_1.html

    “…Rabbi Wise said he would like to see me immediately in his rectory. His voice, which was sonorous and impressive, irritated me. I had never known a man with a sonorous and impressive voice who wasn’t either a con man or a bad actor. I explained I was very busy and unable to step out of my hotel.

    “Then I shall tell you now, over the telephone, what I had hoped to tell you in my study,” said Rabbi Wise. “I have read your pageant script and I disapprove of it. I must ask you to cancel this pageant and discontinue all your further activities in behalf of the Jews. If you wish hereafter to work for the Jewish Cause, you will please consult me and let me advise you.”

    At this point I hung up. When I informed Bergson of Rabbi Wise’s fatheadedness, he answered moodily, “We’ll have to get the spies out of our organization. There are obviously people among us carrying information and documents to the enemy.”

    I was confused by the word enemy. I had up to that moment been thinking only of an enemy with a swastika…”

    So now you know…
    …and all the guilt geld in the world can’t buy you a clean conscience.

    Mike

  • Hi All,

    1.
    At 34 I’m probably one of the youngest members of the 2nd generation alive. My father fled Germany in 1933 at the age of 13. In 1941 he joined the British army were he fought until the end of the war. In 1992 I joined the Israeli army were I serve as an Infantry captain in the reserves to this day.
    Don’t preach to me.

    Sadly it’s a documented fact that American Jewry refrained from doing much about the holocaust well until it was too late, out of fear of the Antisemitism they were sure that a massive influx of new Jewish immigrants would provoke.

    “…Rabbi Leo Franklin, the prestigious and powerful leader of Detroit’s Temple Beth El since 1899, echoed the sentiments of many American Jews in the 1930s when he stated that “the Jews of Germany have suffered the tortures of hell, but it must not be forgotten that beyond counting also are the host of non-Jews who have incurred the displeasure of the despot.” Similarly, Franklin reflected the attitudes of other Jewish leaders when he expressed the hope in a sermon on November 25, 1938 that new settlements of Jews in the United States would not be encouraged beyond the country’s “absorptive capacity.” Such lack of foresight, he said, would lead to misunderstanding and conflict that should be avoided at all costs…”

    The sad and inconvenient truth is that 6,000,000 could have been far less if we weren’t all so eager to ignore the impending doom on the European side of the ocean, and avoid provoking the Goyim on the American side.

    Know your history.

    2.
    Like the founders of Zionism I despise the cult of Shnor and everything it signifies.

    Take your money and shove it.

    If we hadn’t had it we wouldn’t have grown fat and stupid, and you wouldn’t have had such a convenient outlet for your feelings of guilt, which might have actually caused you to get off your cushy asses and come to live were you truly belong.

    3.
    You can’t be a back-seat Zionist.

    You want to make a difference?

    You have an opinion and want me and my brethren to respect you enough to listen it?

    GET OVER HERE!

    4.
    After you do that I’ll let you bad mouth my President all you like. Trash talking our politicians is our national pass time : )

    Mike

  • The Holocaust may not have taken place in the United States, but restrictive immigration quotas fueled by anti-semitism surely didn’t help to keep the number much lower than 6 million, as would have likely been the case otherwise.

  • Actually it’s “Sir Shimon”. I thought you kanuks were supposed to know from all this British pomp and circumstance?

  • Mike, the Holocaust didn’t take place in the United States, you goof. What’s more, if it weren’t for teenage American kids like my dad getting sent over to kill as many Germans as possible, it would’ve been a lot more than five (or six, or eleven) million. Now, go back to mom’s basement.

  • Chutzpah, exactly; it’s not part of their – assumed – theology either (“justice for all” as the key phrase in Jewish eschatology should apply to all, but still).

    Mike, I’m not sure why you are bashing Ephraim over what he may or may not have done for Israel in response to his (legitimate) question about what Peres had done for Britain or the Commonwealth. Pointing out Peres’ political achievements in Israel doesn’t answer that question either. I’ll try to see if there is any laudatio available online that’ll clue us in. That said, Israel has largely benefitted from Zionist diaspora Jews. Maybe they’ve removed all the plaques by now, but last time I was in Israel, there were plaques all over public buildings saying that the money for the one or the other part of the building (incl. entire hospital wings) had been donated by somebody; I took the time to read all plaques I saw, and the donors exclusively were British or American Jews. BTW, if there is only one “here” for Jews, how come all your IPs are not “here” ones?

  • Can’t you read, Chutzpah? I did not scorn the Nobel Prize. I was voicing my opinion of Peres.

    Mike, I can’t be more Zionist than an Israeli, but considering what has happened since Oslo, I’m not sure that can be counted as an accomplishment. It was either a desperate gamble or a noble failed experiment, but it was still a failure. Israel has given up a lot of land, and the Palestinians are just as violent, and far better armed, than ever. Whatever the value of the other Nobel prizes, the fact that Arafat got the Peace Prize should tell you how much it’s worth.

    Not exactly sure what your comments regarding 6,000,000 errors means, but whatever.

  • Hi Ephraim,

    For a Jew there is only one “here”.

    Now just set the record straight:

    “… Shimon Peres is the ninth President of the State of Israel.

    Peres served twice as Prime Minister of Israel and once as Acting Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years.

    Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and, served continuously for 48 years, in what is the longest political career any single individual has had in Israel.

    Peres moved HERE with his family in 1934.
    He held several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after the War for Independence in Israel.

    His first high level government position was as Deputy Director-General of Defense in 1952, and Director-General in 1953 through 1959. During which period he allegedly initiated and supervised the alleged development of Israel’s alleged Nuclear capabilities. Allegedly.

    Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the peace talks which he participated in as Israeli Foreign Minister, producing the Oslo Accords.

    Peres was elected by the Knesset for the presidency on 13 June 2007 and sworn into office on 15 July 2007 for a seven-year term…”
    Loosely based on Wikipedia.

    What have you done for your people today Ephraim?
    Have you done anything for them? Ever?
    And don’t give me the party line about praying for us.
    After 6,000,000 “errors” I’d say we’ve pretty much gathered all the evidence we need to know how well that worked “THERE”.

    Mike

  • So in a nutshell Froylein, you are saying you could NOT name one single famous Orthodox Jew who excelled in an area outside of Jewish studies that benefited people outside the Jewish community and retained his or her full Orthodox observance. Come on, throw me a name.

    Ephraim, aren’t you going to phoo the Nobel Prize as goyishe naches also? Regardless of my issues, you still really should take your head out of your holier-than-thou ass.

    And Jez, that’s still Sir Bono and Sir Tom Jones to you.

  • As I understand it, the order that Peres received is given to people who have done something of merit for Britain and the Commonwealth. I would like to know what that is. What service has he rendered the British Crown?

    I have no objection to, and I shep a lot of naches from, Yidden, frum or otherwise, who have contributed something of value to the world and are recognized for that fact. But this is not the Nobel we’re talking about here.

    I simply would like to know what Peres’ contribution has been, that’s all. To hazard a guess, it probably has something to do with his contributions to the “peace process”. If so, I fail to see how this has helped Israel of the Jewish people at all. All Peres and his hare-brained schemes have done is put Israel in danger. I am not objecting to any person, Jewish or otherwise, being honored, by Jews or anyone else. But I don’t see what Peres has done to deserve it.

    I know you hate your husband, Chutzpah, but you really should settle your issues with him, if you can, rather than taking your anger out on me.

  • Actually its not Sir peres at all. Foreigners who receive a knighthood are not entiltled to be called ‘sir’. President Peres will have to do.

    Oh, and Bono… for goodness sake!!

  • Certainly, Chutzpah. Actually that is going to be part of a post commenting on ck’s suggestion of the decline of sophistication among Jews. In a nutshell, as the famous Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz duly noted, referencing Yiddish sources written by contemporaries of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism – which afterall considers itself the norma normans of / for observant Judaism – Baal Shem Tov opposed scholarly approaches to life and religion in particular and elevated the importance of (personal) spiritualism over religious education. It was only his successor that would eventually introduce some degree of studies to Chasidism as he noticed that otherwise it wouldn’t last at all, but in conclusion, the rise of the popularity of Chasidism in return resulted in the decline of the previously highly intellectual Polish Jewry. On top of that, post-WW2 ultra-Orthodoxy has adopted ways of studying and views on society not typical of pre-WW2 Orthodox scholars.

  • Goyishe naches????

    Is that what you consider a Nobel Prize, an Oscar, a Kennedy Center Award?

    Is “goyishe naches” the definative metaphor for the attitude that has caused the Orthodox to completely fail in their mission to be a “light unto the nations”?

    I assert that EVERY contribution to the World in modern times in any field OTHER THAN theology by a Jew has been from a non-Hasidic or non-Ultra-Orthodox person.

    The only Ultra-Orthodox I can think of who have contributed anything to the world-at-large come from the Twerski family. I hope someone can name a few others who 1)didn’t drop Orthodoxy to achieve their goals and 2)whose accomplishments benefited the GLOBAL community. I really hope someone can prove my thesis wrong. (Froylein, help us out here)

    Our impressive list of Jewish Heros and Heroines in politics, the Arts & Sciences including medicine,and sports over the course of history has schepped us many Yiddishe nachas in the secular world. The list of Jewlicious honorary Knights of the Brisish Empire is long and includes Steven Speilberg and Arthur Rubinstein (pianist).

    How dare you dismiss Jewish secular accomplishment with one cavalier yiddish slur!

    What have your chosen people done for the world lately other than brought shame via the Rubashkins and all the pedophiles that are lurking in Brooklyn’s institutions of Holy Learning.

    You know something Ephraim, it is really time to pull your head out of your holier-than-thou ass.

  • Where is here, Mike?

    I don’t dispute Peres’ central importance to the history of Israel. However, I believe his pie-in-the-sky utopianism and the policies that have resulted from his wishful thinking have put Israel in grave danger.

  • Ephraim I suggest you open the history books.
    Who knows, you might learn a little.

    Just out of curiosity: You weren’t born here were you?

  • What has Peres done to deserve this signal honor?

    Besides selling out Israel to its enemies, I mean?

    I guess that could be considered a service to the British Empire, but it’s stretching it a bit, don’t you think?

  • Speaking of Bono,”Sugar Daddy” the song he penned for Knight of the Realm Thomas Jones Woodward, OBE is going to be released Nov. 25 in the U.S. on his new album ” Tom Jones 24 Hours”!

  • Kvetching Peres:

    1.
    St. Michael AND St. George.
    What’s wrong that one saint wasn’t enough?

    2.
    They don’t have enough orders?
    The saints have to share them?

    3.
    Knight grand CROSS?
    Why they couldn’t make you Knight Grand Magen David?

    4.
    Bono got one too eh?
    He’s half your age no?

    5.
    Omnia Vanitas

    …I’m out.
    Congrats to Peres.
    Last of the giants.

    Mike Darnell,
    http://DigitalArtPrintGallery.com
    “I tweet @pop_art”