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My Own Personal Holocaust Denier July 9, 2017

Posted by voolavex in Anti-Semitism, Holocaust deniers, Israel, Jews, Jews, Nazis, Social Issues.
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Recently, I learned that a person, married into my family ( and we are all very estranged) is a Holocaust denier.  At the time I found out (quite by accident) I actually thought I would vomit.  I shook.  I knew this person was opinionated and narrow-minded but this is one  that never even occurred to me.  Coincidentally, I had just recently seen “Denial” (read the book quite a few years ago) and “Remember”; both of which impressed me and both of which presented aspects of this hideous event in detail. Each was excellent.  I should add I am a Jew. although quite secular and I am very pro-Israel – but this is not really the point when it comes to this event.  Is it?

Holocaust denial is a crime in many countries – for its ugliness but also for its enormous lie.   It did happen and it has been proven to have happened and continues to be written about and substantiated repeatedly as fact. I have read extensively on subject from my teens.

It is a felony in many countries to express Holocaust denial and people go to jail.  I imagine this is a case for many who run into one. They can try to call them out to those in authority and it is very tempting.  I shall leave it at that.

It actually doesn’t make much sense for Jew Haters to deny it.  In the process of their hate, it should be something they cherish.  After all if you hate Jews, the death of millions should fill you with delight.  For some reason those bigots don’t express this.  They have decided that the Jews made it up for sympathy?  Profit?  Publicity?  I have no idea what they think. But when it hits close to ones own life – in any way – it baffles and disgusts.  Not enough to debate or argue the point with the bigot -that’s a losing proposition.  Deniers are cemented to the denial.  And I find them sickening.  Period.  I don’t want to know them. But it is important to know who they are.

But here is a far more provoking question.  How would one even go about creating such  a hoax?  The Nazis who created the factual Holocaust eventually got what they deserved at the war’s end. Those who tried to deny it or escape the legal system hid.  And what a life that must have been!   Determined men, like Wiesenthal and his dedicated seekers pursued them relentlessly.  They routed out so many  and were so diligent – a Nazi criminal on the lam must have been a nervous wreck (just like the Jews and others they sought, found and murdered).  But think about the idea of a hoax itself.  What would have inspired anyone to imagine this horror and supply specious evidence to prove it?   How could be done?  There was no social media or iPhones to create rumors or photoshopped evidence and who would have volunteered to take on the role of a skeletal, tortured victim or a corpse? The denier’s  usual comeback is that the numbers were inflated.  That it was not possible for such a thing to have been carried out on anything  (that sort of insults their heroes) but a small scale and it was therefore okay for something of this nature to take place – but not the way the attention starved bleeding hearts claimed.  But the facts betray the denial.  Not just anguished survivors told their stories; educated, erudite and relentless men – not wanting to simply take a survivors word did the research. They made it their business to dig deeply into the material that existed and supported the facts.

David Irving was one notorious man who insisted it was a hoax.  He was revealed in British court to be a liar and a bigot.   Neo Nazis, who should be proud of their clever and inspiring German  forebears , should embrace it as a stellar accomplishment.  Which makes the deniers an even more deluded crowd.  They can’t have it both ways. On the one hand these race-pure monsters did a very substantial job of making the Reich Judenfrei and at the same time, the deniers want it be a mythic hoax created by Jews to exaggerate exactly what?  Do they think the Reich did a monumental job or did they get blindsided by the Jews who made it up; this very act they love the Nazis for doing.  Which is it?

My recently discovered denier insists that the latter is true and the “Jews” made it much worse than it was – but how could even one murdered person, murdered for their race alone be okay?  A town of Jews or the starvation of a Jew (or a homosexual, or Rom or impaired person?) is okay?  What they would like us to believe is that it was an okay thing to murder Jews, but the ones who survived spun it to be a crime against humanity.  That damaged humans who escaped, invented their own history to match that of other survivors.  That Jews share a cosmic consciousness that  psychically collaborated  to tell the same story when questioned?  Seriously?  That we all think alike and remember the same things that, in their minds, didn’t happen?

This apparently is what my own personal denier believes.  This is what made me shake and fight nausea.

No, I did not say the name or the relationship. It is enough for me to know and it is enough for that person to know I know.  And now you know.  If you know me you may wonder and may even realize.  But I now know and that is more than I ever wanted.

Why Do You Hate the Jews? Who Will Take The Test? September 8, 2015

Posted by voolavex in Anti-Semitism.
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Before I post this blog (or post this blog) I want to acknowledge and thank Bart D. Ehrman, historian, Bible scholar and Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  I have been enlightened by and borrowed  liberally from his book: ‘How Jesus Became God’.  If I had footnoted this post the op cit would  have been Professor Ehrman and this title.  His book is footnoted extensively and there is a Scripture Index.  My best advice would be to obtain a copy and read it more than once. Some of his material has been paraphrased and others quoted.  I must also thank Alon Contino for “his shattering book “A World Without Jews”. Indescribable and researched intensely as well.  It sheds light on more recent acts of Jew hatred.  

 

I shall be quite surprised if anyone accepts the challenge, but it is a revealing test and it could yield revealing answers.  As people (some people) Support BDS – I have to ask why in a broader sense.  But I can see that Jew hating today in other, newer ways, is still alive and well.   Rosh Hashonah – 5776,  sees hating Jews and Israel become a global issue and people have taken sides and I am not sure they even know why.

Why do so many hate the Jews?  Is there a reasonable answer?  It cannot be that you have had a bad experience or that you had loud Jewish neighbors or you can’t stand gefilte fish.  People hate Jews.  Really hate them. Some say they don’t, but in secret they do.  No one wants to simply say “I am an anti-Semite”.  Slay them, smite them, slaughter them, set fire to them, gas them, starve them and I still have no idea why?  Why do so many people HATE the Jews?  I dislike some Jews as individuals, but this goes for any religious or ethnic group. And it is personal.   Not everyone likes everyone.  Admittedly there are some people who don’t – the people of India have no issue with them – it is my opinion that when India’s Jews left for Israel, the Indians were not delighted to see them go.  Surprisingly Albania had no problem with Jews. And this in the 20th century.  Many individuals do not.  History will show us that for brief uneasy moments Jews were not hated and shunned but by and large – people seem to have enjoyed and actively cultivated Jew hatred.  Habitually.  Why?

The Romans  in the Middle East didn’t hate the Jews anymore than they hated their other subjugated subjects who didn’t fall into line during their era.  But the business in Jerusalem on that fateful Pesach weekend was not really about “the Jews” – it was about a Jewish rabble-rouser and the disruption of the daily life of the Roman occupation religion (it was trending subject in those times).  It wasn’t Easter weekend.  There was no Good Friday and believe it or not Crucifixion was the approved execution method of the Roman times (before they decided to toss Christians in with large cats) for criminals. The Romans were what we now call “pagans” and had their own worship they hoisted from the Greeks.  The Romans named their province “Palestine” – not the Jews or anyone else.  There were no Muslims because it was long before Islam.  The land had been occupied and the Jews angered most of the conquerors by not knuckling under to their prevailing religions or gods – but I suspect it had to do with faith and not just singling out the Jews for this dislike.  Anyone who didn’t fall into the party line was not considered a really good subject. If you want a subsequent history of the Jews and their treatment by Christians it’s out there in many incarnations.  I will not revisit it nor will I revise it.

For me it is that the early Jews who began their deification of Jesus had a small problem in the light of scriptural writing. The business of the Messiah.  Remember there was no “new” testament while Jesus lived; nor was there electronic media.   Jews were and continue to be believers in the concept or idea of a messiah or savior.  He is called “Moshiach” and he is the anointed one from the line of David who will come to overwhelm the enemy and set up God’s kingdom. There is no “Second Coming”.  No Jew until Christianity was ever considered to be the messiah.  Despite claims to the contrary the Hebrew bible does not once mention the word “messiah”.  There is no mention in Jewish scripture of dying and rising from the dead as a messianic indicator. It was not a condition or factor. It is perhaps a good idea to understand that Jesus was proclaimed messiah by his apostles during his lifetime, although he never called himself that and nothing about his death or “resurrection” would have all of a sudden indicated that this alone made him the messiah.  The Messiah had to conform to conditions set down ages before and none of them included death and rebirth.  And the Jewish people were not buying it.  Consider too that the Romans were running the show and the Roman Emperor was worshipped as a god. So either worship the pagan gods or keep your own heathenism quiet.  The Jews did not worship Roman emperors; why would they worship a poor schlub from Galilee who was crucified as a traitor and enemy of the state?  And why in future would they worship Jesus who did not fulfill the requirements set down in antiquity for the presence of true Messiah.  Remember that Jesus and his friends were all Jews and knew the  Torah and the drill.

The anti-Semitism that has evolved probably started about at the end of the second century in the city of Sardis in Asia Minor in  a sermon delivered by a bishop named Melito.  In it he places the blame for the crucifixion on the Jews.  Period.  And because Jesus had attained the status of God – the Jews had killed their own God; their own Messiah.  He concludes by saying that ‘God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been destroyed by the Right Hand of Israel (that would be Jesus who was sittething on the right hand of God”).  To a small group of believers this would be wild rhetoric, but the Church had already become a majority and Constantine, born again in 312 CE (or so) and created the Holy Roman Empire.  Constantine started with a gusto by railing against the Jews as enemies of “GOD” and laws were passed to constrain Jews in their activities.  Jews had done a bad, bad thing and they were going to suffer for it.  Christianity spread.  So did anti-Semitism.  Jews suffered. And so we come back around to the question:  “Why Do YOU Hate the Jews”.  Now, right now?  An invalid choice is “Because They Killed Our Lord”.  My purpose is to find actual reasons that might sound realistic but are incorrect in the light of explanation and  proven facts.  No one has to soften it.  No one has to sugar coat.  I am interested in honest answers.   And I will be interested to see who will take the test.

This post is dedicated to a person with whom I share a birthday and who is a Muslim and whom I consider my brother.  It is for a sweeter, kinder New Year – the one my tribe celebrates and for every other human who would rather talk than shoot.  Shalom.

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