Alvin Rosenfeld’s Holocaust complaint

This is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.

You have to wonder about Holocaust Deniers – and Holocaust Complainers. Holocaust Complainers cry foul when the Holocaust is used against Israel’s injustice toward Palestinians. Better to keep the attention on Holocaust Deniers and those dastardly Germans – which, of course, they were.

Alvin Rosenfeld is the epitome of Holocaust complainers and he’s at it again.  Rosenfeld is all in favor of Elie Wiesel’s paid statement charge that Hamas encourages child sacrifice and thus Hamas is responsible for the children Israel murdered. Rosenfeld rages against the rebuttal statements by Holocaust survivors and their descendants that Elie Wiesel is up the Holocaust river without a paddle.

Here’s how Rosenfeld begins his rambling in the Forward:

Given Hitler’s voluminous rants about Jews, it is not surprising that one aspect of his obsession is less known: the pleasure he took in the spectacle of Jews deriding and defaming other Jews. Hans Frank, one of Hitler’s top aides, quotes him as saying:

“I am an innocent lamb compared to revelations by Jews about Jews. But they are important, these disclosures of the Jew’s most secret, always totally hidden qualities, instincts, and character traits. It isn’t I who say this, it is the Jews themselves who say it about themselves, about their greed for money, their fraudulent ways, their immorality, and their sexual perversions.”

Hitler’s words about the denigrating things Jews say about themselves came to mind as I perused an ad published in the New York Times on August 23 by IJSN or International Jewish Solidarity Network. Tellingly, the very same ad appeared in the British Guardian on August 15, under the imprint of IJAN, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. For an American, and especially the New York readership, the crafters of this hostile statement must have figured it best not to make explicit their true credentials as anti-Zionists. Its signers display no interest in the misdeeds that Hitler ascribes to the Jews but focus their anger on today’s target-of-choice for Jew-haters everywhere: Israel.

Most Holocaust survivors, like most Jews, are Zionists and are strongly devoted to the welfare of the State of Israel. The IJSN/IJAN group is exceptional in its fierce opposition to Israel and is hardly representative. That fact, however, did not keep the BBC from quickly publishing a story with the title “Holocaust survivors condemn Israel.” The impression conveyed is seriously misleading.

Headlined “Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of Nazi genocide unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza,” the Times ad lashes out at Israel from the first sentence to the last, repeatedly condemning the country for acts of colonialism, racism, and genocide; it associates unnamed “right-wing Israelis” with Nazis; and, in a full-throated voice of protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza, it angrily calls for a “full economic, cultural, and academic boycott of Israel.”

It aims, therefore, not just to censure but to punish. And as a special touch, it attacks a fellow survivor, the most famous one of all: Elie Wiesel. Why? Because Wiesel recently published an ad of his own in American newspapers, including the New York Times, criticizing Hamas for some of its brutal ways. IJSN pulled out all the stops in going after Wiesel, expressing “disgust” and “outrage” over Wiesel’s “abuse of our history” and “manipulation [of] the legacy of the Nazi genocide” to justify the unjustifiable: “the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people.”

That’s just for openers. The rest is predictable. When it comes to using the Holocaust as a lesson that everyone deserves justice, Rosenfeld is gratuitous. He is serial Holocaust-for-justice slanderer.

It’s all quite telling and on a variety of levels. My favorite is Rosenfeld’s take on Hedy Epstein who survived the Nazis but lost her parents in the Holocaust. Pay particular attention to Rosenfeld’s description of Epstein’s recent arrest protesting the police brutality in Ferguson:

Hedy Epstein, who has also signed on to the Guardian statement, likes garnering public attention as a “survivor,” although whether she is one is debatable. Like Meyer, she was born in Germany in 1924, but she left the country in 1939 on a Kindertransport and spent the war years in Great Britain. Since coming to America in 1948, she has thrown herself into political activism, often on behalf of such celebrated Palestinian causes as the 2008 “freedom flotillas” that were meant to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza, the “Gaza Freedom March” in Cairo in 2009, and various anti-Israel activities on the West Bank and elsewhere sponsored by the radical International Solidarity Movement.

Like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who inevitably show up at high-profile rallies organized by others, Hedy Epstein “marched” in St. Louis in mid-August, 2014 to demonstrate her solidarity with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri. When stories broke headlining “Holocaust Survivor Arrested in Ferguson Protests,” it was a foregone conclusion that it was Hedy Epstein. She seems to thrive on flashing her dubious credentials as a “survivor” and, even at age 90, will step forward to join protests, especially if they are against Israel.

Lumped together with the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton! How easy to rouse the neoconservatives and the racist evangelical right that loves Israel. In Rosenfeld’s view Epstein is a professional Israel-hater. Does he really mean professional Jew-hater?

Affiliating with African-Americans as a Jew seems to be the last condemning straw for Rosenfeld. Has Epstein’s Jewishness turned Black?

European Jews are so unpredictable. Especially after they land in the home of the free and the brave.

She seems to thrive on flashing her dubious credentials as a “survivor” and, even at age 90, will step forward to join protests, especially if they are against Israel.

Ageism?

I didn’t realize that the protests in Ferguson were about Israel or that Epstein’s presence there was primarily about Israel. Though connections have been drawn between the two they are primarily about injustice toward populations that are considered “other” to the powerful. Is Rosenfeld’s real Holocaust complaint that Jews of Conscience and people around the world are connecting these injustice dots?

Holding up the Holocaust as the banner against injustice – toward Jews – and everyone else. Is the “everyone else” the real beef Holocaust Complainers have against Jews of Conscience and people of conscience around the world?