Dear David,

April 19, 1943. Ukranian and Latvian SS troops march into the Warsaw ghetto, under orders to destroy it and all who were living there. A Jewish leader, Mordechai Anielewicz led a resistance with a handful of supporters and a pitifully few guns. They held out until May 16. Most had perished by that time. The few survivors were sent to their deaths in Treblinka.

Do you think, can you actually believe, that these resistance fighters would not gladly have melted down statues—or any other cultural object—if it gave them the opportunity to defend themselves and, yes, kill (oooh…I know how awful this sounds) the enemy?

You state disapprovingly that “I presume that during war you would also burn Jewish books to keep warm.”

Another history lesson: that’s exactly what did happen when European Jews were forced to survive with little beyond their own belongings. The first duty of a society is to survive. The People of the Book first have to be a people. Then they can have the book.

Neatly avoiding my point about the strong profile of Oriana Falacci in the New Yorker, you go on to say that my arguments are “frightening” and “racist” because of my view of radical Islam and of those Muslims who cannot be bothered to denounce murder, whether in Israel, Europe, or America.

Had we been debating during World War II, I’m certain you would have labeled me frightening and racist when I said that Imperial Japan must be totally defeated, and later, when I said that the atomic bomb not only saved the lives of American soldiers, but also of Japanese ones, despite the pious editorials of after-the-fact historians.

You write, “Zionism holds less and less weight for younger American Jews who view the world through very different lenses from those of their parents and grandparents.” Well, of course they do. One can hardly expect these young folks to be Xeroxes of those who went before.

But they are not numb, either. If they have any sense, they know that Israel not only has a wall, it is a wall. The wall stands between the forces of Nazism redivivus (note the exhibition of antisemitic cartoons sponsored by Iran, whose leader denies that the Holocaust occurred).

They can cluck about how terrible violence is from the pseudo-safety of U.S. campuses (not so long ago a Muslim killed a woman and injured others at a Jewish organization in Seattle. There have been many other such incidents, including one at an El-Al counter in California and another on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York.)

Or they can be realistic, and observe that while “they do not see Zionism as the solution to the war on terror” (whoever said that they did? Not I) they do see Israel as a vital component in that war. And that they are threatened by Israel’s enemies, who make no distinction between a Jew in Haifa and one in, say, Denver.

I wish you well nonetheless. Perhaps one day soon you will realize that those who see the killers as they are, are not racists but realists. And that those who see Zionism as the honest effort of Jews to find a place in the Middle East—a place that would be denied to them by the Muslim states of Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc.—are not echoers of Herzl but latter-day truth-tellers, unblinking, unafraid, and untenured.

Regards,

Stefan

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From: Stefan Kanfer To: David Shneer Subject: Don’t pack any hair gel!

Dear David,

The rules of combat, even a prose one such as this, demand accuracy rather than distortion. You note that I approvingly cited Oriana Fallaci, then go on to claim that “the New Yorker tore her apart….” The magazine did nothing of the kind.

It profiled her. The writer found her views too trenchant and was not persuaded by her heated arguments about the threat of Islam in Europe. (Cassandra was also fiery—and was, it will be remembered, borne out by history.) Happily, the profile is available for our readers on the New Yorker site. Here is what they will find at the conclusion of the piece:

“Fallaci’s virtues are the virtues that shine most brightly in stark circumstances: the ferocious courage, and the willingness to say anything, that can amount to a life force. But Fallaci never convinced me that Europe’s encounter with immigration is that sort of circumstance.”

Does that sound like a tearing apart? Alas, I think you see what you want to see and read what you want to read. Facts are painful things. I understand.

Here is an Associated Press report underlining the legitimacy of Fallaci’s argument:

“In a recent interview with Corriere della Sera, Saudi dissident and designated terrorism supporter Saad Al Faqih warned that Italy will be hit soon, as it is the logical next step in al Queda’s strategy of driving a wedge between the U.S. and its European allies.”

Already scores of Italians of Islamic background have been rounded up. The police have their work cut out for them; the place is overrun with Muslims, as Ms. F. reported again and again, sometimes to alert citizens, sometimes to sleepwalkers.

In any case, you have set up the straw man of Zionism as a 19th-century concept. Of course things have changed, and not every Jew wants to make aliyah. I am one of those whose identity does not depend on living in Israel. I was born in the U.S. and this is my home, and a damn good one. Visiting Israel is not the same as backing it, and I take no credit for having been a tourist in Jerusalem. I do take credit for sending money there, and for taking up the cause of the Jewish State any time, anywhere, against its enemies, against the indifferent, and against the anti-Semites.

I have always treasured the remark of Billy Rose, a theatrical producer who made millions and gave his vast sculpture collection to Israel while he was still alive. Viewing the massive bronzes, Ben Gurion asked him what he should do with the precious art if the Arabs attacked. Rose’s instruction: “Melt ’em down into bullets.”

Israel is currently fighting for its life. Every Jew knows in his bones that Israel must live, must triumph, and must stay on guard for the next attack. It cannot be iterated enough that what happens to Israel will, sooner or later, happen to the Western world. The foe is the most malevolent since the heyday of Hitler and the last days of Stalin. If this isn’t relevant to Jews worldwide, then Noam Chomsky must have had more influence than advertised. And we both know that he is no worse than a bad cold.

Enjoy the rest of your trip, and remember not to pack any hair gel, water, or perfume when you fly. Bon voyage.

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From: Stefan Kanfer To: David Shneer Subject: Unmissable parallels

Dear David,

I will set aside my feelings for the youth who are to be “running Jewish institutions in the not too distant future,” nor will I comment on the validity of those “institutions” beyond a withering glance at the magazine Tikkun.

The heart of my letter, you write, sounds very much “like the speeches made in 1887 by Theodor Herzl and his buddies.” You deride Herzl’s sentiments: “The world isn’t a safe place for Jews, as long as Jews are not running their own affairs, so get us out of Europe.”

I had to pause in disbelief when I read that. Six million Jews died in Europe, most of them because they were Jews. Among the handful who escaped, a visionary group had gone to Palestine, heeding Herzl.

Most could not go to the U.S. or Canada or Britain or anywhere else considered a safe haven because of the restrictive laws against such immigrants. The American laws were particularly antisemitic.

Herzl saw the handwriting when others could not even see the wall. He had been a journalist reporting on the Dreyfus affair. Yet even he could not have seen the horror to come. He only knew that something ominous was in the European air, even before World War I, and that yes, getting out of Europe was an essential, vital desideratum.

He was scoffed at, especially in Germany, especially after World War I. Why, Jews had fought in the Kaiser’s army, it was pointed out. Surely they would be considered patriots. This loutish Adolf would soon be gone.

Had the German Jews listened to Herzl (a tiny fragment did), many more would have been saved.

But enough history lessons. Let’s concentrate on today, and the greatest danger to Jews, and eventually to the Western world itself, radical Islam. I realize that “diversity” is a favored term in academia, but that word has its limits, and those limits are growing more pronounced by the day.

Not to recognize that the U.S. is a safer haven to Jews today because it has only a small percentage of Muslims, and that most (though by no means all) of those Muslims are absorbed into American society, is to wear blinders.

In August, Britain reported the foiling of a plot to send planes to the U.S. where they would be blown up, either in mid-air or on the ground. Who do you suppose was involved in the plot? Ubangis?

Right now the world is at war. Israel is on the front lines. There is no more relevant group of Jews in the world than those in the Jewish State, and deriding the sentiments of the early Zionists, and failing to see the parallel with today’s events is a strange way to teach.

In any case, welcome home. Perhaps when you are settled in, back in Denver, you can look across the sea and realize that the enemy is as close as the officers who stripped Alfred Dreyfus of his medals in a public ceremony, while through the fence at the Hotel de Ville, a bearded Jew made notes….

Warmest regards,

Stefan

Next E-mail: Israel is important; Zionism is not

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Dear David,

Years ago I was visiting a friend in San Francisco. I passed a temple bulletin board with the sign, “The Joy of Jewishing.” This is why I live in New York. Trendy neologisms like “Jewishly” are among my least favorite. And titles like Heeb are not only achingly arch, they are also ancient in impulse—though I doubt that this is known to the people who think it’s hip. To tell you the truth, the title of this punning website puts my teeth on edge.

In his book Jewish Wit, the Freudian psychiatrist Theodore Reik wrote that at his or her most desperate “the Jew sharpens, so to speak, the dagger which he takes out of his enemy’s hand, stabs himself, then returns it gallantly to the antisemite with the silent reproach, ‘Now see if you can do half as well.’” To me all such wordplay is strictly retro and very damaging. I have yet to see a magazine called “Nigger,” “Spick,” or “Wop,” and words like “negritude” belong to the 1950s. Woody Allen has had a lot of fun with such labels.

Back to the subject at hand. Is Zionism still relevant to American Jews? I disagree with your answer that most American Jews "would likely say 'no' if asked 'Is Zionism relevant to you?'"

Of course only a closely analyzed poll would settle this, but I have yet to meet a Jew in the New York area—which as you point out contains the largest number of Jews in the world—who regards Israel with indifference.

In part this has to do with the way the Jewish situation has been playing out in Europe. France, for example, used to pride itself on its history of post-revolutionary tolerance. Napoleon even insisted on a Sanhedrin for the Jews of his nation. Yes, in time there was the Dreyfus case, but that scandal was supplied with a happy ending; the gentile novelist Emile Zola raised hell, and justice prevailed.

There was even a Jewish prime minister, Léon Blum, before World War II, and one after it, Pierre Mendes-France.

French publicists failed to mention the enthusiastic cooperation of the Vichy government in handing over les Juifs to the Nazis. But it must be said that there was, in the wake of V-E Day, a national malaise, a discomfort with the way the local fascists had acted, and, for a while, all was well with French Jewry.

That is not so today. My Jewish friends in France are lining up to get out, to go to Canada, the U.S., and Israel. Several have told me that they don’t expect major trouble in their lifetimes, but that they cannot allow their children to grow up in the dangerously deteriorating nation.

The reason:

You know it as well as I. It is called Islam. Only a short while ago a Jewish youth was killed by Muslims in a banlieu outside Paris. The principal criminal was caught, but the fact is that scores of other Muslims in the building (and perhaps throughout the slum) knew that the young Jew was being held and tortured in a manner too inhuman to be described.

Another French Jew was murdered by a Muslim who then told friends, “I have killed my Jew, I will go to heaven.”

Well, you might say, that’s France, where there are at least five million legal and illegal Islamic immigrants who have not been absorbed into society—hence the riots of last spring.

Alas, the situation in the rest of Europe is not very different. I will not weigh down this initial letter with a laundry list of crimes against Jews in Sweden, Norway, or Italy—although Oriana Fallaci’s reportage on the last country is particularly valuable. You can read her in The Force of Reason.

Now, granted, Europe is not the United States. Here we have a great tradition of acceptance, dating from George Washington’s speech to the Turo congregation, guaranteeing freedom of worship and safety for all who would behave in the manner of good citizens.

Nevertheless, today a certain malaise can be detected by anyone with one eye open. Congressman John Dingell of Michigan refused to denounce Hezbollah, the organization responsible not only for the recent devastation in Israel, but also for the murder of American soldiers overseas. Could his refusal have occurred because he represents a portion of Michigan, the state with the largest number of Muslims in the U.S.?

And he is not alone. Seven congressmen (and one congresswoman) refused to vote for a resolution supporting Israel. They were joined by two senators, Robert Byrd and Ernest Hollings, both from the South. Why did they take this stance? You can bet one of the bedrock reasons was the sight of a strong Jewish nation in the Middle East. If you come from certain areas, the idea of Yids with guns makes you uncomfortable, especially if you’re being funded with Arab money.

All this is known to American Jews, many of whom prefer to keep their heads in the sand, especially if the sand is in East Hampton or Malibu Beach. Others know better. They know that Zionism signifies more than the three assumptions you quote. These are overstatements made by the straw men of the right:

“American Jews do not live at home. Rather they live in exile.” American Jews don’t believe this or they would be making aliyah.

“Israel will save Judaism from its perpetual demise.” Neurotic Zionists do believe this, assuming that intermarriage and inanition will eventually cause the disappearance of Judaism. Wiser observers can see a reawakening of the Jewish spirit, a resurgence of Yiddish, a new interest in Jewish history. But this in part is triggered by the very existence of Israel, the birthplace of Judaism.

“Israel is the center of the Jewish map.” This one is absolutely true! Here I wholly disagree with you. It is the center of the Jewish map. Where else would you locate the center? Copenhagen? Brooklyn? Warsaw? Moreover, Jews the world over know in their bones the truth of Eric Hoffer’s aperçu: “Lose Israel, and you lose the world.” (He was a goy, by the way.)

My grandfather—much engaged with the Yiddish theater and with the Jewish National Fund, and instrumental in backing Israel in the early days—used to say that when you awaken someone, you have stolen something from him.

So I’d hate to end with this observation. Those American Jews who find Israel irrelevant are sleepwalking in a minefield. What happens in Israel today will happen to the world soon enough, if that world does not stir itself. It’s all very well to celebrate the “diversity of Israel,” but right now Israelis are attempting to annihilate the enemies who want to drive them into the sea, a euphemism for a new Holocaust.

The alarm clock is ringing in Haifa, New York, Chicago, et. al. Wake up.

Warmest regards,

Stefan

Next E-Mail: Zionism is 100 years-old, and aging fast

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