- "In certain contexts, memory can be subversive;
in others, memory can shield the status quo. When individuals and communities
become vested with memory as a form of identity and specialness, then other
suffering threatens to displace the centrality of our experience. Instead
of a bridge of solidarity to others who are suffering in the present, suffering
in the past can become a badge of honour, protecting us from the challenges
that are before us. Then our witness, originally powerful, opening questions
about God and power, becomes diluted, can be seen as fake, contrived, even
wilfully so. An industry grows up around you, honours you, and at the same
time uses your witness for other reasons. In the end a confusion results,
externally and internally, until the witness himself can no longer differentiate
between the world of interpretation he helped articulate and the world
that now speaks in his name. Is this what happened to Wiesel, or is Finkelstein's
more acerbic analysis accurate?"[1]
-
- Jewishness is a rather broad term. It refers to a culture
with many faces, varied distinctive groups, different beliefs, opposing
political camps, different classes and diversified ethnicity. Nevertheless,
the connection between those very many people who happen to identify themselves
as Jews is rather intriguing. In the paragraphs that follow, I will try
to further the search into the notion of Jewishness. I will make an attempt
to trace the intellectual, spiritual and mythological collective bond that
makes Jewishness into a powerful identity.
-
- Clearly, Jewishness is neither a racial nor an ethnic
category. Though Jewish identity is racially and ethnically orientated,
the Jewish people do not form a homogenous group. There is no racial or
ethnic continuum. Jewishness may be seen by some as a continuation of Judaism.
I would maintain that this is not necessarily the case either. Though Jewishness
borrows some fundamental Judaic elements, Jewishness is not Judaism and
it is even categorically different from Judaism. Furthermore, as we know,
more than a few of those who proudly define themselves as Jews have very
little knowledge of Judaism, many of them are atheists, non-religious and
even overtly oppose Judaism or any other religion. Many of those Jews who
happen to oppose Judaism happen to maintain their Jewish identity and to
be extremely proud about it[2]. This opposition to Judaism obviously includes
Zionism (at least the early version) but it also is the basis of much of
Jewish socialist anti-Zionism.
-
- Though Jewishness is different from Judaism one may still
wonder just what constitutes Jewishness: whether it is a new form of religion
an ideology or if it is just a 'state of mind'.
-
- If Jewishness is indeed a religion, the next questions
that have to be asked are, "what kind of religion is it? What does
this religion entail? What do its followers believe in?" If it is
a religion, one may wonder whether it is possible to divorce from it as
much as it is possible to step out of Judaism, Christianity or Islam.
-
- If Jewishness is an ideology, then the right questions
to ask are, "what does this ideology stand for? Does it form a discourse?
Is it a monolithic discourse? Does it portray a new world order? Is it
aiming for peace or violence? Does it carry a universal message to humanity
or is it just another manifestation of some tribal precepts?"
-
- If Jewishness is a state of mind, then the question to
raise is whether it is rational or irrational. Is it within the expressible
or rather within the inexpressible?
-
- At this point I may suggest to consider the remote possibility
that Jewishness may be a strange hybrid, it can be all of those things
at once i.e., a religion, an ideology and a state of mind.
-
- The Holocaust Religion
-
- "Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the philosopher who was an
observant orthodox Jew, told me once: "The Jewish religion died 200
years ago. Now there is nothing that unifies the Jews around the world
apart from the Holocaust." (Uri Avnery[3])
-
- Philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the German born Hebrew
University professor, was probably the first to suggest that the Holocaust
has become the new Jewish religion. 'The Holocaust' is far more than historical
narrative, it indeed contains most of the essential religious elements:
it has its priests (Simon Wiesenthal, Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt, etc.)
and prophets (Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and those who warn about
the Iranian Judeocide to come). It has its commandments and dogmas ('never
again', 'six million', etc.). It has its rituals (memorial days, Pilgrimage
to Auschwitz etc.). It establishes an esoteric symbolic order (kapo, gas
chambers, chimneys, dust, Musselmann, etc.). It has its shrines and temples
(Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and now the UN). If this is not enough,
the Holocaust religion is also maintained by a massive economic network
and global financial infrastructures (Holocaust industry a la Norman Finkelstein).
Most interestingly, the Holocaust religion is coherent enough to define
the new 'antichrists' (the Deniers) and it is powerful enough to persecute
them (Holocaust denial laws).
-
- Critical scholars who dispute the notion of 'Holocaust
religion' suggest that though the new emerging religion retains many characteristics
of an organised religion, it doesn't establish an external God figure to
point at, to worship or to love. I myself cannot agree less. I insist that
the Holocaust religion embodies the essence of the liberal democratic worldview.
It is there to offer a new form of worshiping. It made self loving into
a dogmatic belief in which the observant follower worships himself. In
the new religion it is 'the Jew' whom the Jews worship. It is all about
'me', the subject of endless suffering who makes it into redemption.
-
- However, more than a few Jewish scholars in Israel and
abroad happen to accept Leibowitz's observation. Amongst them is Marc Ellis,
the prominent Jewish theologian who suggests a revealing insight into the
dialectic of the new religion. "Holocaust theology," says Ellis,
"yields three themes that exist in dialectical tension: suffering
and empowerment, innocence and redemption, specialness and normalization."[4]
-
- Though Holocaust religion didn't replace Judaism, it
gave Jewishness a new meaning. It sets a modern Jewish narrative allocating
the Jewish subject within a Jewish project. It allocates the Jew a central
role within his own self-centred universe. The 'sufferer' and the 'innocent'
are marching towards 'redemption' and 'empowerment'. God is obviously out
of the game, he is fired, he has failed in his historic mission, he wasn't
there to save the Jews. Within the new religion the Jew becomes 'the Jews'
new God', it is all about the Jew who redeems himself.
-
- The Jewish follower of the Holocaust religion idealises
the condition of his existence. He then sets a framework of a future struggle
towards recognition. For the Zionist follower of the new religion, the
implications seem to be relatively durable. He is there to 'schlep' the
entirety of world Jewry to Zion at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian
people. For the Socialist Jew, the project is slightly more complicated.
For him redemption means setting a new world order, namely a socialist
haven. A world dominated by dogmatic working class politics in which Jews
happen to be no more than just one minority amongst many. For the humanist
observant, Holocaust religion means that Jews must locate themselves at
the forefront of the struggle against racism, oppression and evil in general.
Though it sounds promising, it happens to be problematic because of obvious
reasons. In our current world order it is Israel and America that happen
to be amongst the leading oppressive evils. Expecting Jews to be in the
forefront of humanist struggle sets Jews in a fight against their brethren
and their supportive single superpower. However, It is rather clear that
all three Holocaust churches assign the Jews a major project with some
global implications.
-
-
-
- ***
-
- As we can see, the Holocaust functions as an ideological
interface. It provides its follower with a logos. On the level of consciousness,
it suggests a purely analytical vision of the past and present, yet, it
doesn't stop just there, it also defines the struggle to come. It defines
a vision of a Jewish future. Nevertheless, as a consequence it fills the
Jewish subject's unconsciousness with the ultimate anxiety: the destruction
of the 'I'.
-
- Needless to say, a faith that stimulates the consciousness
(Ideology) and steers the unconsciousness (Spirit) is a very good recipe
for a winning religion. This structural bond of ideology and spirit is
fundamental to the Judaic tradition. The bond between the legal clarity
of the halacah (ideology) and the mysteriousness of Jehovah or even Kabala
(spirit) makes Judaism into a totality, a universe in itself. Bolshevism,
the mass movement rather than the political theory, is built upon the same
structure, the lucidity of pseudo-scientific materialism together with
the fear of the capitalistic appetite. Neoconservative's politics of fear
is again all about locking the subject in the chasm between the alleged
forensic lucidity of WMDs and the inexpressible fright of 'terror to come'.
-
- This very bond between consciousness and unconsciousness
brings to mind the Lacanian notion of the 'real'. The 'real' is that which
cannot be symbolized i.e., expressed in words. The real is the 'inexpressible',
the inaccessible. In Zizek's words, 'the real is impossible', 'the real
is the trauma'. Nevertheless, it is this trauma that shapes the symbolic
order. It is the trauma that forms our reality.
-
- The Holocaust religion fits nicely into the Lacanian
model. Its spiritual core is rooted deeply within the domain of the inexpressible.
Its preaching teaches us to see a threat in everything. It is the ultimate
conjunction between the ideology and the spirit that has materialised into
sheer pragmatism.
-
- Interestingly enough, the Holocaust religion extends
far beyond the internal Jewish discourse. In fact the new religion operates
as a mission. It sets shrines in far lands. As we can see, the emerging
religion is already becoming a new world order. It is the Holocaust that
is now used as an alibi to nuke Iran[5]. Clearly, Holocaust religion serves
the Jewish political discourse both on the right and left but it appeals
to the Goyim as well, especially those who are engaged in merciless killing
'in the name of freedom'[6]. To a certain extent we are all subject to
this religion, some of us are worshipers, others are just subject to its
power. Interestingly enough, those who deny the Holocaust are themselves
subject to abuse by the high priests of this religion. Holocaust religion
constitutes the Western 'Real'. We are not allowed to touch it or to look
into it. Very much like the Israelites who are entitled to obey their God
but never to question him.
-
-
-
- ***
-
- The Scholars who are engaged in the study of the Holocaust
religion (theology, ideology and historicity), are engaged mainly with
structural formulations, its meanings, its rhetoric and its historical
interpretation. Some happen to search for the theological dialectic (Marc
Ellis), others formulate the commandments (Adi Ofir), some learn its historical
evolution (Lenni Brenner), other expose its financial infrastructure (Finkelstein).
Interestingly enough, most scholars who are engaged in the subject of Holocaust
religion are engaged with a list of events that happened between 1933-1945.
Most of the scholars are themselves orthodox observants. Though they may
be critical of different aspects of the exploitation of the Holocaust,
they all accept the validity of the Nazi Judeocide and its mainstream interpretations
and implications. Most of the scholars, if not all of them, do not challenge
the Zionist narrative, namely Nazi Judeocide, yet, more than a few are
critical of the way Jewish and Zionist institutes employ the Holocaust.
Though some may dispute the numbers (Shraga Elam), and others question
the validity of memory (Ellis, Finkelstein), no one goes as far as revisionism,
not a single Holocaust religion scholar dares engage in a dialogue with
the so-called 'deniers' to discuss their vision of the events or any other
revisionist scholarship.
-
- Far more interesting is the fact that none of the Holocaust
religion scholars have spent any energy studying the role of the Holocaust
within the long-standing Jewish continuum. From this point onward, I will
maintain that Holocaust religion was well established a long time before
the Final Solution (1942), well before the Kristalnacht (1938), well before
the Nuremberg Laws (1936), well before the first anti-Jewish law was announced
by Nazi Germany, well before the American Jewish Congress declared a financial
war against Nazi Germany (1933) and even well before Hitler was born (1889).
The Holocaust religion is probably as old as the Jews.
-
-
-
- Jewish Archetypes
-
- In a previous paper I have defined the notion of 'Pre-Traumatic
Stress Disorder' (Pre-TSD) [7]. Within the condition of the Pre-TSD, the
stress is the outcome of a phantasmic imaginary episode set in the future,
an event that has never taken place. Unlike the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,
in which stress is realised as the direct reaction to an event that (may)
have taken place in the past, within the state of Pre-TSD, the stress is
formed as the outcome of an imaginary potential event. Within the Pre-TSD
an illusion pre-empts the conditions in which the fantasy of future terror
is shaping the present reality.
-
- As it seems, the dialectic of fear dominates the Jewish
existence as well as mindset far longer than we are ready to admit. Though
fright is exploited politically by Jewish ethnic leaders since the early
days of emancipation, the dialectic of fear is far older than modern Jewish
history. In fact it is the heritage of the Tanach (the Hebrew Bible) that
is there to set the Jew in a pre-traumatic state. It is the Hebrew Bible
that sets a binary framework of Innocence/Suffering and Persecution/Empowerment.
More particularly, the fear of Judeocide is entangled with Jewish spirit,
culture and literature.
-
- I would argue here that the Holocaust religion was there
to transform the ancient Israelites into Jews.
-
- The American anthropologist Glenn Bowman who specialised
in the study of exilic identities offers a crucial insight into the subject
of fear and its contribution to the subject of Identity politics. "Antagonism,"
says Bowman, "is fundamental to process of fetishsation underlying
identity, because one tends precisely to talk about who one is or what
one is at a moment in which that being seems threatened. I begin to call
myself such and such a person, or such and such a representative of an
imagined community, at the moment something seems to threaten to disallow
the being the name I speak stands in for. Identity terms come into usage
at precisely the moment in which for some reason one comes to feel they
signifying a being or entity one has to fight to defend." [8]
-
- In short, Bowman stresses that it is the fear that crystallises
the notion of identity. However, once the fear is matured into a state
of a collective pre-traumatic stress then identity re-forms itself. When
it comes to the Jewish people, it is the Bible that is there to set the
Jews within a state of Pre-TSD. It is the Bible that initiates the fear
of Judeocide.
-
-
-
- ***
-
- More and more Bible scholars are now disputing the historicity
of the Bible. Niels Lechme in 'The Canaanites and Their Land' argues that
the Bible is for the most part "written after the Babylonian Exile
and that those writings rework (and in large part invent) previous Israelite
history so that it reflects and reiterates the experiences of those returning
from the Babylonian exile."[9]
-
-
- In other words, being written by home-comers, the Bible
incorporates some hardcore exilic ideology into an historic narrative.
Very much like in the case of the early Zionist ideologist who regarded
assimilation as a death threat, "The communities which aggregated
under the leadership of the Yahwehist priesthood (at the time of the Babylonian
exile) saw assimilation and apostasy not only as social death for themselves
as Judeans but also as attempted deicide. They resolved to maintain an
absolute and exclusive commitment to Yahweh who they were sure would lead
them back to the land from which they had been expelled. The prescribed
blood purity as a means of maintaining the borders of the national community,
thus proscribed inter-marriage with those surrounding them. They also established
a series of exclusivist rituals that set themselves off from their neighbours,
and these not only included a surrogate form of temple worship but also
a distinct calendar which ritualistically enabled them to exist in a different
time frame than the communities with which they shared space. All of these
diacritical devices served to mark and maintain difference, but did not
prevent them from trading with and thus being able to sustain themselves
amongst the Babylonians."
-
- Looking into Bowman and Lechme's spectacular reading
of the Bible and the Judaic narrative as a manifestation of exilic and
marginal identity may explain the fact that Jewishness flourishes in exile
but rather loses its impetus once it becomes a domestic adventure. If Jewishness
is indeed centred around an émigré collective survival ideology,
than its follower will prosper in Exile. However, that which maintains
the Jewish collective identity is fear. Similar to the case of Holocaust
religion, Jewishness sets the fear of Judeocide at the core of the Jewish
psyche, yet, it also offers the spiritual, ideological and pragmatic measures
to deal with this fear.
-
-
- Book of Esther
-
- The Book of Esther is a biblical story that is the basis
for the celebration of Purim, probably the most joyous Jewish festival.
The book tells the story of an attempted Judeocide but it also tells a
story in which Jews manage to change their fate. In the book the Jews do
manage to rescue themselves and even to mete revenge.
-
- It is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, and the ruler
is a king of Persia usually identified with Xerxes I. It is a story of
a palace, conspiracy, an attempted Judeocide and a brave and beautiful
Jewish queen (Esther) who manages to save the Jewish people at the very
last minute.
-
- In the story, King Ahasuerus is married to Vashti, whom
he repudiates after she rejects his offer to 'visit' him during a feast.
Esther was selected from the candidates to be Ahasuerus's new wife. As
the story progresses, Ahasuerus's prime minister Haman plots to have the
king kill all the Jews without knowing that Esther is actually Jewish.
In the story, Esther together with her cousin Mordechai saves the day for
their people. At the risk of endangering her own safety, Esther warns Ahasuerus
of Haman's murderous anti-Jewish plot. Haman and his sons are hanged on
the fifty cubit gallows he had originally built for cousin Mordecai. As
it happens, Mordecai takes Haman's place, he becomes the prime minister.
Ahasuerus's edict decreeing the murder of the Jews cannot be rescinded,
so he issues another edict allowing the Jews to take up arms and kill their
enemies, which they do.
-
- The moral of the story is rather clear. If Jews want
to survive, they better find infiltrates into the corridors of power. With
Esther, Mordechai and Purim in mind, AIPAC and the notion of 'Jewish power'
looks like an embodiment of a deep Biblical and cultural ideology.
-
- However, here is the interesting twist. Though the story
is presented as an historic tale, the historical accuracy of the Book of
Esther is largely disputed by most modern Bible Scholars. It is largely
the lack of clear corroboration of any of the details of the story of the
Book of Esther with what is known of Persian History from classical sources
that led scholars to come to a conclusion that the story is mostly or even
totally fictional.
-
- In other words, though the moral is clear, the attempted
genocide is fictional. Seemingly, the Book of Esther set its followers
into a collective Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It makes a fantasy of
destruction into an ideology of survival. And indeed, some read the story
as an allegory of quintessentially assimilated Jews who discover that they
are targets of anti-Semitism, but are also in a position to save themselves
and their fellow Jews.
-
- Keeping Bowman in mind may throw some light here. The
Book of Esther is there to form the exilic identity. It is there to implant
the existential stress, it introduces the Holocaust religion. It sets the
conditions that turn the Holocaust into reality.
-
- Interestingly enough, the Book of Esther (in the Hebrew
version) is one of only two books of the Bible that do not directly mention
God (the other is Song of Songs). In the Book of Esther it is the Jews
who believe in themselves, in their own power, in their uniqueness, in
their sophistication, in their ability to conspire, in their ability to
take over kingdoms, in their ability to save themselves. The Book of Esther
is all about empowerment and the Jews who believe in their powers.
-
-
-
- From Purim to Birkenau
-
- In an article named "A Purim Lesson: Lobbying Against
Genocide, Then and Now"[10], Dr. Rafael Medoff shares with his readers
what he regards as the lesson inherited to the Jews by the Book of Esther.
If to be more precise, it is the art of lobbying which Esther and Mordechai
are there to teach us. "The holiday of Purim" says Medoff, "celebrates
the successful effort by prominent Jews in the capitol of ancient Persia
to prevent genocide against the Jewish people." But Medoff doesn't
stop just there. This specific exercise of what some call 'Jewish power'
has been carried forward and performed by modern emancipated Jews: "What
is not well known is that a comparable lobbying effort took place in modern
times -- in Washington, D.C., at the peak of the Holocaust."
-
- In the article Medoff explores the similarities between
Esther's lobbying in Persia and her modern brothers lobbying within the
FDR's administration at the pick of WW2. "The Esther in 1940s Washington
was Henry Morgenthau Jr." says Medoff, "a wealthy, assimilated
Jew of German descent who (as his son later put it) was anxious to be regarded
as 'one hundred percent American.' Downplaying his Jewishness, Morgenthau
gradually rose from being FDR's friend and adviser to his Treasury Secretary."
-
- Clearly, Medoff spotted a modern Mordechai as well, "a
young Zionist emissary from Jerusalem, Peter Bergson (real name: Hillel
Kook) who led a series of protest campaigns to bring about U.S. rescue
of Jews from Hitler. The Bergson group's newspaper ads and public rallies
roused public awareness of the Holocaust -- particularly when it organized
over 400 rabbis to march to the front gate of the White House just before
Yom Kippur in 1943."
-
- Medoff's reading of the Book of Esther provides us with
a glaring insight into the internal code of Jewish collective survival
dynamics in which the assimilated (Esther) and the observant (Mordechai)
are joining forces with clear Judeo centric interests in their minds.
-
- According to Medoff the similarities are indeed shocking.
"Mordechai's pressure finally convinced Esther to go to the king;
the pressure of Morgenthau's aides finally convinced him to go to the president,
armed with a stinging 18-page report that they titled 'Report to the Secretary
on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.'"
-
- Dr. Medoff is rather ready to draw his historical conclusions.
"Esther's lobbying succeeded. Ahasuerus cancelled the genocide decree
and executed Haman and his henchmen. Morgenthau's lobbying also succeeded.
A Bergson-initiated Congressional resolution calling for U.S. rescue action
quickly passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- enabling Morgenthau
to tell FDR that 'you have either got to move very fast, or the Congress
of the United States will do it for you.' Ten months before election day,
the last thing FDR wanted was an embarrassing public scandal over the refugee
issue. Within days, Roosevelt did what the Congressional resolution sought
-- he issued an executive order creating the War Refugee Board, a U.S.
government agency to rescue refugees from Hitler."
-
- It is clear beyond doubt that Medoff sees the Book of
Esther as a general guideline for a healthy Jewish future. Medoff ends
his paper saying: "the claim that nothing could be done to help Europe's
Jews had been demolished by Jews who shook off their fears and spoke up
for their people -- in ancient Persia and in modern Washington." In
other words, Jews can do and should do for themselves. This is indeed the
moral of the Book of Esther as well as the Holocaust religion.
-
- What Jews should do for themselves is indeed an open
question. Different Jews have different ideas. The Neocon believes in dragging
America and the West into an endless war against Islam. Emmanuel Levinas,
on the contrary, believes that Jews should actually position themselves
at the forefront of the struggle against oppression and injustice. Indeed,
Jewish empowerment is just one answer among many. Yet, it is a very powerful
not to say a dangerous one. It is especially dangerous when the American
Jewish Committee (AJC) acts as a modern-day Mordechai and publicly engages
in an extensive lobbying effort for a war against Iran.
-
- When analysing the work and influence of AIPAC within
American politics it is the Book of Esther that we should bear in mind.
AIPAC is more than a mere political lobby. AIPAC is a modern-day Mordechai,
the AJC is modern-day Mordechai. Both AIPAC and AJC are inherently in line
with the Hebrew Biblical school of thought. However, while the Mordechais
are relatively easy to spot, the Esthers, those who act for Israel behind
the scenes, are slightly more difficult to trace.
-
- I believe that once we learn to look at Israeli lobbying
in the parameters that are drawn by the Book of Esther/Holocaust-religion,
we are then entitled to regard Ahmadinejad as the current Haman/Hitler
figure. The AJC is Mordechai, Bush is obviously Ahasuerus, yet Esther can
be almost anyone, from the last Necon to Cheney and beyond.
-
-
- Brenner and Prinz
-
- In the opening paragraph of this essay I ask what Jewishness
stands for. Though I accept the complexity of the notion of Jewishness,
I tend to additionally accept Leibowitz's contribution to the subject:
Holocaust is the new Jewish religion. However, within the paper I took
the liberty of extending the notion of the Holocaust. Rather than referring
merely to the Shoah, i.e., the Nazi Judeocide, I argue here that the Holocaust
is actually engraved within the Jewish discourse and spirit. The Holocaust
is the essence of the collective Jewish Pre-Traumatic stress disorder and
it predates the Shoah. To be a Jew is to see the 'other' as a threat rather
than as a brother. To be a Jew is to be on a constant alert. To be a Jew
is to internalise the message of the Book of Esther. It is to aim towards
the most influential junctions of hegemony. To be a Jew is to collaborate
with power.
-
- The American Marxist historian Lenni Brenner is fascinated
by the collaboration between Zionists and Nazism. In his book Zionism In
The Age of Dictators he presents an extract from Rabbi Joachim Prinz's
book published in 1937 after Rabbi Prinz left Germany for America.
-
- "Everyone in Germany knew that only the Zionists
could responsibly represent the Jews in dealings with the Nazi government.
We all felt sure that one day the government would arrange a round table
conference with the Jews, at which - after the riots and atrocities of
the revolution had passed - the new status of German Jewry could be considered.
The government announced very solemnly that there was no country in the
world which tried to solve the Jewish problem as seriously as did Germany.
Solution of the Jewish question? It was our Zionist dream! We never denied
the existence of the Jewish question! Dissimilation? It was our own appeal!
... In a statement notable for its pride and dignity, we called for a conference."
[11]
-
- Brenner then brings in extracts from a Memorandum that
was sent to the Nazi Party by the German Zionist ZVfD on 21 June 1933:
-
- "Zionism has no illusions about the difficulty of
the Jewish condition, which consists above all in an abnormal occupational
pattern and in the fault of an intellectual and moral posture not rooted
in one's own tradition ... On the foundation of the new state, which has
established the principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into
the total structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful
activity for the Fatherland is possible. ... Our acknowledgement of Jewish
nationality provides for a clear and sincere relationship to the German
people and its national and racial realities. Precisely because we do not
wish to falsify these fundamentals, because we, too, are against mixed
marriage and are for maintaining the purity of the Jewish group ... We
believe in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty between
a group-conscious Jewry and the German state ... "[12]
-
- Brenner doesn't approve either of Prinz's take nor the
Zionist initiative. Filled with loathing he says, "This document,
a treason to the Jews of Germany, was written in standard Zionist cliches:
'abnormal occupational pattern', 'rootless intellectuals greatly in need
of moral regeneration', etc. In it the German Zionists offered calculated
collaboration between Zionism and Nazism, hallowed by the goal of a Jewish
state: we shall wage no battle against thee, only against those that would
resist thee."
-
- Brenner fails to see the obvious. Rabbi Prinz and the
ZVfD were not traitors, they were actually genuine Jews. They followed
their very Jewish cultural code. They followed the Book of Esther, they
took the role of Mordechai. They tried to find a way to collaborate with
what they correctly identified as a prominent emerging power. In 1969,
Rabbi Prinz confessed that ever "since the assassination of Walther
Rathenau in 1922, there was no doubt in our minds that the German development
would be toward an anti-Semitic totalitarian regime. When Hitler began
to arouse, and as he put it 'awaken' the German nation to racial consciousness
and racial superiority, we had no doubt that this man would sooner or later
become the leader of the German nation."[13]
-
- Whether Brenner or anyone else likes it or not, Rabbi
Prinz proves to be an authentic Jewish leader. He proves to possess some
highly developed survival radar mechanism that fit perfectly well with
the exilic ideology. In 1981 Lenni Brenner interviewed Rabbi Prinz. Here
is what he had to say about the collaborator Rabbi:
-
- "(Prinz) dramatically evolved in the 44 years since
he was expelled from Germany. He told me, off tape, that he soon realized
that nothing he said there made sense in the US. He became an American
liberal. Eventually, as head of the American Jewish Congress, he was asked
to march with Martin Luther King and he did so."
-
- Once again, Brenner fails to see the obvious. Prinz didn't
change at all. Prinz didn't evolve in those 44 years. He was and remained
a genuine authentic Jew, and an extremely clever one. A man who internalised
the essence of Jewish émigré philosophy: In Germany be a
German, and in America be American. Be flexible, fit in and adopt relativistic
ethical thinking. Prinz, being a devoted follower of Mordechai, realised
that whatever is good for the Jews is simply good.
-
- I went back and listened to the invaluable Brenner interviews
with Rabbi Prinz that are now available on line[14]. I was rather shocked
to find out that actually Prinz presents his position eloquently. It is
Prinz rather than Brenner who provides us a glimpse into Jewish ideology
and its interaction with the surrounding reality. It is Prinz rather than
Brenner who happens to understand the German volk and their aspirations.
Prinz presents his past moves as a proud Jew. From his point of view, collaborating
with Hitler was indeed the right thing to do. He was following Mordechai,
he was probably searching for an Esther to come. Thus, it is only natural
that Rabbi Prinz later became the President of the Jewish American Congress.
He became a prominent American leader In spite of his 'collaboration with
Hitler'. Simply because of the obvious reason: from a Jewish ideological
point of view, he did the right thing.
-
- Final Words About Zionism
-
- Once we learn to look at Jewishness as an exilic culture,
as the embodiment of the 'ultimate other' we can then understand Jewishness
as a collective continuum grounded on a fantasy of horror. Jewishness is
the materialisation of politics of fear into a pragmatic agenda. This is
what Holocaust religion is all about and it is indeed as old as the Jews.
Rabbi Prinz could foresee the Holocaust. Both Prinz and the ZVfD could
anticipate a Judeocide. Thus, from a Jewish ideological point of view they
acted appropriately. They were committed to their esoteric ethics within
an esoteric cultural discourse.
-
- Zionism was indeed a great promise, it was there to convert
the Jews into Israelites. It was going to make the Jews into people like
other peoples. Zionism was there to identify and fight the Galut (Diaspora),
the exilic characteristic of the Jewish people and their culture. But Zionism
was doomed to failure. The reason is obvious: within a culture that is
metaphysically grounded upon exilic ideology the last thing you can expect
is a successful homecoming. In order to live for its promise Zionism had
to liberate itself of the Jewish exilic ideology, Zionism had to liberate
itself of the Holocaust religion. But this is exactly what it fails to
do. Being exilic to the bone, Zionism had to turn to antagonising the indigenous
Palestinians in order to maintain its fetish of Jewish identity.
-
- Since Zionism failed to divorce itself from the Jewish
émigré ideology, it lost the opportunity to evolve into any
form of domestic culture. Consequently, Israeli culture and politics is
a strange amalgam of indecisiveness; a mixture of colonial empowerment
together with Galut's victim mentality. Zionism is a secular product of
exilic culture that cannot mature into authentic homegrown perception.
-
- Visit Gilad's website http://www.gilad.co.uk/
-
- Notes
-
- [1] Marc Ellis, Marc
Ellis on Finkelstein
-
- [2] http://www.counterpunch.org/
- [3]
http://www.ramallahonline.com
- [4] Marc H. Ellis, Beyond Innocence & Redemption
- Confronting The Holocaust
And Israeli Power, Creating a Moral Future for the Jewish People (San Francisco:
Harper & Row, 1990).
- [5] http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2007/01/gilad-atzmon-brave-new-world-war.html
- [6] http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPu
blication=7&NrArticle=36140&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3
- [7] http://www.imemc.org/article/21744
- [8] Glenn Bowman-Migrant Labour: Constructing Homeland
in the Exilic Imagination,
Antrhropological Theory II:4. December 2002 pp 447-468.
- [9] Ibid
- [10] http://www.wymaninstitute.org/articles/2004-03-purim.php
- [11] http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch05.htm
-
- [12] Ibid
- [13] http://www.marxists.de/middleast/brenner/ch03.htm
- [14] http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/clip.php?cid=512
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