Running Away From Home

We are running away from home for two weeks, heading to Spain and Israel.  If I can find a way, I will post while we are gone and if so, I am sure they will be interesting.  So keep looking.

The Blood Libel (2 cents)

From medieval times, Jews have been accused of murdering Christian children to extract their blood to use as a necessary ingredient in Passover matzah. What could be more absurd, right?

Yet it has continued, not only in the past, but in the present. This year, posters were plastered around the Russian city of Novosibirsk, for example. And the Arab media continues a constant barrage of these accusations. As they say, “google it”.

1915 was a big year for blood libel accusations in Russia. Going once again to the American Jewish Yearbook for that year, the following instances are listed under the category “Events in 5675-Russia”:

Lublin – “discovery of body of a Christian gives rise to ritual murder accusations. Mob attempts to lynch a Jew, and as a result of alleged evidence of anti-Jewish agitator, a father and son are arrested.

Pabianitz – Loss of girl results in blood accusation, which subsides when girl is found.

Zhitomer – Discovery of lost boys causes collapse of blood accusations. Editor of The Den imprisoned for publishing article against the ritual murder accusation.

Moscow – Police forbid production of play condemning ritual murder libel.

Monastirchina – Temporary disappearance of Christian boy leads to arrest of two Jews.

Grayetz – Jew imprisoned on charge of ritual murder released; police continue to inquire into charges.

Ekaterinoslav – The Two Headed Eagle accuses Jewish Community of abducting Christian girl from asylum, and announces disappearance of Christian boy near brick yard owned by Jew

and on and on……..

And nothing has changed.

How do you deal with things like this? (I think that I have asked this question before.)

And Even More on the Mufti

The article in the Policy Review is by John Rosenthal, who writes on European politics. The books in question are Jihad and Jew-Hatred by Mattias Kuntzel, whose thesis is that the Mufti learned anti-Semitism from the Nazis, and The Mufti from Jerusalem and National Socialism by Klaus Gensicke, who says that, if anyone learned anything from anybody, it was the Nazis who learned from the Mufti.

The debate itself is probably not worth very much. I don’t think either had anything to teach the other about anti-Semitism; perhaps the Nazis had something to teach about practice and methodology.

But it is interesting to tie it into the reading I have been doing in the 1915 American Jewish Yearbook. Forgetting Nazis and Islamists, remember the Russians – the recapitulation of anti-Semitic incidences in Russia is equally as frightening, including a large number of blood libel accusations (!!!!).

What now with Hamas and Hezbollah, isn’t it all getting a little ridiculous?

More on the Mufti

See the most recent edition of the Hoover Institute’s “Policy Review” for a review of two German books about the Mufti. The information there is consistent with the book reviewed yesterday, with some additional matters added.

My Message to the Jewish Publication Society (32 cents)

I demand accuracy on the part of publishers of reference material!

A few nights ago, I was reading through an important JPS publication, the 1915-1916 American Jewish Yearbook (OK, so I’m a little behind in my reading). For some reason, the substance of this 551 page book ends on page 413, with the remainder of the book being taken up with a presumably complete list of all of the members of the Jewish Publication Society. On page 458, the Missouri members are listed. There were more than 250 members living in Missouri, one of whom was my grandfather, Dr. A. A. Margulis, who would have then been about 28 years old. His name is listed next to the address, 1326 Shawnut. 1326 Shawnut? This is an error!!!! His address was 1326 Shawmut. M, not N. To whom do I report this misstatement of the facts? And what should I exect they will do about it?

And, on a related topic, why did my grandfather pay dues to the Jewish Publication Society?

Starbucks and Sorensen

Starbucks:  I go into my neighborhood Starbooks on K at Connecticut.  I order a small (read: tall) coffee, and hand over two dollar bills.  The clerk (associate? representative? customer assistance person? personal coffee server?) says:  “where’s your coupon?”.  Naively, I say “coupon”?  He says:  “That’s OK; today’s on me.”  And he gives me the coffee and my two dollar bills.

Sorensen: Ted Sorensen was John F. Kennedy’s assistant, with the title of presidential counselor.  Counselor is the name of his new book.  He spoke at Politics & Prose tonight.  By the time I arrived, at about 7:05, the books were all off the table.  It will be a big night for the owners.

He gave a short presentation, speaking more about Obama than Kennedy.  And then he answered questions with wit, sincerity, and openness.  Lyndon Johnson as vice president was at the head of his list, and Bobby Baker intimated that Johnson was interested.  Jackie and Jack, however, disliked him.  Bobby Kennedy thought Sorensen was horning in on family business, but after the death of JFK, they became quite friendly.  Had he lived, we never would have become involved in the Vietnam war with combat troops.

What does he think Obama should do?  Go to the UN and say that the aberration of the past eight years is over, and the US is ready to become a proper world citizen.  Not mincing any words there.

I was surprised how sharp he seemed, how well spoken he was, and how good his memory remained.  Counselor is a book I’d like to read.

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini

I picked up and read an advanced reading copy of a book to be published by Random House this summer, entitled Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann. It is a brief and somewhat sketchy biography of Amin al-Husseini, and provides an interesting survey of Arab, Islamic anti-Zionism, anti-Judaism, anti-Israelism, anti-Westernism, anti-Englandism and anti-Americanism.

I couldn’t decide if the book was more interesting than depressing, or or if it was more depressing than interesting.

There are two broad concentrations: one, al-Husseini, a vicious, but soft-spoken and charismatic individual, was a friend and ally of Hitler (and friend of Eichmann, Himmler and Ribbentrop) who spent the war years in Berlin broadcasting to the Arab world, working to expand the “Final Solution” to the middle east (after all, Germany and the Arabs both hated the Jews, Britain and the USA, and were natural allies, so he thought), and preparing for Arab sovereignty as an adjunct to the 1000 year Reich.

Two, the positions taken by al-Husseini are, and long have been ingrained, in the Koran as interpreted in Arab countries, and in their educational systems. They are not confined to a few; they are virtually universal. Jews and westerners as pigs and insects. Jews as plotting to take over the control of the world, as evidenced by the obviously-true “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. Yes, no question but that the “Protocols” are fact (if you deny that, you are a liar and a dog), just as there is little question but that the Holocaust is an exaggeration at best (if you deny that, you are a liar and a dog), and there is absolutely no question but that the blood of non-Jewish children are used to make matzoh. If you believe that one route to heaven is through killing Jews, why shouldn’t you kill Jews?

Now admittedly, this book was written with a bias, and is not particularly nuanced. But is it possible to deny its basic story, or its basic premises? I think not.

The problem we have here is much more than most think it is. Is it possible to have the kind of radical change in social perception that we found in Germany and Japan after the war? It seems that the distortions in Islamic/Arab thinking are so much deeper than they were in the Axis countries, that they have been around for so much longer, and permeate so many more aspects of their society.

Perhaps I exaggerate? Can anyone show me that I am wrong? And if so, how to change these perceptions?

A Cute Cuticle Story (1 cent)

The mother of a friend died, and we payed a shiva call.  Our friend talked about his mother, telling us a few stories.  One involved his fingernails and toenails, which she cut for him until he went away to college at age 18, when he learned that it was possible (and permissible) to clip them for yourself.  He told this story, expressing amazement not that his mother insisted on this, but that he let her do it.

For the past several years, she lived in an assisted living facility which has as an activity the preparation of a picture/story book for the children and grandchildren.  A mutual friend was reading through the book.  She saw a story that the mother had written about her father, who at age 19 had an ingrown toenail, which was badly treated, became infected and resulted in the amputation of not only the toe, not only the foot, but the entire leg above the knee.

It is easy to see why his mother was so careful about his nails, isn’t it?  Seems obvious.  But neither our friend nor his wife connected the dots.  How is it possible that they didn’t put this particular 2 and 2 together?  They don’t know.  It seems obvious to them now, too.

All in a Night’s Work

We arrived in China.  It was not like I thought it would be.  The city was enormous.  It was called Chunking.  We went to the hotel.  It was large, modern looking in a Chinese minimalist style.  The room was comfortable, but there was one wall, convex, made of glass blocks, floor to ceiling, a translucent blue meant to reflect and refract the light in all sorts of ways.  It overlooked the bed.  I had a feeling that whoever was on the other side of the glass had an unrefracted and clear view of our room.  The bathroom was very large.  It was bathed in the same shade of blue.  It was rectangular in shape.  No windows and nothing on the walls.  In the very center was a toilet.  That was it.

This is part of a larger trip.  From here, are going to Europe, where we have plans in France and Italy.  E. asks me when we are leaving China, and from what city.  I told her that I had made no plans since I didn’t know where in China we would be.  She looked at me and said that this seemed like a problem.  I agreed.

……………

I had parked my car in front of our house.  The two shrubs near the driveway on the left side had overgrown terribly and were in need of attention.  The cutting garden on the left side of the house was in much better shape.  All sorts of things were in bloom.  But there was some dark plastic paper on top of what should have been a part of the flower garden.  I could not remember why I put it there, or why I left it there.  Then I saw the two large white boxes, with my initials on them, placed next to the side of the house.  I knew that there were flowers from the florist, that they were for my party, and that I was not supposed to see them.

I went into the house.  E told me that “the boys want to talk to you about the hully mully”.  I did not know what she was talking about.  I went into another room.  The elderly man who also lived in the house was there; he was tall, bony, angular.  Maybe he was 80.  One of his two sons came over to me, the one with the four day beard.  He introduced himself, although I couldn’t make out his name.  I wondered why he did that, since I knew him because we shared the house with his family.

I sat down with him and his brother.  They told me that they had invested money of the fund into the hully mully, that things had not worked out well, and they didn’t know if they should sell it, at what price and to whom.  I was confused.  They didn’t tell me what the hully mully was.  They obviously thought I knew.  I couldn’t be too obvious, so I told them that I needed context, and asked what else they were doing with the fund.  With an exasperated look on his face, the brother with the mushed up name went into a long and extraordinarily detailed description of all of the activities of the fund.  I didn’t understand a bit of it.  Their father appeared, as if out of nowhere.  He had a very troubled look, and told me that this was really a big problem.  I asked him what the problem was.  He told me that the boys had lost so much money on the hully mullly.

The boys got up.  Neither had a beard growth now.  They looked like younger identical twins.  Both dressed in black suits, white shirts and ties.  They held hands and walked up the stairs.  Their father asked me what they should do.  I told him that this really wasn’t my field; he said he knew that.

Another elderly man came in.  The old father said:  “Alfred, my friend, good to see you.”  The hully mully seemed forgotten.  I seemed forgotten as well.  I got up and went into the kitchen.  A big kitchen, almost institutional.  E. was cooking.  A man, about my age, walked through singing opera at the top of his lungs.  His voice was good.  Rabbi Miller was there.  She looked at him and then at me and said:  “I bet you hate that, don’t you?”.

When the Going Was Good

Evelyn Waugh says. during the height of World War II, that the days of pleasure travel are over, for at least two generations.  In the introduction to a collection of his pre-war travel writings published as a Penguin paperback in 1946:  “I was simply a young man, typical of my age; we traveled as a matter of course.  I rejoice that I went when the going was good.”

A cruise around the Mediterranean in 1929.  Being present at the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in 1930.  Aden, Zanzibar and Kenya in 1930-1931.  British Guiana and Brazil in 1932.  Back to Ethiopia during the Italian invasion of 1935.

How fascinating.  How unpleasant.  How remote.  How primitive.

The world may have bounced back from the trauma of the 1940s (with exceptions, of course), but traveling where there are no roads, little food, terrible weather, poor or no lodging, ignorance and laziness, does not lend to one thinking that “the going was good” particularly.

Wonderful reading, Waugh was a superb writer with a superb sense of irony and sense of humor.  But his choice of travel locations leaves something to be desired.

“Then where do strangers stay?

“Strangers do not come to Boa Vist’.  If they come on business, the people they have business with put them up.”

‘ I explained that I was on my way to Manaos and had to wait for a boat.  They showed complete indifference, only remarking that they did not know of any boat to Manaos.  Then one of them added that possibly the foreign priests would do something for me — unless they had left.  The last time he was in Boa Vist, the foreign priests were all sick; most people were sick in Boa Vist’”

And this was a good day.