J.Post Magazine December 4: From Nuremberg to Israel

Sir, - The article "The Nuremberg Diary" by George Sakheim and the review of Efraim Karsh's "The Tail Wags The Dog: International Politics and the Middle East" both powerfully complement one another and help shed light on some matters of utmost importance.

George Sakheim is a retired 92 year-old clinical psychologist and one of the few living American army officers who served as a translator at the 1945 Nuremberg trials, and who recorded in his personal diary the interviews he conducted with some of history's most evil men. Efraim Karsh is a distinguished professor of Middle Eastern studies. They both share profound insights into the nature and essence of the virulent hatred that caused the death of millions seventy years ago and which is presently wreaking havoc on the Middle East. In addition to several peripheral issues that were involved in the horrors of WWII, needless to say the irrational hatred of the Jew was primal to those events. Professor Karsh cites "the barefaced anti-Semitism of the ruling elites" of Britain, that from the very outset challenged the Zionist enterprise, and its continued influence on today's events.

While Sakheim proudly asserts the leading role that America played in bringing the leading Nazi war criminals to justice, he is embarrassed to note that the U.S. has not yet passed a crimes-against-humanity law, and adds that this "has again made the U.S. an outlier in the community of democratic nations." Efraim Karsh also favorably notes the support that American presidents gave to the Balfour Declaration and for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, but goes on to state that the Obama administration has demonstrated "an unprecedented level of cluelessness and disregard of reality" and "went out of its way to deny, ignore, euphemize, and whitewash anything smacking of Islamic violence."

ZEV CHAMUDOT

Petach Tikva

J.Post May 1: Double Standard in Taser Torture?

Sir, - I must confess that reading on Holocaust Remembrance Day the account of contemporary sadism by a patrol policeman who tortured a suspect with the use of a Taser gun disturbed me beyond revulsion. My vexation was seriously compounded by the fact that the suspect was handcuffed and completely helpless at the time, that the shooting to the back of his head was without any provocation, that it was followed by three more shots after he fell to the ground, then nine more during the drive to the police station as the policeman cursed at him. 

The officer was sentenced to 28 months in prison by the Tel Aviv District Court after being charged with two counts of torturing a helpless person with a Taser gun and on one count of causing serious bodily harm. Judge Zvi Gurfinkel said that the law regarding "use of a taser is the same as for use of a gun." To a layman like myself, it seems that when unprovoked sadism is employed in the torture of a helpless human being, a more appropriate and just sentence demands a much lengthier prison term!

At the end of the same report we are told about the case of Boaz Albert from Yitzhar, Samaria, in which police delivered electric shocks to his chest as he lay helpless on the ground. This action was caught on video and established that Albert was not resisting arrest when the Taser gun was used on him. In Albert's case, however, the Police Investigation Department closed their investigation, finding the Taser use justified under the circumstances. Because Albert was from Yitzhar in Samaria? Is the justice system merely perverted, or corrupt as well?

ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petach Tikva

[Image credit: Wikimedia user Rama]

Don't Pay Bill Clinton with our Hard-Earned Money

Sir, - Isi Leibler is performing a much needed service in his vigilant insistence on the need for accountability and transparency in all organizations that collect and disburse charitable funds. He especially focuses on the Claims Conference that is responsible for the transfer of funds paid by the government of Germany to the victims who suffered and survived the horror of the Holocaust purgatory. Leibler quite appropriately describes their function as being responsible for the disbursement of "sacred restitution funds."

But despite the hallowed constitution of these funds, we are informed that there has been an embezzlement over several years of more than $57 million dollars, money that was destined for very deserving and needy survivors. It is hard to conceive of something more revolting or sacrilegious.

Almost equally revolting however, is the obscenity that is to be committed by the KKL-JNF in their intended payment to Bill Clinton of $500,000 dollars to speak at an event that is part of the week-long tribute to Pres. Shimon Peres.

Instead of Clinton lending his presence out of respect for the many achievements of Shimon Peres, there is figuratively and literally a payment of tribute being made to Bill Clinton out of charitable and public funds in an unconscionable amount that violates every standard of propriety. It is not only a clear violation of public trust, it is also a gross betrayal of the many thousands of families who have for many years kept the blue and white Keren Kayemet boxes in their homes and filled them with their hard-earned shekels in order to redeem the Jewish homeland for the Jewish people.

This is profanity.

ZEV CHAMUDOT

Petach Tikva

[Image credit: Flickr user DonkeyHotey]

J.Post January 30: New Trees, New Bones

Sir, - The countless words, analyses, and opinions that constituted the sound and fury of the party campaigns in Israel's recent elections, have yet to reveal their ultimate worth and significance. In the world at large there is a clear and ominous rise of hatred and hostility, toward our beleaguered state that found its most recent expression in the obscene anti-Semitic cartoon posted by the Sunday Times of London. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, it chose to depict a big-nosed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu building and cementing a wall with the blood and limbs of Palestinians.

And Yet! We are able to respond and show the world what we truly are and how we differ, by virtue of two recent magnificent achievements of which we can be justly proud. The first, is the most beautiful and meaningful way that we and the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael commemorate the Tu Bishvat holiday. We did so by having hundreds of thousands of participants plant one million saplings all over Israel. Surely there can be no more positive and elegant way for a nation to express its wholesome respect and love for the genuine values to which they subscribe.

Second, is the almost unbelievable technology developed by Dr.Shai Meretzki and his Bonus BioGroup, where they have demonstrated the ability to grow healthy bone and cartilage, and literally create spare parts for people who suffer from the loss or deterioration of limbs.What a marvelous contribution to all of mankind and a most fitting response to all our detractors.

ZEV CHAMUDOT

Petach Tikva

J.Post November 27: Words Better Said

Sir, – I begin this letter with a great deal of trepidation. It is essentially being written in reaction to statements made by two men, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, both saintly Torah giants for whom I have the utmost esteem and reverence.

I feel compelled to respectfully differ with their joint response when asked during Operation Pillar of Defense whether people from the South who were under bombardment should leave their homes. Both answered in the affirmative, saying these people should go to Bnei Brak, where they themselves reside. In a place where Torah is studied, they said, damage cannot be inflicted (“Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: May our enemies fall by the sword before our soldiers,” November 16).

Unfortunately, their explicit promise of safety cannot find support in the historical record – the martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva and the plague that decimated thousands of his pupils; the annihilation of entire Torah communities by the Crusaders; and the Holocaust’s extermination of Europe’s greatest Torah centers together with six million of our brethren.

I am troubled as well by the obvious impracticality of the suggestion.

Is the city of Bnei Brak in fact able or willing to accommodate an influx of a large group of outsiders? Most troubling, however, is the negative and divisive implications in the worthy rabbis’ advice (perhaps unintentional) that separated those who might choose to make the move and the many left to their fate.

Would it not be far more appropriate for the rabbis to have issued a declaration that all of Israel is worthy of the Almighty’s favorable countenance, without distinction of location? Should they not have been among the first to acknowledge with pride that in fact there is more Torah learning by more Torah learners in the State of Israel today than in any other period of Jewish history? Finally, should rabbinical leadership not be offering a message of encouragement and solace to the myriad of people whose lives and well-being have been shattered by years of constant terrorist violence? Should they not be the leaders who joyfully point to the daily miracles that we witness in our relatively few casualties, and the miracles being performed through the Iron Dome defense system? Should they not be involved with urging and beseeching the general populace to listen to and obey the safety instructions of the Homefront Command? And should they not be praying for and thanking the Creator for his care for all those who participate in the defense of our beleaguered country, and joyfully and publicly proclaim that the “Guardian of Israel neither slumbers or sleeps?” 

ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petah Tikva

Ansalem's Holocaust Remembrance Day Message

Sir, - Seldom is the occasion when I find myself agreeing with almost every word that is published in the paper. Haim Ansalem provides me with the opportunity to do so, and not only to completely identify with what he has written about Holocaust Remembrance Day, but also to highly commend the dignified eloquence that accompanied his words.

The call for unity among our people, dare not be taken as  merely a pious platitude, but rather as the underlying existential message that must provide the basis for all the efforts and sacrifices made on behalf of our nation. The name of God can become "ONE" only when those who worship him are "one".

Let us hear more from Rabbi Ansalem !
                                       
ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petach Tikva

Insights from the Wannsee Conference

Sir, - The Wannsee Conference and its abominable adoption of the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" pose most basic and troubling questions for all who are seriously concerned about the meaning and direction of civilized society. The urgency of these questions is compounded when we are informed that the very memory of that conference is in doubt.

How is it possible for a group of rational and ostensibly civilized men, with deliberate, planned, and scientific malice aforethought, decide to exterminate millions of other human beings?

Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, among the most important philosophers and poets of 12th century Spain, provides us with a deeply profound challenge to our understanding. He warns us against being misled by Greek culture because "It has flowers but bears no fruit." Education that provides only knowledge without confluent values, is capable of creating vastly learned human monsters.

It is quite sobering to know, that more than half of those who attended the Wannsee Conference held PhD degrees.

ZEV CHAMUDOT
Petach Tikva