FEATURE
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Fire Foxman |
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| Denying the Armenian Genocide should be the last atrocity perpetrated by the ADL chief. | ||
 by Joey Kurtzman, July 8, 2007 |
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Abdullah Gul needed a favor. It was February 5 of this year, and the Turkish foreign minister was fighting a push in the U.S. House of Representatives to recognize the Turkish murder of over one million Armenians during World War I. In past years the House had placated Turkey by dropping similar resolutions. But now, with the American-Turkish alliance weakened by the Iraq war, the resolution had found renewed support. Gul summoned representatives from the Anti-Defamation League and several other Jewish-American organizations to his room at the Willard Hotel in Washington. There he asked them, in essence, to perpetuate Turkey’s denial of genocide.
Abraham Foxman’s ADL acquiesced, and in so doing, performed the pièce de résistance of Foxman’s highly effective, if unintentional, decades-long campaign to demoralize Jewish America and send young Jews scurrying for the communal exit doors. The ADL chief is a danger to the future of the community, and it is a scandal that he remains at the head of a major Jewish organization. Foxman must go. And the organization he has done so much to shape must either change or go with him.
Getting by with a little help from his friends: The Turkish foreign ministerSoon after the meeting with Gul, the ADL joined three other American Jewish organizations—the American Jewish Committee, B'nai Brith International, and the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs—to deliver to Congress a written plea from the Jews of Turkey that the U.S. not recognize the Armenian Genocide. Turkish Jews are more vulnerable now than at any time in recent history as they struggle to reassert their place in a society polarized by the competing visions of Turkey’s Islamists and secular nationalists, so it is hardly surprising that they would parrot their government’s denialist claims. By dutifully passing their letter to Congress, the Jewish American groups cynically exploited a small, frightened Jewish minority.
Worse was to come. “I don't think congressional action will help reconcile the issue. The resolution takes a position; it comes to a judgment,” said Foxman in a statement issued to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The Turks and Armenians need to revisit their past. The Jewish community shouldn't be the arbiter of that history, nor should the U.S. Congress." Foxman‘s statement is in every way that matters equivalent to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that he takes no position on the historicity of the Jewish Holocaust, but only hopes to see the matter resolved by dispassionate study. Throughout the Congressional saga surrounding the resolutions, virtually no one other than Turkish lobbyists had explained their opposition by challenging the nearly undisputed consensus among historians that a genocide did indeed take place.
It is a scandal of unprecedented proportion when one of the most prominent figures in our community, a man who claims to speak on our behalf, publicly challenges the historicity of another community’s genocide. Foxman’s ADL no longer represents the interests of the Jewish community. In fact, it seems the only interests it represents are its own.
Crushing the heads of antisemites everywhere: Foxman demonstrates the Hand of PowerWhat’s surprising is how unabashedly forthright Abraham Foxman has become about what motivates him and his institution. In October of 2005, Foxman addressed a classroom of Jewish students at New York University. Young heads nodded and brows furrowed as Foxman riled them with his customary rhetoric: Isn’t it antisemitic for pro-Palestinian groups to seek divestment only from Israel, ignoring the far greater crimes of regimes like Sudan or North Korea? How do we describe this sort of selective flagellation of the world's only Jewish state, if not as antisemitism?
"What if the campus Free Tibet club campaigned for divestment from China? Would that be anti-Chinese bigotry?" asked Asaf Shtull-Trauring, a 20-year-old student and conscientious objector from the Israeli army.
Of course not, answered Foxman, but it was preposterous to compare the two conflicts, what with the Jews' experience of two millennia of murderous persecution. Shtull-Trauring responded with two questions: Did Foxman mean that selective treatment is okay so long as it's not directed at Jews? And where did the Anti-Defamation League get off telling Jewish university students which opinions about Israel were acceptable and which verboten?
The dialogue spiraled into a confrontation. Shtull-Trauring says Foxman, frustrated and under attack, placed his cards on the table, angrily retorting: “I don’t represent you nor the Jewish community! I represent the donors.”
Foxman’s outburst was surprising not because of its content, but because of its candor. Foxman needn’t bother himself with the trifling concerns of American Jews who happen not to be multimillionaire philanthropists. If he makes the Jewish community less appealing to young Jews, if his theatrics turn us off and turn us away, that’s all beside the point. Foxman’s job is to keep the millionaire benefactors happy: the rest of us can go jump in the Kinneret.
Back when the ADL was useful: Leo Frank, with wife Lucille, at his trialWithout a meaningful mission to pursue, the ADL has resorted to scaremongering to fill its coffers and justify its existence. These efforts have grown increasingly bizarre and damaging. For example, the ADL website surveys the vast changes in Jewish-American life over the past century and offers the grandiose judgment that they “are due, in large measure, to the efforts of the League and its allies.” Yet Foxman also claims that today the Jewish people face as great a threat to their safety and security as they did in the 1930s. In other words, the ADL takes credit for the vast improvements in the circumstances of American Jewry, and then denies that those changes have taken place. It is still 1939. It will always be 1939.
When the ADL was born, in the early 20th century, institutional discrimination against American Jews was commonplace at every level of society. Populist politicians employed the most vulgar antisemitic language, and “restricted” hotels and country clubs reassured patrons that Jews would be stopped at the front door. In 1915, 31-year-old factory manager Leo Frank was lynched in Marietta, Georgia after he was accused of raping a Christian girl. But today, American Jews are successful and well-integrated. And unlike in Weimar Germany, where we were accepted only so long as we obscured our Jewishness behind the accoutrements of gentile culture, in America we are accepted even as we celebrate what sets us apart.
Such a reality, however, doesn’t serve the fundraising interests of the ADL. The ADL’s jihad against Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ was typical of the organization’s destructive, self-interested efforts. Foxman, as you might remember, fanned fears it would inspire Chmielniki-style pogroms. Yet not a single documented act of violence against Jews resulted from the film, nor even a single verbal assault. A study conducted by Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles indicated some anger among Christians toward Jews—but because of the reaction to the film, rather than its contents. Thanks to the ADL, our strong and self-confident community was made to appear silly and paranoid before the world.
The Passion fiasco was hardly the ADL's only effort to alienate and insult American Christians. In November 2005, Foxman delivered a widely publicized speech in which he warned that American Christian organizations were engaged in an insidious campaign to “Christianize” America. It’s a shocking allegation: firstly, because Jewish interfaith groups have developed very strong ties with precisely such organizations in the past decade; and secondly, because conservative Jewish groups have been just as aggressive in their efforts to breach the wall between church and state. While Christian groups can’t get the ornaments of Christianity placed in government buildings, Chabad has succeeded in publicly erecting enormous, gaudy menorahs throughout the country.
As Mel Gibson movies go, it's no What Women Want: A scene from The PassionIn this environment, where the push for more religion in public life unites religious conservatives across all faiths, why would Foxman single out Christians? Again, the answer is simple: Fundraising. Such headline-grabbing proclamations add a historically evocative Christian dimension to the terrifying nightmare-world in which the ADL encourages its benefactors to live.
The ADL can libel American Christians in general without fear of legal consequence, but when it goes on to identify specific “antisemites” it leaves itself more vulnerable. Time after time, Americans who resented being named-and-shamed as antisemites have sued the ADL for libel. In 2000, Colorado residents Dorothy and William Quigley received a ten million dollar verdict against the ADL, which, according to Federal judge Edward Nottingham, “had labeled a…neighborhood feud as an antisemitic event.” Nottingham concluded that the ADL had not properly investigated the case nor considered the consequences of its accusations. But what the ADL lost in libel fees, it gained in bogus credibility. Baseless accusations of antisemitism contribute to a paranoid fundraising atmosphere that makes Foxman’s ADL seem utterly necessary; maybe the Quigleys weren’t antisemites, but that doesn’t mean your neighbors aren’t Hitlerists in disguise. Still, such bullying by the ADL has an inevitable chilling effect: Jewish community leaders, even those who take exception to the ADL's techniques, fear speaking out lest the ADL accuse them of some crime against the Jewish people. Like all bullies, the ADL is widely disliked, but less widely spoken out against.
Ultimately, it is the seductive appeal of the ADL's dark visions that most threaten us. American Jewry enjoys privileges undreamed of in Jewish history: we are a more accepted, more integral part of our country than any Jewish community ever has been. We have entered unprecedented territory in Jewish history, and the enticements and possibilities of this new era should be setting our souls alight.
Foxman’s ADL justifies its existence by beckoning us backward, encouraging us to hide from the ever-present Cossacks in a psychological shtetl. It's a dark vision that serves the ADL's interests, but not ours. So perhaps we should be grateful to Abraham Foxman for acting as he did after the April meeting with Abdullah Gul, and doing something to so publicly and incontrovertibly demonstrate how destructive he has become to his own organization, and to the Jewish community he claims to serve.
* Check our always up-to-date list of Jewcy's posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue
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Joey Kurtzman is former president of Jewcy Partners, LLC, and co-founding editor of Jewcy.com |
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Apter
"So by having ONE Polish comment off into the anti-Semitic end, this automatically disqualifies any qualms both Jews and Armenians have against Foxman's policies."
B.BarNaviJul 13,
"Was the above comment from Rube Goldstien actually written by someone sympathetic to Foxman and trying to demonstrate that antisemites just looove us self-haters? My magic Jewish eight-ball says "All signs point to yes."" Joey Kurtzman
That is not the point, Bar Navi, Kurtzman.
Yes, Foxman was wrong on the Armenian genocide issue. However, why not discuss in the context of the Turkish- Greco wars of the post Ottoman Empire? This is important because both Turkey and Greece were founded on crimes that make the charges against the sins of the founding of Jewish State seem pusillanimous.
However, why all the vitriol against the ADL?
From my perspective people and institutions, and that includes you and me, act on data that was true yesterday. This is unavoidable. Doubtless Foxman is reacting to issues from the perspective of antisemitism of the early part of last century which was the antisemitism of earlier centuries and which led to the Holocaust.
You are acting on data which is post WW2 and post the creation of the Jewish State.
It seems to you therefore that antisemitism is a thing of the past.
The question, then, is what does the present situation tell us? My answer is that it is inconclusive. The suspension of State antisemitism in the West had a lot to do with the horrors of the Holocaust as well as the establishment of a Jewish State.
It also had a lot to do with the fight against Communism. Now we are living in a post Holocaust , post Communist era and some would also like it to be a post Jewish State era. This is also the era of resurgent religious passions: Islam versus Christianity and other non Islamic faiths; Catholicism versus non Catholic Christians and perhaps others.
We are living as has been said in interesting times.
No one knows what the present portends. In such a situation we should be a little more humble in our pronouncements, Joey.
Btw: why haven’t you brought up the pending British Academic boycott against Israeli academicians? This is something to which the ADL has certainly been paying attention. This is also why I am not so ready to dispense with its services.
Apter
Check out the video of a conference against the boycott on Engage:
Say No To The Boycott of Israel
Phantom
Dear American Lawyer,
As Dan astutely noted, your "Holocaust" argument is what they call in your field a "red-herring".
That notwithstanding, your feeble attempt at a distinction between the Armenian and Jewish experiences holds little water. Of course, every Genocide has similarities and differences, and there's no benefit to be gained by arguing that one was better or worse than another. Trying to argue, however, that the Armenians were merely "deported" is simply the Turkish textbook Genocide denial. Perhaps if the Armenians had found better immigration attorneys, everything would have been ok!
Moreover, your argument that Turks were only targeting the Ottoman Armenians may mislead those who don't know that Ottoman Armenians comprised roughly half the world's Armenian population at that time. Furthermore, once Ataturk came to power, he did cross into Soviet or Armenia Proper and tried to exterminate the other half of the world's Armenian population as well. In all, once the Turks were done with their program, roughly 1/3 of the world's Armenian population was killed, and the lands on which those Armenians lived and built their ancient monuments for nearly 3 millenia was taken. Today, churches and monastaries that Armenians built centuries ago, monuments that would be considered national treasures in any civilized nation, have met one of the following fates: (1) complete destruction; (2) conversion to mosques or government buildings with all Armenian inscriptions erased; (3) used by peasants as barns for goats and pigs; or (4) Turkish propoganda to show how enlightened Turkey is. American Lawyer, if this is just a deportation, then perhaps there just is no such thing as Genocide in this world, and Raphael Lemkin was just a crackpot with an ax to grind.
In closing, there's nothing anti-semitic about saying that Armenians suffered a Holocaust or Genocide or whatever the proper word is. There is something grossly inhumane, however, about minimizing the suffering of other groups by misrepresenting the facts and making false comparisons.
Rowan Berkeley
" Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups, American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled."
-- conveniently short memories here need some reminding?
Moral Right
Because of often promoting Jewish suffering at the expense of all other suffering, constantly demanding recompensation from all others possible while brutally occupying Palestine without any compensation for Palestinians (even witholding tax money that belongs to them), I fear that history may one day repeat irself.
MORAL RIGHT MY TUCHES
And I fear that with people like you running around the world will never be free of terrorism or holocausts - you will be the one showing mock ups of the 70 virgins just waiting for their martyrs....
Evidence, please.
"In other words, the ADL takes credit for the vast improvements in the circumstances of American Jewry, and then denies that those changes have taken place. It is still 1939. It will always be 1939."
And to you, Mr. Kurtzman, it will always be 1967 when Jews were seen as victorious and started to shed the stereotype of the victim.
It is neither 1939 nor 1967, and yet it is both as well as 2007.
Anonymous
American Jews -- Accepted? Sure, what choice does anyone have? American Jews -- Loved? Not exactly. Troubles in Middle East -- Jews (formation of Israel, Genocide/Apartheid of Palestine, Jewish-Neocon Wars). Troubles due to Unhampered Immigration (mid-60s immigration reform spearheaded by Jews -- "We Feel Safer") -- Jews.
I saw a picture of a French peasant woman who was at some protest, and her sign read "Jews Cause Unhappiness Everywhere." I couldn't help but agree. Only a very, very few Jews have both the Vision and the Courage to accept the real behavior, tendencies, and results of the actions of their brethren, both now and historically. Most jews have the proverbial blind spot, and others are awash in racial pride and brainwashing and pro-Jew propaganda and pretty little mythical stories.
I always thought it curious that so many Jews were the scientists who invented the atomic bomb, because it's a great metaphor as to how Jews derive their energy, prosperity, and power. They tear into the fabric of something, and in the tearing, harvest the energy for themselves -- while they tear the something apart. It is any coincidence that Jews have completely taken over the American Media and Political system -- and that America is rapidly becoming a third-world country? Simple parasite - host thing.
Which is another and final reason to dislike Jews -- the really smart and cunning ones are basically evil corrupt gangster/thugs, and the ones who don't understand what's going on are either too stupid to see it, or too weak/cowardly to stand up against what is really happening. They'd rather defend the basic goodness of their race; they don't have the guts to criticize it.
FOXMAN is a prime example. Sure, he sucks, and should go, but -- like George Bush -- he's just a reflection of the group he represents. Foxman wouldn't even exist, not to mention be in his current job, if his behavior didn't reflect typical Jewish tendencies. He didn't get his job by accident, but by "natural evolutionary social design."
Anonymous
While I agree with your article completely, your version of the Leo Frank hanging is frankly bizarre! You dispose of the issue with, "In 1915, 41-year-old factory manager Leo Frank was lynched in Marietta, Georgia after he was accused of raping a Christian girl." But this is next to a photo of Frank and his wife "at his trial." What the?
So here's what REALLY happened. Leo Frank was tried and convicted of raping and MURDERING one of the girls working at the pencil factory he managed. The bias against Frank was that he was a YANKEE as well as a Jew. But the Governor was persuaded that Frank had been framed and commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment, until he could be cleared. Some vigilantees broke into the prison farm where Frank was being held, kidnapped and lynched him, because he had been CONVICTED of the murder. At the time there was a great outcry by both Jews and Christians against the Frank Case, which lasted from 1913-15. A few years ago one of the witnesses against Frank at the trial recanted and identified the real killer, and Frank was finally exonerated. This also served to exonerate the Governor who commuted Frank's sentence, who had committed political suicide when he did so. His name was MUD in Georgia for the rest of his life.
I realize that you couldn't include all this, but it just deserved to be worded better.
Anonymous
you sure do attract some pretty bizarre posters.
Do you think they are all pretending to be antisemitic just to show that you are wrong?
You are a real ass, aren't you, pal joey.
John Lowell
An honest and courageous article, Joey, this from a non-Jew. I must say, Foxman appears a particularly ridiculous figure when posing as a liturgical consultant or as a counselor on matters pertaining to the causes of saints. One is reminded of the scenes in Annie Hall in which Woody Allen graps a crucifix. :-)
Best to you.
Anonymous
Please get out of Palestine or remove the Zionist psychopaths from your goveenment.
You are not the victim, you never have been. History reminds us:
1. The first aircraft hijacking was carried out by Israel in 1954 against a Syrian civilian airliner.
2. Grenades in cafes: first used by Zionists against Palestinians in Jerusalem on 17 March 1937.
3. Delayed-action, electrically timed mines in crowded marketplaces: first used by Zionists against Palestinians in Haifa on 6 July 1938.
4. Blowing up a ship with its civilian passengers still on board: first carried out by Zionists in Haifa on 25 November 1940. The Zionists did not hesitate to blow up their own people in protest at the British policy of restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. The ship, Patria, was carrying 1,700 Jewish immigrants.
5. Assassination of government officials: first carried out by the Zionists against the British in Cairo, when on 6 November 1944 Lord Moyne was assassinated by the Stern Gang. Yitzhak Shamir, a member of the Irgun and later leader of the Stern Gang and Israeli prime minister, was behind the plan.
6. Use of hostages as a means of putting pressure on a government: first used by the Zionists against the British in Tel Aviv on 18 June 1946.
7. Blowing up of government offices with their civilian employees and visitors: first carried out by the Zionists against the British in Jerusalem on 22 July 1946. The toll was 91 Britons killed and 46 wounded in the King David Hotel. Menachim Begin, who masterminded and carried out the attack and later became Israeli prime minister, admitted that the massacre was coordinated with and carried out under the instruction of the Haganah Zionist gang.
8. Booby-trapped suitcases: first used by the Zionists against the British Embassy in Rome on 13 October 1946.
9. Booby-trapped cars in civilian areas: first used by the Zionists against the British in Sarafand (east of Jaffa) on 5 December 1946.
10. Beating of hostages: first used by the Zionists against the British in Tel Aviv, Netanya and Rishon on 29 December 1946.
11. Letter bombs sent to politicians: first used by the Zionists against Britain when 20 letter bombs were sent from Italy to London between 4 and 6 June 1947.
12. Murder of hostages as a reprisal for government actions: first used by the Zionists against the British in the Netanya area on 29 July 1947.
13. Postal parcel bombs: first used by the Zionists against the British in London on 3 September 1947.
14. The massacre of Qibya, northwest of Jerusalem, was carried out by Unit 101, under the command of Ariel Sharon on Wednesday 14 October 1953. The attack was the bloodiest and most brutal Zionist crimes since the infamous Deir Yassin massacre. Forty-two houses as well as a school and a mosque were dynamited over their inhabitants. Seventy-five women, men and children were killed.
Lies, deception, false flag attacks...and it's a tradition alive and well today - even more so. Zionism and its influence is a cancer to humanity. They are giving Judaism a very bad name, and destroying Palestine in the process.
Foxman is only one example of the unusually high percentage of psychopaths that exist and are spawned from Zionism and Zionist groups.
The enemy is within.
Outraged by Joey
Here is Abe's eloquent response to those who criticize his stance on the Vatican's revival of the Latin Mass.
outraged by Joey
Here is Abe's eloquent response to those who criticize his stance on the Vatican's revival of the Latin Mass.
http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?cat_id=3&blog_id=38&blog_post_id=...
outraged by Joey
Here is Abe's eloquent response to those who criticize his stance on the Vatican's revival of the Latin Mass.
Why I worry about the Vatican’s decision
Paul Foer
The ADL is a mixed bag. Historically, and at present, it has certainly done some, if not a lot of good on behalf of the Jewish people. It puts the extreme, hateful types on the run thanks to its legal prowess and capabilities. However, it seems too reflective of the highly controversial Foxman who has run it with this iron fist for way too long. (Was it not part of Bnai Brith at one time???)
I too am annoyed with the "constant emergency" theme that Jewish groups foist upon us it is always 1939--mainly to raise money one would suppose. With the possible exception of Hadassah and sometimes Bnai Brith, most major jewish organizations are always crying "Anti-Semitism" rather than doing proactive and positive things in our community that will actually strengthen us.
My few personal experiences with ADL have not always been positive, especially when I tried repeatedly to bring to their attention and enlist their support to monitor and counter the frequent and virulent anti-Jewish writings and activities at the University of Maryland. I could not get their attention to review evidence I had collected. Finally I went to see an executive in their MD/DC/VA regional office yet he refused to see me. When I got upset, noting that I was related to the man whose name was engraved on a plaque for having sponsored their office, I asked if they would have honored my appointment had he been with me. This made the executive angry and that was that.
On another note, back in the 1970's ADL was involved in assisting far-right elements of the Jewish community who were orchestrating an attack against a jewish group known as Breira, a "dovish" gathering of intellectualls, rabbis and campus leaders who dared to question Israeli policies, yet were still involved with and supportive of Israel. One of Breira's leaders wrote to Foxman with evidence of attacks being made against Breira by extremist Jewish organizations asking why ADL was standing by quietly while Jewish leaders were being defamed and libeled. ADL did nothing.
Salviati
When all is said and done, and the Palestinians are either ethnically cleansed, liquidated, or freed from the system of Apartheid and colonization that they face both in the Occupied Territories and inside of Israel, many of you will have to face up to either your silence or your complicity in this massive crime. In the meantime you can do something about it, particularly joining the Joint Palestinian/Israeli non-violent resistance in Bilin and other places in the Occupied Territories and within Israel itself. The sad truth is that the overwhelming majority of you wont, because you are beholden either directly or indirectly to the same clique of militarist capitalists that lord over the establishment American Jewish community. At least Foxman deserves the credit for announcing his subservience openly. The rest of you either live in fear of your family, friends, employers, or simply hold the same militarist views.
Its a sad affair that the American Jews, by and large has completely divorced itself from its radical working class roots and now basks in corporate capitalist white skin privilege. So now "say a prayer for the Pretender, who started out so young and strong, only to surrender."
Salviati
Jewish Journalist etc
I am one of those who believe that Anti-Semitism will always be around; that it is a permanent feature in global life. Once can disguise it as being "anti-Zionist", or "anti-Israel" or "anti-capitalist" or "anti-Christian" etc, but in the final analysis, it is anti-Semitism. It is true that while in the historic past, it was more "cultural" than geo-political, but that is not an issue. The issue is that there continues the belief that Jews, as a group, are bad, wrong, and/or immoral and should be eliminated.
In this context, I read a good (and timely) report written by a Columbia University graduate student apparently as part of her MA thesis. I think it is excellent and tells the situation as it really is -- constant denials, notwithstanding.
Here is the link:
http://www.myraida.schiffmangroup.com/thesis.pdf
zbird
Anti-semitism is a symptom of a larger human tendency to identify with a group and hate outsiders. Like war, poverty, disease, etc., this human characteristic is an evil that can be fought and overcome, but never eliminated for all time, unless perhaps by the Messiach (if you believe in such a thing).
That fact has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you support Foxman's actions.
Commenter
As Anthony Julius' speech at the Engage meeting says, 'antisemitism used to speak with a German accent, it now speaks in the name of anti-racism."
anthony Julius
In case the above linkd doesn't work use copy and paste this url:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/
NewModerate
Another Armenian-American here. I commend you for your courageous denunciation of Abe Foxman's antics.
Foxman has probably done more than any other individual to perpetuate the damaging impression that Jews care only about their own interests...that they would, for the sake of expedience, betray a kindred nation with whom they share an ancient tradition of literacy and (unfortunately) a similarly beleaguered history.
If Foxman were an Israeli politician, I might forgive him for cozying up to Turkey. (I'd still bristle, but at least I could understand his motives.)
But the man is an American; I find it inexcusable, as you do, that he would voluntarily support Turkey at the expense of the Armenians. As Hitler noted when he proposed the Final Solution, "Who talks nowadays about the extermination of the Armenians?" Armenia is only a minor nation, after all, and Israel has valuable real estate to defend.
I wonder if Foxman is aware that his amoral parochialism inadvertently helps promote the anti-Semitic attitudes that he and the ADL are valiantly trying to combat. If Foxman were the sole voice of the Jewish community, I'd have to become a card-carrying anti-Semite myself.
Fortunately, I know that the Jewish community doesn't speak with a single voice. I'm encouraged by the numerous eloquent posts from Jewish readers who are equally appalled by Foxman's denial of the Armenian genocide and also call for his dismissal. Of course, he has his staunch supporters here, too.
Should Foxman be fired? I suppose he should, though his firing would be a form of censorship. I'd rather see him apologize to the Armenian community. Better yet, I'd like to see him undergo a Scrooge-like spiritual conversion. He'd be haunted by the ghosts of dead Armenians and wake up with the knowledge that you can't promote Jewish causes by betraying the humane principles that so many Jews traditionally espouse.
Rick Bayan
The New Moderate
Just a Jew
The larger issue beyond the Armenian genocide (I am sure we can all agree at the very least it makes us uncomfortable for any American Jewish leader to do or say anything calling it into question) is where Joey Kurtzman - or Jewcy for that matter - gets off presenting himself as some kind of spokesman for Jewish authenticity. A self-described "mongrel" Jew among a bastion of fellow mongrels, who says that his own Jewishness has at best a vote in his conception of his compartmentalized identity, has no call to criticize any Jewish leader for not sufficiently representing his views. If you can not bring yourself to associate unreservedly with the Jewish people, to cast your lot with the fate of its people and none other, then you have forfeited your right to complain about its leadership. Jews whose Jewishness is not up for debate, who understand that identification with Judaism is of far greater substance than eating a bagel and lox or wearing a Jew-fro, can handle the discussion just fine without you.
db
Most of you should recognize this. I made some minor changes. Now imagine it was written by a Jew. My point is, after successfully denying the Armenian Genocide, denialists will feel empowered to successfully deny the Shoah in the future. Other than that, this is journalism at its greatest, Joey!
First they came for the Armenians
and I did not speak out
because I was not an Armenian.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
db
Have any of you heard of Missak Manouchian?
He survived the Armenian Genocide the become the leader of the Resistance during WWII.
Look him up.
db
Hey HH, you wrote: "In fact, the historical argument is soley between the Turks and Armenians and Jews and the ADL have every right to stay neutral. Are Jews compelled to rescind our self-interest to become the world's human rights policemen?"
The Talmud says: "Who can protest and does not, is an accomplice in the act."
And here's a little poem that you might find interesting:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Anonymous
Turkey DID try to go finish off the Armenians by moving in the Caucasus, even after Attaturk came to power. Don't revise history, please.
And if you've gone to the Holocaust Museum you'd know that the last display before exiting is a massive plaque that reads: "Who, after all, remembers the annihilation of the Armenians?"
Adolf Hitler, 1939
By encouraging the denial of our holocaust, you are really empowering them to deny yours afterwards.
Anonymous
I think the words which best describe Mr. Kurtzman would be arrogant ignorance.
But perhaps moron is more apt.
NewModerate
Why the personal attacks on Joey Kurtzman, especially for his part-Jewish ancestry? Are some of you saying that a "real" Jew would stand behind Foxman and his hypocrisies? That's how it comes across, and it ain't pretty.
Anonymous
The Armenian is right. Supporting the denial of their genocide only motivates the deniers of ours. If deniers succeed with the Armenian genocide denial, they can succeed against ours. Have a long-term vision: Think 50-100 years from now. Or else we'll be where the Armenians are today. A lot depends on us on this issue of the Armenian genocide.
Anonymous
The attacks on Joey Kurtzman are warranted and have nothing to do with his ancestry, which is a straw man.
Kurtzman is a hater whose columns have among other things praised neo Nazi's and other assorted anti-semites.
And we are now supposed to take him seriously when he makes a call to 'fire Foxman'.
Yeah, right.
A Guy From Turkey
Dear All,
As all Turkish people,i sadly follow the attempts of Armenian Community's Genocide Pressure on USA and World.
Those who doesnt know the truths or suspects,simply click link belows and read the truth:
http://www.ermenisorunu.gen.tr/english/intro/index.html
http://www.armenianreality.com/
The reason i write here is;Turkish-Jewish relations are always strong from since many centuries.And Turkish people always supported and still supporting Jewish people.Turkey and Turkish People expoecting jewish friends stand next to them as a good friend...
JewcyCraig
Joey is a mudblood. Did you know his mother was mother was a muggle? And his wife's a squib!
Anonymous
And Abraham Foxman, associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the league has been asked by a visiting delegation of Turkish Jews to delete three articles on the Armenian genocide from its anthology "Holocaust and Genocide," which has been used in the New Jersey school system since 1983.
"How books used in New Jersey schools could come to the attention of the Jewish community in Turkey, I don't know," Foxman said. "We promised them that we would consider their objections and make changes where and if warranted."
Foxman, however, said his organization will continue to sponsor speeches on the Armenian genocide, despite the pressure.
Joey Kurtzman
I have the hottest, blondest, snub-nosedest, most fine-featured shiksa beshert ever. Her voice is soft and even, with neither the pitch nor volume ever rising to unpleasing levels. She's as prim as Queen Elizabeth I, and possesses an unimpeachable, almost Puritanical commitment to manners and right behavior in general. And the stoicism with which she meets any trial! The quiet uncomplaining resolve with which she attacks any problem! Glorious! Oh, how it all makes me kvell! </satire>
None of which bears at all on the question of Foxman's complicity in perpetuating the denial of the Armenian Genocide. As for the commenter Just a Jew, above, I will be happy to leave Foxman to you (or, at least, I'll agree to criticize him only as outisider, rather than as a member of his claimed constituency), when the ADL clarifies in press releases and public statements that it speaks only for an unrepresentative portion of the Jewish community.
FWIW, the ADL does do some things of value, and I never claimed otherwise. I was on board with everything I saw of theirs relating to the proposed UK teachers' union boycott of Israel. But this work needs to be done without packaging it with the sort of madness described in the article.
Anonymous
Having spent some time in Turkey and gotten to know the language and culture to a fair but not great extent, I
can tell you MOST Turks (not the urban elites) have next to NO particular sympathy for Israel or Jews. So
I am afraid any effort the ADL may be making to "secure" Turkey's continued "support" hangs by a very
thin thread. Your typical Turk-in-the-street will tend to view Israel in an ambiguous light. On the one hand, Israel oppresses fellow Muslim Arabs (whom they don't like very much). On the other hand, they admire Israel for being a "modern" society which, in many ways, parallels Ataturk's push for Westernization, by reviving/inventing a new national language, institutions, etccccccc....it's pretty tangled up.
Anonymous
I've never heard of this before and in fact historically the ADL has been on the side of the Armenians so I'd really need a link to believe this one.
lester
why not just do the right thing and ackowledge the genocide that obviously took place? Unless he has evidence to the contrary. Who cares if Turkey doesn't like it. they don't like the TRUTH?
the answer is so simple it's practicly incredible. there is nothing to discuss. tell. the. truth.
Armenian from Boston
Here's the front page article in today's Boston Globe regarding ADL, Abe Foxman and the Armenian genocide: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/08/01/antib...
As an Armenian-American who lives in the Boston area, I fell off my chair when I read the following comments by Abe Foxman.
===============================
Foxman maintained his position that the ADL, which has spoken out against ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and genocide in Darfur, does not have a role in the long-standing dispute between the Armenians and the Turks.
"We're not party to this, and I don't understand why we need to be made party," Foxman said.
Foxman said he is surprised that he has become a target of Armenians. The ADL, a group founded in 1913 to fight anti-Semitism, has no official position on the Armenian genocide, he said.
"I'm not going to be the arbiter of someone else's history," he said in the interview, adding that he does not believe that Congress should either. When asked specifically if what happened to Armenians under the Ottoman Empire was genocide, he replied, "I don't know." The ADL only takes positions, he said, on current events, not on something that happened in the past.
==================================
I urge all of you who are equally appalled by Abe Foxman's behavior-- and especially those among you that are principled supporters of the good work that the ADL normally does-- to write to the editor at letters@globe.com and register your disgust. For someone who has fought Anti-Semitism in my own community for years, all this is very, very disheartening indeed.
What is needed now is an outpouring of condemnation from mainstream segments of the Jewish community -- perhaps culminating in demanding Foxman's resignation. I know that Abe Foxman does not speak for Jewish-Americans on this issue (I don't even believe he speeks for himself). The other 2 million Armenian-Americans need to hear it too. Loud and clear -- with the kind of moral clarity that comes form a people who have experienced their own genocide and are confronted on a daily basis with attempts to deny or minimize it.
Please write to letters@globe.com now!!!
History Student
Did you people ever stop to wonder maybe there is another reason and that reason may be to protect Jews.
The Young Turks that committed the genocide were JEWS.
The Donmeh who conspired to take over the dying empire.
The Jews were the Administration of the Ottoman Empire.
Think about what that means, the Ottomans were true evil.
Greeks were slaughtered and the Turks gave the emptied cities to tens of thousands of Jews, this is Thessalonike I am talking about, they also moved in tens of thousands of Bulgarians to dis-possess divide and conquer and destroy the Greeks.
If any of this is news to you, you do not know history.
NewModerate
History Student: Whoa there! Are you saying that Talaat, Enver and the other Young Turks were JEWISH? What evidence do you have to make such a startling claim? I don't doubt that Abe Foxman is denying the Armenian genocide to protect Jews (at least Israeli Jews), but you're essentially saying that his denial is a cover-up of Jewish involvement in the genocide of 1915. That's a pretty serious (not to mention mindboggling) charge. Are you sure you didn't get your information from some raving anti-Semitic tract?
I'm of Armenian ancestry, and I'd be curious to know more about this rumor.
Rick Bayan
The New Moderate
Anonymous
http://www.jewishracism.com/JewishGenocide.htm
Anonymous
Next you'll be telling us Hitler was Jewish too and the Shoah was a Zionist plot....
lester
I don't see how the holocaust is an excuse for this. or anything. Yuo can't just do something totally dishonest and cruel and say "since we are jews we have to think only in the short term and only abuot ourselves because our immediate survival is critical." It's not 1933. Doing nasty stuff out of supposed necessity is where anti semitism began, It's not a protection from it, but a stimulus for more of it
Anonymous
Jewish denial of the Armenian genocide is nothing new. Over the course of two assiduously researched books "The Banality of Indifference," and "The Banality of Denial" Yair Auron, professor at the Open University of Israel, has documented the history of Jewish denialism from the genocide up until the present time. Here is just a small sampling of the examples: In 1990, at the request of the Israeli Foregin Ministry, Israel Broaducasting Authority canceled a planned screening of the Armenian Genocide. Auron tell us, "The film was a replaced without explanation by a documentary about insects." In 1994, the Iraeli Minister of Education quashed a study program for high school, seminary and college students, on the Armenian Genocide. In April 2001, the Nobel Laureate and Israeli Foreign Defense minister Shimon Peres told the Turkish press the genocide had never occurred. In 2002 the Ambassador of Israel to Armenia repeated this assertion in Yerevan. In 2003 an Israeli citizen of Armenian descent was asked to light a candle and say a few words about herself in celebration of Israel’s 55 Independence Day Celebration. When the government got wind from the advanced text for the occasion that she described herself as a “survivor of the Armenian Genocide of 1915,” they demanded she change it so as to not insult the Turks. Yaur Auron sums it up thus: “To my sorrow, Israel has become Turkey’s principal partner in helping it deny the Armenian Claims.”
REALAMERICAN
You either agree with Foxman and the ADL or you don't.
If you agree with Foxman, then don't expect anyone to acknowledge the Jewish Holocaust, but expect the world to be anti-Jews and anti any thing Jewish, including anti so-called Holocaust, and untrust of jews ( of which, ADL and Foxman should be liable of).
If you diasgree with Foxman and the ADL, then you will be telling the world: "What is right is right, what is wrong is wrong", and the world will respect you, trust you and believe you.
Yes, there is a price for telling the truth, you might loose one group of people, but you will gain the WHOLE world. Remember, at the end of the day, even these people that you just have lost will come to their) sences, and accept their mistakes. (The Germans did).
Unfortunately, there is a price to pay even when you tell the truth. This price is much less expensive than the alternative. Truth outweighs all, even political expediency.
Read your Jewish Bible (Torah or Tanakh), Read the Christian Bible, and Read the Muslim Koran Al-Karim , or for that matter of fact the Budda's Holly Bible and any other's , and you will see how they all agree on this. !!!
Anonymous
That link from the Boston Globe doesn't work.
Anonymous
Hi Joey, I saw the stories in the Boston Globe, in the JTA and in the Jewish Advocate (the last two came out today). I just want to say that I was very moved to see this issue covered in the mainstream.
Thank you -- and congratulations -- on getting this story out.
Anonymous
Turkey's campaign against the Armenian Genocide is not just limited to exercises in deception. Elements within the Turkish 'Deep State' have also targeted journalists and scholars for assassination. Civil Rights activist Hrant Dink was assassinated just like Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr only a few months ago. Historian Taner Akcam is also on their hit list. Check out http://www.akcam.info for his first hand experience with death threats.
For all we know, Joey and others here are now on their (s)hit list, too!
Joey Kurtzman
"For all we know, Joey and others here are now on their (s)hit list, too!"
Heh, not to make light of Turkey's violent response to political dissidents and their forbidden ideas, but anyone who knows me will have to agree that the idea of my being "targeted for assassination" is intrinsically humorous. Theo Van Gogh said "no one kills the village idiot," which turned out to be untrue where he lived. In the U.S., though, it's still a pretty safe bet.
This is only worth saying because we ought not overstate the dangers of expressing controversial political opinions. There are too many people (particularly on the left) running around claiming that it requires some sort of great "bravery" to say something that other people strongly disagree with (e.g., "Michael Moore is one our bravest political dissidents..."). I can't think of many cases at all (in the U.S.) in which that is actually true. It doesn't take any bravery for an American to speak up against the denial of the Armenian Genocide, it just takes...well, you have to dislike seeing over a million dead human beings and their descendants demeaned, and think, you know what, I should say something about that. It's not a lot to ask.
zbird
I had never thought about the issue, but you're right. Calling everyone and their mother a "brave dissident" demeans the bravery of true revolutionaries who risk their jobs, their freedom, or their lives to expose the truth.
--Z