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Jewish Journal

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January 18, 2022

The Last Thing We Need Coming Out of Colleyville is More Fear

Leave a Comment / Editor's Note, Featured /

The human brain is wired to put fear ahead of other emotions. As Jessica Schrader writes in Psychology Today, “From an evolutionary perspective, the emotion of fear protected humans from predators and other threats to the survival of the species. So it is no wonder that certain dangers evoke that emotion, since fear helps protect you and is therefore adaptive, functional, and necessary.”

We ought to keep this fear bias in mind as we calibrate our response to the Colleyville hostage crisis and to antisemitism in general.

To put it bluntly, fear makes us feel alive. Danger, especially when seen from afar, adds drama to our lives. The famous media cliché, “When it bleeds, it leads,” is famous for a reason: It’s utterly true. Readers and viewers will naturally gravitate to danger stories, whether these are horrible hurricanes or terrifying hostage crises. Editors never forget that.

To put it bluntly, fear makes us feel alive. Danger, especially when seen from afar, adds drama to our lives.

During the harrowing hours when Jewish hostages were trapped inside the Texas synagogue, a few friends commented that it was “like a movie.” Indeed it was. We’ve become accustomed to watching dramatic “breaking news” events and movie thrillers that keep us on the edge of our seats. As dark as fear may be, it is also seductive and weirdly entertaining.

For activists, it is also lucrative. Donors have the same biases as everyone. A fundraising pitch around fear has more impact than a fundraising pitch around hope or love. That’s not a judgement or a complaint, it’s just reality.

For Jews, who have such a long history of persecution, fear is like a genetic reflex. An attack against Jews isn’t just an attack against Jews. It’s also a reminder of countless other attacks throughout the centuries that have shaped our collective memory.

An attack against Jews is a reminder of countless other attacks throughout the centuries that have shaped our collective memory.

When the Jewish world sat transfixed to the news Saturday night wondering if the hostages would come out alive, we had 11 hours to stew in that collective memory. “Here we go again” was the familiar and familial sigh.

It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve seen a blizzard of statements and reactions from multiple Jewish organizations, as well as endless media stories and commentaries covering every possible angle of this latest attack.

Here’s my angle: We shouldn’t give in to fear. We shouldn’t wallow in it, inflate it, or allow it to dominate us. The more we publicize our fear, the more noise we make about Jew haters, the more satisfaction we will provide to those haters.

Here’s my message to the haters: You don’t scare us. You don’t have the power to disrupt our lives and our communities. We will fight you, we will strengthen our security, but we will do so while fully living our lives and without making you media heroes.

One thing we don’t want to amplify is the egos of Jew haters.

It’s interesting that in the article in Psychology Today, Schrader writes: “In a study of risk-taking, participants who were fearful consistently made judgments and choices that were relatively pessimistic and amplified their perception of risk in a given situation.”

Jews may have every justification to “amplify” our perception of risk, but one thing we don’t want to amplify is the egos of Jew haters.

Even if we do harbor a lingering fear of those who hate us, the haters of all people don’t deserve to know that.

The Last Thing We Need Coming Out of Colleyville is More Fear Read More »

Dangerous Tales Told by Palestinian Authority

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Opinion /

If Jewish history has taught us anything, it is that when our enemies speak, we should listen. Paying attention to what they say, particularly when they are talking to whom they view as a friendly audience, is critical to not only understanding our enemy, but for our survival.

Last week, on January 9, 2022, the Palestinian Authority (“PA”) Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, gave such a speech. A speech that while short, and frankly unsurprising at this point, highlighted two of the biggest causes of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict: (1) the sanctification of Jew-murder, and (2) the rejection of facts and history.

One common feature of totalitarianism and Jew-hatred is that both have always rewritten or revised history without regard for the facts. For the Palestinian Arab leadership, who are indisputably totalitarian and antisemitic, ignoring facts and revising history has been fundamental to their enterprise. Similarly, sanctifying Jew-murder and turning those who murder Jews – even little Jewish girls by smashing their heads against a rock – into heroes, has been part of the PLO and PA playbook for decades.

But even with that context, the extent to which the leadership of the Palestinian Arabs in the 21stcentury have taken to Stalinesque revisions of history and glorification of Jew-murder is almost mind-boggling.

Before Yasser Arafat and the PLO, Palestinian Arab leaders, even Nazi collaborator and 1920’s Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el-Husseini – while viciously antisemitic – admitted that the Temple Mount was historically home to at least two Jewish temples. Now, the PA appointed Mufti of Jerusalem denies there ever was a Jewish temple at the Temple Mount site (the holiest site to Jews and 3rd holiest site to Sunni Muslims) and incredibly claims that the Temple Mount was always and only the site of a mosque going back “3,000 years ago and 30,000 years ago” … even though Islam was founded 1,400 years ago, and the first mosque was built in Jerusalem 1,300 years ago.

In his January 9th speech that aired on Palestinian Authority TV, the current PA Prime Minister took this lying about history and lionizing of Jew-murderers to a level that would be laughable, were it not so dangerous.

First, he lionized as “martyrs” people who organized and participated in a mass-slaughter of their Jewish neighbors in Jerusalem, Hebron and Tzafat in 1929. Haj Amin el-Husseini inspired antisemitic riots (pogroms) that killed 133 Jews in under one week.

About three men who were convicted by the British of stealing from and murdering multiple Jews, including women and children, during those 1929 pogroms, PM Shtayyeh said:

“We weave beautiful stories about the martyrs so that they serve as role models, so they nestle in our minds, and so we remember them every day. We weave beautiful stories about the martyrs, so we are all Muhammad Jamjum, Atta Al-Zir, and Fuad Hijazi, whose feet rose above the executioner’s neck.”

Three men convicted of mass murdering Jews, 2 of whom confessed to murdering 8 Jews between them as part of an antisemitic killing and stealing frenzy in 1929 (nearly 40 years before any alleged “occupation”) are – according to the PA Prime Minister speaking on PA TV – “role models” to “nestle in our minds.”

Then, as if lauding thieves and mass murderers as the ultimate heroes for Palestinian Arabs to emulate was not bad enough, PM Shtayyeh added this whopper:

“We defeated the Hyksos, the Romans, the Greeks, as well as the Persians, the Tatars, and the Pharaohs. We defeated all the invaders who passed through Palestine, and in the name of martyrs, we will defeat this despicable occupation, which will leave our lands.”

In the real world, Arabs are from Arabia and they didn’t invade and conquer – what the Romans re-named “Syria-Palestina” in 135 CE – until over 500 years later in 638 CE.

In the real world, an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh, 3,600 years ago (and 2,226 years before the Arab conquest of Egypt) drove the Hyksos out of Egypt and the Levant.

In the real world, the Greeks were defeated in the Levant (in ancient Judea) by the Jews, led by the Maccabees. PM Shtayyeh may never have heard of this historic event, but it’s celebrated in a pretty well-known Jewish holiday about liberating Jerusalem from occupation (called Chanukah).

In the real world, the Romans colonized Judea – what the entire Levant was called back then – in 63 BCE and they turned Judea into a Roman province (colony) in 6 CE. And in the real world, the Jews fought two bloody revolts against Roman occupation between 66 CE and 70 CE and 132 CE and 135 CE. 500 plus years before the Arab Empire conquered the Levant and over 1,800 years before Arabs in the Levant began generally identifying as Palestinian.

But today’s Palestinian Arab leaders plainly do not live in the real world. In their world of fake “history,” Jerusalem, the city mentioned 661 times in the Jewish bible (the Torah) and to which Jews have daily prayed towards and about for thousands of years, has no connection to Judaism or the Jewish people.

Today’s Palestinian Arab leaders plainly do not live in the real world. In their world of fake “history,” Jerusalem, the city mentioned 661 times in the Jewish bible (the Torah) and to which Jews have daily prayed towards and about for thousands of years, has no connection to Judaism or the Jewish people.

In their world of fake “history,” it wasn’t ancient Egyptians who defeated the Hyksos, and Jews who fought against the ancient Greeks and Romans, but Palestinian Arabs who apparently time-traveled from 21st century Ramallah to the “multiverse” where these epic battles must have taken place. Stan Lee (Z’L) has nothing on the imagination of the Palestinian Arab leadership.

Kidding aside, this is actually pretty scary stuff when it comes to the prospects for peace. While history has certainly taught the Jewish people the importance of listening to what our enemies say (particularly when they talk about destroying us), it has also taught us that in the absence of a total defeat, true peace can only come about when there is a meeting of the minds.

Tragically, the leadership of Palestinian Arab side to this conflict continues to exacerbate the two main obstacles to true peace between Jews and Palestinian Arabs – the sanctification of Jew-murder and the denial of the very real Jewish connection to the land of Israel. They teach their people to worship truly heinous Jew murderers, while they simultaneously invent a history that is about as connected to reality as Lord of the Rings.

How on earth (and not on fake “Middle Earth”) can there be a meeting of the minds under such circumstances? The sad truth is that there can’t be. The sad reality is that as long as the Palestinian Arabs are led by people in the PA and in Hamas who feed them such lies – all as they incite Jew-hatred and worship Jew-murder, then true peace is sadly not possible.

We can all pray for a day when that will no longer be the case and also work to encourage education within Palestinian Arab society about the actual history of the region, as well as the evil of sanctifying and glorifying Jew-murder, but until that sea-change occurs, we must heed the words of our enemies and remain vigilant.

Micha Danzig served in the Israeli Army and is a former police officer with the NYPD. He is currently an attorney and is very active with numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including Stand With Us and the FIDF, and is a national board member of Herut North America.

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Marie Kaufman: In Memory’s Garden, a Life of Beauty and Truth, Deeply Lived

Leave a Comment / Obituaries /

Marie Kaufman, who as an unborn child survived trauma in her mother’s womb; who as a very small child survived the ravages of the Holocaust; who as a refugee and emigre to America endured the challenges of a newcomer in a foreign land; who as a daughter survived abuse and intergenerational trauma; who as a young woman became a loving mother, wife and social worker, who as a middle aged woman sought to reconstruct her traumatic past, knit from the memories of her rescuer’s children; who as the President of Child Survivors of The Holocaust Los Angeles shepherded an anthology of her own and her fellow survivors’ stories; who as an adult survived for 14 years with the chronic assaults of what would eventually be diagnosed as a rare and mercurial disease, died in her sleep, on the second day of the new year, the day after she watched the televised flowers of the Rose Parade bring beauty to her hospital room under yet another COVID surge. Everyone who knew and loved Marie knew how exquisitely she loved the beauty of the natural world.

Marie, who as a child loved to dance and create, grew into a woman who felt deeply and left an everlasting imprint on the firmament of Holocaust memory and the family and legions who loved her and looked to her for healing, for transformation and for connection. A woman who used her voice and exercised her principles as she pushed back against injustice, unafraid of the consequences. A woman who stood firm on the picket lines for Caesar Chavez and the farmworkers, rallying her peers to stand up, too. A woman who worked in community to help integrate local schools. A woman who loved music in all its varieties, who hosted formidable house concerts and filled her home with warmth and vibrancy. An exquisitely beloved Wife, Mother, Bubbe, Friend, Teacher, Therapist, Outspoken Community Leader, Writer, Editor, and Wise Elder with the enchanting soul of a flower child. Marie Kaufman, a life exceptionally well lived, died after a long, long harrowing battle with AL Amyloidosis.

Marie Kaufman, Elementary School Louis Blanc, Paris, 1948

Marie Kaufman was born in Albi, France, to Michel Kaufman and Anna Zadjner, two Poles thrust into each other’s arms by the circumstances of war and genocide. Her journey began in crisis and weathered an early childhood of fear and ultimately survival in hiding in Milhars, a French village that surrounded her family in what Marie called a rare “conspiracy of goodness” where the townspeople, mayor, priest, gendarmes and local cement factory owner, her father’s boss, conspired with good will to protect her family in hiding from the Nazi occupiers. Marie, when talking to students, liked to point out that “if there had been more brave people like that, more families like mine would have survived.”

 After the war, Marie’s family emigrated to Los Angeles. Marie grew up in the Fairfax district, where dance classes at the Westside JCC were her after-school sanctuary. Family life was complex for many of the traumatized survivor émigré parents. And their children, like Marie, were forced to nurture themselves. Early on Marie looked, optimistically, to human connection, music, poetry, the beauty of the creative and natural world and the advancement of social justice as the pillars of the life she would build.

Marie’s life was dedicated to beauty, righteousness, relationships and the legacy of Holocaust memory. 

Marie’s life was dedicated to beauty, righteousness, relationships and the legacy of Holocaust memory. She understood the significance of witnessing the human condition and the individual dignity of her fellow women and men. As a social worker, she ministered to the transformation and emotional health of others; as a music lover, her house concerts were a hub for leading musicians of the time to gather and share their gifts; as a wife, mother and grandmother, Marie sought to shift her childhood paradigm of pain into one of love, joy, nurturance and support.

In the world of Holocaust education and remembrance, Marie leaves lasting imprints and a legacy of her own goodness. Marie’s compassionate heart and skilled experience created safety and possibility for her traumatized community, including her work as an interviewer for the Shoah Foundation Survivor Testimonies. As an early board member of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust (now known as Holocaust Museum LA). As a frequent, beloved speaker at the Museum of Tolerance, Marie shared her story of the goodness of one village and a small group of teens to inspire righteous action in our world today. As an active participant and advisory board member at Remember Us and the Righteous Conversations Project, Marie collaborated with students on such contemporary issues as gun violence and human dignity for refugees.

Marie Kaufman, Los Angeles, late 1990s

As managing editor, with her husband Ken Johnson and a committee of dedicated peers, the publication of the anthology “How We Survived; 52 Personal Stories by Child Survivors of the Holocaust” was her crowning achievement. First published in 2011, it had its second printing by popular demand, in addition to the moral demands of the contemporary landscape as the dangers of antisemitism re-emerged. In the foreword to “How We Survived,” Marie wrote “This anthology is a gift for you, the reader, the student and the teacher. You are now the keepers of our story. You are our witnesses and the guardians of our legacy.”

Marie, all of us who you inspired, we are your witnesses, and the precious book you edited and brought to this world will travel the generations as a living Torah that bears witness to the agonies and triumphs of the children who survived the Shoah and the million-and-a-half more who were never able to tell their own stories, in whose memory your book is dedicated. 

Marie is survived by her devoted husband Ken Johnson, her children Deena Poll Goodman and Mitch Poll (Rosemary) and her beloved grandchildren Trevor & Matthew Goodman and Eva & Gibson Poll. She is also survived — and preceded in death — by so many in the Child Survivors of The Holocaust community where she was part of the connected and caring family-by-choice she helped to build. She lovingly wove together communities of musicians, artists, activists, therapists, readers, students, family and friends for whom her memory shall resonate as a tender blessing and a forceful call to action in the days, years and generations to come.

In accordance with her wishes, donations in memory of Marie Kaufman z”l can be made to Museum of Tolerance.

Samara Hutman is the former director of the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust under E. Randol Schoenberg and director of Remember Us and the Co-Founder/Director of The Righteous Conversations Project.

Marie Kaufman: In Memory’s Garden, a Life of Beauty and Truth, Deeply Lived Read More »