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Jewish Journal

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January 31, 2022

Whoopi Goldberg Says “The Holocaust Isn’t About Race”

Leave a Comment / News, United States /

Whoopi Goldberg is under fire for saying that “the Holocaust isn’t about race” during a January 31 segment on ABC’s “The View.”

The segment focused on a Tennessee school board voting to remove the book “Maus” from their 8th grade curriculum. The book is a graphic novel about the Holocaust depicting the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats. The board decided to remove the book due to its use of inappropriate language and nudity and will be looking for a different book to teach students about the Holocaust.

Goldberg said, “Let’s be truthful about it… the Holocaust isn’t about race.” Co-host Joy Behar responded that the Nazis “considered Jews a different race” but Goldberg doubled down. When Behar asked her what the Holocaust is about, Goldberg replied: “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what it’s about.”

Co-host Ana Navarro then interjected that the Holocaust is “about white supremacy” and “going after Jews and Gypsies and Romas.” “But these are two white groups of people,” Goldberg countered. Behar pointed that the Nazis “went after Black people too.”

“You’re missing the point,” Goldberg said. “The minute you turn it into race, it goes down this alley. Let’s talk about it for what it is. It’s how people treat each other. It’s a problem. It doesn’t matter if you are Black or white because Black, white, Jews, Italians, everybody eats each other… if you are uncomfortable if you hear about ‘Maus’… should your child say, ‘Oh my God, I wonder if that’s me?’ No. That’s not what they’re going to say. They’re going to say, ‘I don’t want to be like that.’”

Navarro then pointed to the fact that various people have compared “vaccine cards to the yellow stars, where people are comparing vaccinations to what Anne Frank went through. So, it is necessary for kids to learn about the Holocaust.” Goldberg then said, “To learn about man’s inhumanity to man however it exposes itself.”

Jewish groups denounced Goldberg’s remarks.

“The #Holocaust was about the Nazi’s systematic annihilation of the Jewish people – who they deemed to be an inferior race,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted.“They dehumanized them and used this racist propaganda to justify slaughtering 6 million Jews. Holocaust distortion is dangerous.”

Associate Director and Dean of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal in a phone interview, “Everything about Nazi Germany from the beginning––before there was a Nazi Germany but in the mind of Hitler and others––everything was about race. The Aryan race. There was a hierarchy, just above the Jews were the Slavs and the Poles, etc. etc. The Holocaust, the Final Solution, everything about the Nazis was about race.”

He added: “How is it possible that someone as intelligent and empathetic as Whoopi Goldberg can say that it wasn’t? The only thing I can think of is: there’s a new definition of racism that’s going around that seems to say that racism is only applicable when the targets are people of color. And I guess if that’s the current definition that some people are operating under, then maybe they can come to the conclusion that the Jews weren’t targeted because of race. But with the greatest of respect, it’s simply not the case. It was not the case then, it was not the case today.” Cooper pointed to how in Africa, there have been instances of “people in power who are racists and happen to be Black and are targeting people of color from India or whites. And so in terms of what racism is really all about, then clearly the Holocaust was caused by an ideology that was based solely on race and racism. Therefore, the context of what [Goldberg] had to say simply is not accurate.”

Stop Antisemitism tweeted to Goldberg: “6 million of us were gassed, starved and massacred because we were deemed an inferior race by the Nazis.  How dare you minimize our trauma and suffering!”

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro tweeted that Goldberg’s comments are “insidious” because they downplay “the minority status of Jews in order to uphold bullshit intersectional arguments that justify anti-Semitism today.” “The intersectional argument is that Jews are white people, and that Jews are disproportionately successful thanks to ‘white supremacy,’” he wrote. “Because racism is ‘animus plus power,’ and Jews are powerful because they are white, anti-Semitism from non-white supremacists isn’t bigotry. This logic is why the Left will condemn anti-Semitic attacks like the one at the Tree of Life but quickly memory hole anti-Semitic attacks by Black Hebrew Israelites in NJ or radical Muslims in TX.”

Ellie Cohanim, Former Deputy Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism and Independent Women’s Forum, tweeted that Goldberg “could use some education on the Holocaust. Hitler’s entire propaganda machine spewed the message that Jews were an inferior race to Germans who were a pure ‘Aryan race.’ And then they murdered six million Jews based on this belief.”

Dumisani Washington, Founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel, tweeted: “So, the Nazi propagandists that called Jews vermin, performed eugenicist experiments on them, and sought to exterminate them weren’t actually focused on Jews. Got it.” In a later tweet, he argued that “if someone told Whoopi Goldberg that the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, Jim Crow segregation, and the KKK weren’t really about ‘race’ but about ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ she’d have a conniption fit.”

Journalist Eve Barlow tweeted, “Whoopi Goldberg’s outburst is exactly why I have a problem with Jewish identity incorporating new terms in order to re-categorize us. Jewish identity doesn’t fit into non-Jewish ideas of racism and racial profiling.”

Blogger Perez Hilton tweeted, “I love Whoopi Goldberg, but this take of hers on the Nazis and the Holocaust is… not it. Her The View cohosts were trying to guide her out of this hole. She just dug in even deeper!”

Quotes from The View provided by transcript from Newsbusters.

UPDATE: Goldberg issued an apology posted to Twitter, acknowledging that Greenblatt was right. “The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waver,” she wrote. “I’m sorry for the hurt I’ve caused.”

https://twitter.com/WhoopiGoldberg/status/1488320164517101574?s=20&t=rsdnHZQrBStQKjchBxDo4A

Whoopi Goldberg Says “The Holocaust Isn’t About Race” Read More »

Remembering the Gentleman Larry Greenfield

Leave a Comment / Editor's Note /

My friend and fellow Journal writer Larry Greenfield, who passed away on Jan. 28 one day before his 60th birthday, would probably look at me right now and say: “Suissa, don’t waste your weekly column on me. Write about something big and important, like the declining state of America or the rise of antisemitism.”

Well, Larry, maybe that’s why I’m devoting this column to you— because I know it’s not your first choice. You’ve always had a way of submerging your own needs to much bigger ones, like those of your world, your country and your community. But while you may not need us to talk about you, we certainly do, especially now that you’ve moved on to that other world few of us mortals know anything about.

But here’s the problem: even as I try to write about you, it’s difficult to separate you from those big and important issues that occupied so much of your mind and professional life. In many ways, those issues were you. They were your identity.

Even as I try to write about you, it’s difficult to separate you from those big and important issues that occupied so much of your mind and professional life. In many ways, those issues were you. They were your identity.

I felt that devotion in the hundreds of conversations we’ve had over the years, even before I became editor-in-chief. You were both fascinated and preoccupied by big societal shifts, by anything that might threaten the things you loved dearly, such as the founding ideals of this country.

This passion was evident in the many pieces you wrote for the Journal. When I went on your author page, I was actually stunned by the sheer number of commentaries and analyses you so carefully crafted. As I scrolled through the headlines, it felt like a mini-retrospective of your life’s work. Each headline brought back memories. Here’s just a small sample:

Larry Elder and the Rise of Black Conservatives

Has Free Speech Been Cancelled? A 6-Part Series

Interpreting the California Dream’s Winners and Losers

Can Civil Discourse Prevent Our Second Civil War?

Big Tech is Big Trouble

The First 100 Days: Biden’s Dull but Bold Presidency

The Tikvah Fund and the Roots of Jewish Conservatism

David Crane: California Man On a Mission

The Threat From China is Real. Will Biden Rise to the Challenge?

The Scientific Controversies Around COVID-19

Anatomy of a Growing Recall: The People vs. The Governor of California

The Reverse Gold Rush: Is the California Dream Fading Away?

The Highs and Lows of American Leaders and Israel

A Brief History of Hope

No Labels: The Group Fighting for the Political Center

This trip down memory lane reminded me of our endless discussions about so many topics. Sometimes you had an idea for a piece; other times I would. You never said no when I asked. If I offered a critique, you never took it personally. When you disagreed, you did so politely and decently. You were passionate about your views, but above all, you were a gentleman.

The highlight of our professional relationship was when I called you to discuss the most divisive and explosive issue of all—President Donald Trump. Half of our readers despised him; the other half tolerated his sins because they agreed with his policies. After a little brainstorming, we came up with an idea: One essay would argue that Trump was “the cancer,” while another would argue that he was “the chemo.”

You offered to write the chemo.

Here’s the best compliment I can give you: When I asked the person who wrote “he’s the cancer” what they thought of your piece, the first word I heard was “thoughtful.” That was a perfect word to describe you.

We will miss your thoughtful and knowledgeable commentary, Larry, but we will also miss your decency. That is something I can assure you everyone will miss.

You had strong views that fell squarely in the conservative/Republican tradition, and you were blessed with vast knowledge on the issues you wrote and spoke about. If we connect the dots, perhaps it was your decency and thoughtfulness that made you seek all that knowledge.

I can imagine a little smile on your face right now, because I ended up including in this column some of the big issues you cared about. But I also included what made you special.

We will miss your thoughtful and knowledgeable commentary, Larry, but we will also miss your decency. That is something I can assure you everyone will miss.

So long, my friend.

Remembering the Gentleman Larry Greenfield Read More »

Jewish Groups Condemn Amnesty International Report Accusing Israel of Apartheid

Leave a Comment / News, Worldwide /

Various Jewish groups have issued statements condemning Amnesty International UK’s upcoming February 1 report accusing Israel of being an apartheid state.

The 211-page report, which was obtained by the Journal, alleges that Israel is oppressing the Palestinians through segregation, military rule, seizing Palestinian land, and barring movement from the Palestinian territories, among other acts as part of an effort to cement its Jewish majority. It also calls for the right of return for Palestinian refugees. NGO Monitor argued that Amnesty’s report “is not meaningfully different from the discredited Human Rights Watch (HRW) and B’Tselem reports from 2021” that also accused the Jewish State of apartheid. NGO Monitor also accused Amnesty of invoking antisemitic tropes through their use of the term “Jewish domination” throughout the report as well as whitewashing Palestinian terrorism. 

“The 4000 rocket attacks from Gaza against Israeli civilians in May 2021 receive only cursory mention, and there is no acknowledgment that these attacks constitute war crimes committed by Palestinian terrorist organizations,” the Israeli NGO stated. “Similarly, the NGO portrays the concurrent anti-Jewish riots as ‘peaceful protests,’ ignoring the murder and injury of Jewish civilians and the widespread vandalism of Jewish-owned property and synagogues.”

Alex Safian, Associate Director and Research Director of Committee of Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), noted that Amnesty selectively quoted a 2019 Instagram post from then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the beginning of the report. The report quotes as Netanyahu as saying, “Israel is not a state of all its citizens… [but rather] the nation-state of the Jewish people and only them.” But Safian noted that the next line of Netanyahu’s post said, “There’s no problem with the Arab citizens of Israel––they have the same rights as us all and the Likud government has invested in the Arab sector more than any other government.”

“If – in the first line of their report – Amnesty International can’t even quote a short statement by Netanyahu correctly and in context, how can anyone trust them on more arcane or involved issues, turning on critical issues of fact or international law?” Safian wrote. “The short answer is that on Israel Amnesty International can’t be trusted, on issues large or small. And Amnesty’s entire report is like this – making up some new false charges, and recycling a huge number of old, already debunked propaganda.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry urged Amnesty not to release the report, accusing it of being “false, biased, and antisemitic.” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid elaborated in a video that Amnesty “isn’t a human rights organization, but just another radical organization which echoes propaganda without seriously checking the facts. Instead of seeking the truth, Amnesty echoes the same lies shared by terrorist organizations,” The Times of Israel reported. Lapid acknowledged that Israel has imperfections, “but we are a democracy committed to international law, open to criticism, with a free press and a strong and independent judicial system. Amnesty doesn’t call Syria––where the regime has murdered over half a million of its own citizens––an apartheid state. Nor Iran, or other murderous regimes around the world. Only Israel.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a statement that the report is part of “an effort to demonize Israel and undermine its legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state. In an environment of rising anti-Jewish hate, this type of report is not only inaccurate but also irresponsible and likely will lead to intensified antisemitism around the world.” They added that the “report goes beyond criticizing Israeli policies and actions to painting Israel’s very creation as illegitimate, immoral, and faulted. Amnesty International’s allegations that Israel’s crimes go back to the sin of its creation in 1948, serve to present the Jewish and democratic state as singularly illegitimate at its foundational roots. Such a hateful characterization not only delegitimizes the Israeli state enterprise and the Jewish right to self-determination in its historic homeland, but also undermines the vision of a mutually negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will provide security, dignity, and self-determination to both peoples.” The ADL also argued that the Palestinian right of return would cause Israel to cease to exist as a Jewish state.

The ADL also joined the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), B’nai Brith International and the Jewish Federations of North America in a joint statement that read: “This libelous document resorts to baseless ‘apartheid’ accusations against Israel, among other distortions. In so doing, the report commits a double injustice: It fuels those antisemites around the world who seek to undermine the only Jewish country on earth, while simultaneously cheapening and downplaying the horrific suffering that was a result of apartheid in South Africa. The apartheid system practiced by South Africa was characterized by tyranny, segregation and dehumanization established both in law and practice; this has no equivalence to a vibrant democracy where all citizens have rights and representation in the national legislature.” They added that the report “disregards the fact that Israel’s robust democracy grants its Arab citizens full rights and equality, includes an Arab Muslim nationalist party in Israel’s governing coalition, as well as a history of senior Israeli Arab governmental officials, including Supreme Court justices, government ministers, high-level diplomats, military officers, and members of Knesset.”

Human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky, Chair and CEO of The International Legal Forum, similarly said in a statement that the report “blatantly calls for the dismantlement of the Jewish state, is replete with malicious lies, gross distortions of truth and fabrications of law, while peddling unhinged hate, incitement and racism. In short, this report is tantamount to a ‘blood libel’ against the Jewish state and deserves to be placed in the dustbin of antisemitic history.”

Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl and Jewish Leadership Chair Keith Black also said in a joint statement that the report is “completely biased” and that the apartheid charge is a “preposterous slur.” “Israel is a vibrant democracy and a state for all its citizens, as exemplified by its diverse government and robust civil society,” they said.

Van der Zyl and Black acknowledged that disparities exist in Israel, as they do in every democracy, but the report “fails to offer anything worthwhile to that cause. The lack of democracy in the West Bank and [the] Gaza [Strip], as well as the conflict between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the terrorist Hamas control is a fundamental and not a peripheral cause of tension. This issue is not once referenced in the report.” They concluded by accusing the “bad faith” report of holding Israel to a double-standard.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted that Amnesty “is committed to the “Big Lie” of @Israel apartheid regardless of these daily facts in the Jewish state.” They quote-tweeted a tweet from Israel’s official Twitter account touting the fact that Osalia Abu Assad recently became the first Arab woman to serve on an Israeli district court.

British journalist David Collier argued in a post on his website that “Amnesty deliberately finds and employs people with a solid history of anti-Israel activism and then gets them to write the reports. The product of their work is as predictable and inevitable as it is biased and nonsensical. Israel is an Apartheid state? Come on––an Islamist political party brought about the downfall of Bibi Netanyahu. Go spin your ridiculous Amnesty lies somewhere else!”

A spokesperson for Amnesty International UK said in a statement to the Journal, “Amnesty’s report is part of our commitment to exposing and ending human rights violations wherever they occur. No government is above criticism, and that includes the Israeli government. Our research shows that the Israeli authorities are enforcing a system of apartheid against the Palestinian people in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Palestinian refugees. The report documents how Israel treats Palestinians as an inferior racial group, segregating and oppressing them wherever it has control over their rights. We also found that, in this context, certain unlawful acts committed by Israel constitute the crime against humanity of apartheid.

“All Amnesty’s criticism of the Israeli government is based on international law, and evidence of the great harm and suffering Israel’s policies cause to Palestinians. Amnesty criticizes the Israeli government, not the Israeli or Jewish people.”

Jewish Groups Condemn Amnesty International Report Accusing Israel of Apartheid Read More »

Move for Hunger Helps the Hungry with Peanut Butter!

Leave a Comment / Blogs, Commentary /

Move for Hunger Over 40 million people are struggling. Your donation can help Move For Hunger provide meals to the families, kids, seniors, & vulnerable communities who are facing hunger.

Spread the Love

Did you know the #1 requested item by food banks is peanut butter? That’s right! You can help “Spread the Love” this Valentine’s Day by signing up your business, school or community by collecting jars of peanut butter (and jelly) to be picked up by Move for Hunger and distributed to the food banks in need in your area this February.  SIGN UP HERE

Move for Hunger was launched in 2009 when founder Adam Lowy saw how much food was being thrown away when people relocate.  His family’s moving company saw first hand how people tossed or left behind canned goods and more every time they moved.

Since launching Move for Hunger, Lowy and his network of apartment management companies and national movers have collected 26 million pounds of food. That’s 21 million meals!  They have helped food banks across the nation keep people in need fed.

Move For Hunger is a national nonprofit organization that has created a sustainable way to reduce food waste & fight hunger. Our mission is to mobilize the leaders of the moving, relocation and multi family industries to provide their customers, clients, and residents with the opportunity to donate their food when they move.  All of the food stays local-a key component of Move For Hunger’s model. Members of Move For Hunger also organize community food drives, participate in awareness campaigns, and create employee engagement programs.

Since 2009, Move For Hunger has delivered more than 25 million pounds of food to food banks and pantries all across the United States & Canada providing more than 20 million meals for those in need. Members of Move For Hunger’s network also organize community food drives, participate in awareness campaigns, and create employee engagement programs.

Move For Hunger’s network now includes over 1,100 moving companies, more than 2,900+ multi-family apartment communities, and many of the world’s leading relocation companies.

The need to help fight hunger and food waste is more important than ever.  37 million Americans face hunger every day.  1 in 6 children are unsure of when they will have their next meal.  Meanwhile, we waste 40% of the food we produce every year.  Since the Covid-19 pandemic started, an estimated 17.1 million MORE Americans are food insecure. The work that Move For Hunger does to help support local food banks & pantries across the country is more crucial than ever.

35 million people move each year.  If we rescued just 1 pound of food from each of them, we’d be able to provide 29 million meals for families in need.

Move for Hunger Helps the Hungry with Peanut Butter! Read More »