Is Anti-Semitism a Thing of the past? - Part II

[question everything]

By Edward Rothstein

(Continuation from Part I)

The Nazi seizure of currency and property had typically venal motivations. But seizure also had symbolic importance; it defeated the Jew on his own terrain. You can see an aspect of this at an exhibition at the Leo Baeck Institute at the Center for Jewish History : “Stolen Heart: The Theft of Jewish Property in Berlin’s Historic City Center, 1933-1945.” Before 1933, at least 225 properties out of 1,200 lots in Berlin’s historic center were owned by Jews and Jewish businesses. This exhibit—an abridgement of one mounted in Berlin—looks at five properties and the fates of the families who owned them. They include the headquarters of one company (owned by the Intrator and Berglas families) that in the early 1930s produced about half of all German-made textiles. Another was the Herrmann Gerson store, “the oldest, largest, and most prominent fashion store in Germany” (owned by the Freudenberg family).

As a result of taxes, violence, threats, and legislation, the families were financially ruined and forced to flee. The buildings were taken over. Not only did this break Jewish control; the government also obliterated any sign of it. The textile building was used to manufacture almost a million yellow Star of David patches; the Herrmann Gerson store property was used to house the SS’s criminal police and as a laboratory to perfect mass killing methods. (Incidentally, very few heirs to the 225 properties have received recompense according to a postwar policy that was, ironically enough, called Wiedergutmachung —making good again)

These beliefs might seem beyond contemporary imagining. Yet today similar assertions have attached themselves to Israel—a Jew among nations. Arab media regularly invoke Nazi caricatures and references. Recently. the former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone also suggested that Zionism and Nazism shared support from Hitler—adding to a string of comments by Labour leaders caricaturing Israel as uniquely satanic.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/anti-semitism-1919-1939-and-stolen-heart-the-theft-of-jewish-property-in-berlins-historic-city-center-1933-1945-reviews-1463002058

[Behind the Aegis]

1. Money is the root of all evil, so...

It shouldn't be any surprise that many of the anti-Semitic stereotypes which plague the world revolve around money. It also isn't surprising that anti-Semitism has evolved to include the use of Nazi imagery against Jews, particularly Israel, as this just another example of anti-Semitism being used to debase anti-Semitism. I rarely use Nazi analogies, though I do use them from time to time. One reason I don't use them is because it is usually nothing more than hyperbole, and in doing so, it diminishes the actual events of the Nazi regime. While they aren't the only evil to ever walk the earth, they rank pretty high of the "fucked kinds of evil" list, which is why it is used as a weapon against Jews, Zionism, and Israel.