Graffiti Poland Irony Burg

The Holocaust Is Over; We Must Rise From its Ashes, by Avraham Burg. 2008

A Devastating Jewish Critique of Holocaust Supremacism. Antisemitic Graffiti in Poland: The Double Standard

Avraham Burg appears to be a post-Zionist. The tone of his book is one of criticism of Israeli preoccupation with the Holocaust, and Israel’s retreat from its earlier-professed humanitarianism and idealism.

The author objects to the Zionist narrative imposed on the Holocaust itself. For instance, he criticizes the marginalization of non-Zionist Marek Edelman and of Hannah Arendt. (pp. 102-on).

JEWISH INFLUENCE IN THE USA

Author Burg quips, “Jews hold stunningly powerful positions and clout in the United States. The combination of the American state’s power and the Jewish power in the areas of legislation, administration, media, law, business, culture, and entertainment have made the Jews a defining factor of contemporary America. Because Israel is inseparable from the identity of American Jews, Israel is inseparable from the American experience.” (p. 194).

HOLOCAUSTIANITY SQUARELY CONFRONTED

Referring to the situation in his native Israel, Avraham Burg comments, “The Shoah pervades the media and public life, literature, music, art, education.” (p. 23).

He complains that, “The Shoah has become our exclusive property. We also expend enormous amounts of energy to make sure that no one else enters ‘our’ holiest sites…The Holocaust is ours, and all other killings in the world are common evils, not holocausts. Well, if it is not a holocaust, it’s none of my business. Therefore I am not responsible…WE have never sought to view our Shoah as an event in the historical continuum of others.” (p. 153).

With reference to the German colonial genocide of the Hottentot peoples of SW Africa around 1900, Burg comments, “The history of the Herero is not a part of the mandatory curricula of Israeli high schools. The Herero are not a subject for discussion in the Shoah trips to Poland, and not mentioned at the fast-growing Shoah museums.” (p. 163).

The author briefly mentions the Nazi German genocidal actions against Poles, done for the purposes of LEBENSRAUM. (p. 72). However, he offers no complaints about the neglecting of this genocide among Jews.

GERMAN JEWISH PREJUDICES AGAINST POLISH JEWS

The author was born in 1955 in Germany, the son of Jews from Poland. He comments, “We are OSTJUDEN, Eastern Jews, I admit meekly. We came to Germany from a town in East Galicia that was once part of Austria, then of Poland, then of Ukraine. When I was a child, I was sure that OSTJUDE meant leper, an inferior creature that lived in the sewer. Adults pronounced the word “OSTJUDE” with contempt; it means the person is a cunning, primitive exploiter, an untrustworthy boor.” (p. 29).

HOW PERVASIVE IS JEWISH RACISM AMONG ISRAELI JEWS? EVIDENTLY QUITE A BIT

Author Avraham Burg condemns the teachings of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg and Rabbi Ovadia Yousef (pp. 181-183), but parts ways with those who would have us believe that their opinions are marginal, or only those of extremists. He quips, “Deep inside, many thousands of our fellow Jews believe in Jewish supremacy, in the ‘Jewish Genius,’ over the rest of humanity.” (p. 182).

THE BIG HULLABALOO ABOUT ANTI-SEMITIC GRAFFITI IN POLAND: SELECTIVE INDIGNATION

Ironic to the frequent complaints about anti-Jewish graffiti in Poland, Avraham Burg fingers a comparable situation in Israel. He remarks, “Walls are covered with racist graffiti calling for ‘Death to the Arabs’ and saying ‘No Arabs, no terror,’ and the police and other authorities do not even bother to erase the shameful slurs. In the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem, one can see more swastikas than on all the desecrated Jewish graves in the world.” (p. 50). I have yet to see the media get all excited about that.