Minorities Can Be Wrong Flanzbaum

The Americanization of the Holocaust, by Hilene Flanzbaum (Editor). 1999

Should Minority Groups Be Exempt From Criticism? Jews, Holocaust Preeminence, and The Politics Behind the Construction of the USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

This anthology of articles emphasizes the Holocaust in literature and the arts. I focus on a few items of broad-based relevance.

CAN MINORITY GROUPS EVER DO WRONG? INADVERTENT IMPLICATIONS FOR POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS

One overarching left-wing construct, an essential part of identity politics and grievance politics, is that of the powerless minority group. According to this narrative, there is no such thing as African-American racism, because African-Americans have no power. Only those with power and privilege (read: whites) can be racist. An analogous construct is made for Jews [as, for example, in the context of Polish-Jewish relations. Jews heap all manner of accusations against Poles, and when Poles answer back, they are (what else?) anti-Semites. Moreover, Poles are “good” or “progressive” insofar as they agree with Jewish views on Poland, and “nationalist” or even “fascist” when they do not.]

Author Laurence Mordechai Thomas deconstructs the foregoing leftist construct. He comments, “But now I come to the part that blacks and Jews do not want to hear. To hear either blacks or Jews tell it, their own group has an immunity to X-ism (any form of prejudice) when it comes to others. In fact, in some circles it is fashionable to hold that X-ist attitudes can only flow from those who are socially privileged. This view is so absurd that I find it mind-boggling that it has been embraced by otherwise intelligent people. Astonishingly, this view overlooks the social reality that the constituency of the Ku Klux Klan has often been poor whites who could not in any serious way be viewed as socially privileged. Indeed, even in the hallowed halls of political correctness, poor white folk—‘rednecks’, to use the common vernacular—are still fair game for jokes. Neither being destitute nor having suffered profoundly is any barrier to being deeply prejudiced. Neither blacks nor Jews are the exception here.” (pp. 205-206).
Thomas does not go far enough. “Minority” itself is an arbitrary term. Next to the vastly more populous and powerful Germans and Russians, Poles are very much a minority. But nobody considers that.
JEWS ARE NOT VICTIMS—NOT ANYMORE ANYWAY
One must begin with Jewish successes in American society. For example, the editor points out that, whereas Jews are less than 3% of the population of the USA, they account for over 25% of the four hundred richest Americans, according to FORBES magazine. (p. 13).

HOLOCAUST PREEMINENCE INCREASES IN THE USA

Hilene Flanzbaum traces the history of Holocaust interest in the USA. The Holocaust barely registered with most Americans in the first few decades after WWII. It showed peaks in interest in 1961 (Eichmann trial) and 1978 (television miniseries HOLOCAUST), but not nearly as much as today. (p. 9). She shows how the promulgation of the Holocaust has only grown in recent decades. For instance, in 1990, some eighty books were published about the Holocaust, and, in 1995, the number was over one hundred. (p. 6). The WASHINGTON POST alone published over three hundred Holocaust-related articles–just in 1996. (p. 9).
THE USHMM WAS BORN OF POLITICS

Politics plays a role in the growing dominance of the Holocaust over the remembrance of all other peoples’ genocides. For instance, author James. E. Young suggests (p. 72) that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington was proposed by then-President Jimmy Carter in order to placate Jewish supporters angered by his sale of F-15 fighters to Saudi Arabia. (p. 72). Harvey M. Meyerhoff, the first chairpairson of the Holocaust museum’s committee, was fired for attempting to “universalize” the museum too much. (Hilene Flanzbaum, p. 13).