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June 17, 2013

Rabbi Simcha Weinstein: Black to the Future: American Apparel Gets Biblical

Patrik Jonsson: Minnesota Nazi: How did Nazi hunters miss Michael Karkoc?

Kate Irby, Ali Watkins, Trevor Graff and Kevin Thibodeaux: All the ways you're being watched
Don Lee: G-8 meeting will test NSA leaks' effect on U.S. influence

Patrik Jonsson: Fort Hood shooting: Judge nixes Nidal Hasan defense strategy. What now?

Stacey Burling: Why the stigma for migraine sufferers?

The Kosher Gourmet by Lisa Abraham: Does it work? 5 new kitchen gadgets put to the test

June 14, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget: Religious economics and being a ruler

John P. Martin: Hitler insider's missing diary found

Matt Pearce: NSA surveillance disclosure could affect court cases
Peter Tinti: US bounties changes strategy on (Wild, Wild) West African jihadis

Daniel Pendrick, M.D.: Memory loss? Old age may be the least of it

Lauren F. Friedman: But it's all natural! Should we have an instinctive preference for herbal remedies?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Streisand and Alicia Keys in Israel; "Girls" Stuff; Mel Brooks, Another TV special; Superman (who is Jewish) returns --- Israeli plays his mom

The Kosher Gourmet by Sharon K. Ghag : Bored with salad? Bling it up a bit (4 effortless recipes that will result in a 'WOW!')

June 12, 2013

Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect

Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: What's so special about Omega-3 supplements?
Morgan Housel: What newspapers were saying when you should have been buying

Pete Spotts: How cockroaches evolved so as to bypass 'roach motels'

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: Deep-dish cookie: Warm, gooey and a little over the top

June 10, 2013

Joseph A. Slobodzian: Faith healing and third degree murder: Thorny legal case
Lindsay Wise: Few options for online users to avoid spying, experts say

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: There are plenty of nutritional food bargains out there
Harvard Health Letters: Can bariatric surgery control diabetes?

Zach Murdock: Superglue helps doctors save infant's life

The Kosher Gourmet by Celebrated chef Mario Batali : As good as grilling gets: Rib eye with dry mushroom spice rub

June 7, 2013

Rabbi David Aaron: Beating jealousy

Caroline B. Glick: Wounded . . . and dangerous

Clifford D. May: Al Qaeda vs. Hezbollah
Harvard Health Letters: Fighting back against allergy season

Kimberly Lankford: Grandparents who use FSA to cover grandkid's braces and other must-know info

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom:J ewish Tony Nominees/Tony Awards; Jewish Teen Actor In Sci-Fi Flick; Jewish singer in "Voice" finals

The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust

June 5, 2013

John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less

Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Mushrooms Have Medicinal As Well As Culinary Value
Morgan Housel: Why you never learn from your investment mistakes

Don Lee: In China, kindergarten rivalry takes deadly turn

The Kosher Gourmet by Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan: 30-Minute Coq au Vin isn't a dream

June 3, 2013

Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself

Richard A. Serrano: Pvt. Bradley Manning's WikiLeaks trial also a test for government

Mark Trumbull: Have degree, driving cab: Nearly half of college grads are overqualified
Kim Lankford: What to do when long-term care insurance premiums rise

Deborah Netburn: Study: Adults' mouth bacteria may help babies

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Contestant on 'The Voice'; Will Smith's 'Jewish movie family'; Bravo Gives Long Island Jews the Jersey Shore Treatment; Magicians and More

The Kosher Gourmet by Bill Ward: How to be as refined as the wines at a wine tasting

May 29, 2013

Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die

Dennis Prager: The 'Muslims-Killed-by-the-West' Lie

David Clark Scott: Open war on teachers?
Morgan Housel: If you know only five things about investing, make it these

Sara Reardon: AGenome detectives change the donation game

Deborah Netburn: A one-way ticket to Mars? 78,000-plus and counting apply by video

The Kosher Gourmet by Bev Bennett: CHEDDAR AND CHERRY MUFFINS --- your mouth is already watering

May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting


Jewish World Review Sept. 26, 2007 / 14 Tishrei 5768

The Frivolity of Evil

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got one thing right in his rant at Columbia University. History, he said, can't close the books on the Holocaust because the subject must be approached from different perspectives. That also got him to concede, sort of, what everybody else knows — that the Holocaust actually happened.


Ahmadinejad in America coincides with the opening of a remarkable new online exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (ushmm.org), which features photographs of Nazi SS officers laughing, flirting and reclining at Auschwitz. These photographs offer a different perspective, true enough, because there aren't many photographs of SS officers at play. Here we see Camp Commandant Hans Hocker, who created the album, smile handsomely into the camera. We see pretty Eva, Angela and Irmgard, "communications specialists" at the camps, enjoying bowls of fresh blueberries. We watch an officer serenading them with an accordion solo.


These photographs document not the banality of evil, but the frivolity of evil. The photographs challenge anew our understanding about how such things can happen among so-called civilized men and women. The devil wears many disguises, and one of them is the appearance of normality, perhaps the most dangerous phenomenon of all, because it's a disguise unto itself.


Museum historian Judith Cohen notes that the photograph of the blueberry feast occurred on a day that 150 new prisoners arrived at the camp, and 33 were selected for work. The rest were sent to gas chambers. The vile odor of burning flesh seems not to have affected the appetites of Eva, Angela and Irmgard. The photographs were chosen because they reveal evil in its deceptive ordinariness: "In their self-image, they were good men, good comrades, even civilized."


That can be said as well of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His clowning, his weaving, his bobbing, his smiling on the podium at Columbia University lent an air of normality to his lies and deceitfulness. He looked silly at times, but he didn't frighten anyone with his stage presence. Imagine how the footage with his applause lines will play in the Middle East where they will, no doubt, censor Lee Bollinger's introduction of criticism. The Iranian media reported none of the questions, only that the students gave him a prolonged standing ovation. (An ovation nobody else there saw.)


He had a lot of the Hitler rant in him. For a long time we didn't take Hitler seriously here. He was easily satirized as the "little dictator." In the whole Ahmadinejad controversy over his invitation to Columbia, no remark was more fatuous than Dean John Coatsworth's observation that in defense of free speech, he would have invited Hitler to speak if he were here. His clarification wasn't much better. "[H]ad he come to the United States in 1939, he would have found a country with lots of admirers of his regime. An appearance by Hitler at Columbia," the dean said, "could have led him to appreciate what a great power the U.S. had already become." Some dean's list.


This dean should, in fact, go back to the history classroom. Hitler was anything but a quick learner. He could never see beyond his own prejudices. He thought Britain would capitulate quickly, that the Americans wouldn't fight and that he could defeat the Russians easily.


When William Randolph Hearst interviewed Hitler in Germany in 1934, he went with the hunch that he might do "some good" by meeting him. When the powerful newspaper publisher asked Hitler about the persecution of the Jews, der Fuehrer replied, "There is no persecution of any sort." Hearst was convinced. When someone later asked him about Hitler's anti-Semitism, he replied: "The whole policy . . . of anti-Semitism is such an obvious mistake I am sure that it must soon be abandoned. In fact I think it is already well on the way to abandonment."


When I hear Hitler evoked in contemporary arguments, I return to my dog-eared copy of "Mein Kampf" to reacquaint myself with what that "petty and cruel dictator" had to say in the years before he assumed the power to wreak ruin on so much of the world. He, like Ahmadinejad, was pleased to be vilified. "Any man who is not attacked in the Jewish newspapers, not slandered and vilified, is no decent German and no true National Socialist," he wrote. "The best yardstick for the value of his attitude, for the sincerity of his conviction, and the force of his will is the hostility he receives from the moral enemy of our people."


Ahmadinejad understands how to update such an attitude for the 21st century. We may think he was humiliated by the hostility he confronted at Columbia, but maybe he, like Hitler, understands how to play it out to his advantage against the gullible, the feckless and the frightened.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


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