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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

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Dec. 18, 2006 / 27 Kislev, 5767

Iran and the big lie

By Suzanne Fields


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JewishWorldReview.com |

BERLIN — Watching the coverage of the Holocaust-denial convention of big liars in Tehran was an immersion in the theater of the surreal. All it lacked was Borat. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the bizarro president of Iran, had to be satisfied with David Duke.


On a short walk through Mitte, the neighborhood where I have been staying, I had to step over shiny bronze street plaques imbedded in the sidewalks of Rosenthaler Strasse to document the lives of Jewish men, women and children who lived there before the Nazis ripped them from their homes. These tiny plaques, placed throughout Berlin, mark the starting places for journeys that led to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau. The very sound of the names of the death chambers echo a grisly cacophony of evil.


Few Berliners, or any other Germans, are at risk of believing the grotesque lies that emanated from the conference in Iran. Most of the world is grimly aware of what happened to 6 million Jews and 5 million others — political prisoners, prisoners of war, homosexuals, gypsies and the halt and the lame whose blood couldn't conform to the standards of mental and physical purity demanded by the Nazis. Leaders of Western countries expressed the expected outrage at what went on in Tehran.


But it's not the West and the people of the 21st century that the conference was meant to persuade. The target audience, of course, was those who insist on living in the 12th century, whose bigotries need the sustenance of fresh lies about Israel and the Jews.


Hatred of Israel and the Jews is one of the most powerful tools the unreconstructed Arab and Muslim radicals use to maintain a unity of evil. Without Israel they would be forced to confront the splintering conflicts of clashing sects, external jealousies and economic competitiveness, and their leaders would be more vulnerable to opposition forces waiting to be unleashed against tyrannical governments. We got a glimpse of the shouted outrage of Iranian students on the day the conference opened: "Death to the dictator!" Only the word "chutzpah" captures the flavor of President Ahmadinejad's answer to the students: "Everyone should know that Ahmadinejad is prepared to be burned in the path of defending freedom and truth."


Jews are occasionally chided for perpetuating a "Holocaust industry" with their many books, movies, museums and memorials about the genocide, but conferences like the one in Tehran are a reminder of how easy it might be to rewrite history for nefarious purposes. Eli Weisel warns that with the death of the remaining survivors, those who actually were eyewitnesses to the Holocaust, the anti-Semites always with us could more easily succeed in rewriting that history. It wouldn't be the first time.

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Dan Diner, director of the Simon Dubnow Institute for Jewish History and Culture at the University of Leipzig, observes that different interpretations have already changed the collective Holocaust memory. "In years past," he writes in the Berlin daily Die Welt, "those Holocaust books which have achieved greatest popularity — and which have chalked up almost sensational sales figures by the standards of historical works — have tended to disregard hostility to Jews as the central ground for the destruction of European Jewry," These contemporary works, in their exploration of human motivation for perpetuating such evil, focus more on the issues of robbery and plunder, greed and economic calculation, and not anti-Semitism. It's easier to understand base emotions with a utilitarian purpose than to fathom the murder of people simply because of who they are.


Throughout history anti-Semitism has thrived from many perspectives, calculated to take advantage of political problems, but the bottom line reasoning always starts with Jew-hatred. Before the Third Reich the Jews who converted to other religions could sometimes escape prejudice, but Hitler ordered the deaths of second- and even third- generation converts because their "blood" was contaminated.


Holocaust denial in the Middle East has other roots. The contemporary version goes back to the 1950s, just after the state of Israel was born. Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president who celebrated pan-Arab nationalism in the 1960s, said "no person, not even the most simple one, takes seriously the lie of the 6 million Jews who were killed." This big lie has been adopted by the Islamists who, in reality and not just in rhetoric, make no distinctions between Zionists and Jews. Their ultimate purpose is to act on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's exhortation "to wipe Israel off the map."


In 1943 Heinrich Himmler warned that it was dangerous to speak publicly of the Nazi determination to exterminate the Jews. In 2001 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not so squeamish. Attention must be paid.

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