Archive | 2024/11/14

Ponowny atak dżumy

Bojownicy Hezbollahu prezentują z dumą swoją genealolgię.


Ponowny atak dżumy

Andrzej Koraszewski


Albert Camus nie wierzył w „nigdy więcej”, dobrze wiedział, że zarazki dżumy po wygaśnięciu epidemii nadal są obecne, drzemią czekając na kolejną okazję, która prędzej czy później objawi się najpierw w postaci wyłażących z wszystkich stron stad zakażonych dżumą szczurów. Przejęty swoją wiedzą czytelnik pisze, że Izrael jest nazistowskim państwem, dążącym do etnicznej czystości, stosującym apartheid wobec Arabów, prześladujący etiopskich Żydów i mordujący palestyńskie dzieci. Ten jednolity zestaw wierzeń uzupełnia zapewnienie, że to tylko krytyka, która oczywiście nie ma nic wspólnego z żadnym antysemityzmem.

Sześćdziesiąt cztery lata temu ówczesny redaktor naczelny „Więzi”, Tadeusz Mazowiecki w wykładzie pod tytułem „Antysemityzm ludzi łagodnych i dobrych mówił:

„Można postawić pytanie, jak to się dzieje, że społeczne uzasadnienia antysemityzmu pojawiają się w różnych warunkach historycznych i mimo ich ubogiej treści intelektualnej natrafiają na klimat psychologiczny, sprzyjający ich przyjmowaniu i utrzymywaniu się.

Posłużę się tu tezą Leszka Kołakowskiego, który mówi, że ‘antysemityzm jest środkiem wytwarzania symbolu społecznego. Walka z Żydami – pisze Kołakowski – rzadko bywa celem dla siebie. …Najczęściej hasła walki z Żydami łączone są też z innymi, stanowiącymi właściwą, polityczną treść walki. (…) W naczelnej misji społecznego oddziaływania antysemityzm ma stworzyć uniwersalny symbol zła, który następnie chce się związać w umysłach z tymi zjawiskami w polityce, kulturze, nauce – które trzeba zwalczać. Trzeba z żydostwa uczynić obelgę, którą będzie się piętnować wszystko, co ma być unicestwione, nosiciela nie określonego zła, ale zła w ogóle, abstrakcyjny symbol ujemny, dający się dołączyć do dowolnej sytuacji, jeśli pragnie się ją jako ujemną przedstawić przed światem’. (…) Antysemityzm stanowił zawsze osłonę rzeczywistych konfliktów społecznych.”

Wielu autorów przywołuje powiedzenie, że antysemityzm nigdy nie mówi niczego o Żydach, ale bardzo wiele o antysemitach, że jest inwersją moralną, przerzucaniem na Żydów własnych grzechów. Po napaści terrorystów Hamasu na izraelskie przygraniczne osiedla w październiku 2023 roku natychmiast pojawiły się oskarżenia Izraelczyków o  ludobójstwo, zabijanie dzieci i kobiet, o celowe zabijanie cywilów. Popełnione wobec Żydów zło miało wrócić do Żydów. Równocześnie trudno było oprzeć się wrażeniu, że popełnione wobec Żydów zło, sadystyczne bestialstwo, fascynuje, zachwyca, porywa i zmusza do zaledwie dyskretnego ukrywania tego zachwytu. Nagła moda na kefije, okrzyki „od rzeki do morza”, flagi Hamasu i Hezbollahu przy równoczesnym pełnym przekonaniu o walce ze złem. Zrywanie plakatów ze zdjęciami porwanych dzieci było koronnym dowodem, że zarazki dżumy wróciły z całą mocą.    

Jaka jest odległość między antysemityzmem ludzi łagodnych i dobrych, a sadystyczną orgią mordowania dzieci, kobiet i starców? Prawdopodobnie ogranicza się do przyzwolenia, jeśli powiązanie Żydów ze złem jest ugruntowane, wystarczy dać do zrozumienia, że bestialstwo będzie bezkarne. Jesteśmy trzecim szympansem, tęsknota do okrucieństwa wydaje się drzemać w społeczeństwach będących na wszystkich poziomach cywilizacyjnych.

Pierwszy odnotowany przez historyków pogrom Żydów miał miejsce w Aleksandrii w 38 roku naszej ery. Flaccus, ówczesny prefekt rządzonego przez Rzym Egiptu, wydał zarządzenie pozwalające każdemu, kto miał na to ochotę, mordować Żydów. Jak pisał ówczesny filozof Filon z Aleksandrii tłumy „wypędziły Żydów całkowicie z czterech dzielnic miasta i stłoczyły ich wszystkich w bardzo małej części… podczas gdy ludność, zajmując ich opuszczone domy, zwróciła się ku grabieży i podzieliła łupy między siebie, jakby zdobyła je na wojnie”. Według jego opisu, zabijano Żydów tysiącami z sadystyczną radością mordując i paląc całe rodziny, nie oszczędzając niemowląt, torturując i znęcając się nad bezbronnymi.    

Na przestrzeni minionych dwóch tysięcy lat podobne sceny miały miejsce setki razy, zaś zawsze obecny antysemityzm ludzi łagodnych i dobrych pozwalał na błyskawiczne rozpętanie piekła przez ludzi, o których dzień wcześniej mówiono, że nie skrzywdziliby nawet muchy.      

Po pogromie w Aleksandrii do Rzymu wybrali się przedstawiciele mordowanych i tych, którzy mordowali. Zaangażowani w mordy aleksandryjscy Grecy powiedzieli, że Żydzi odmówili uznania boskości rzymskiego cesarza. Wysłuchanie argumentów strony żydowskiej uznano za zbędne. (Nawiasem mówiąc, mordercy powiedzieli prawdę, chociaż nie całą prawdę.)

Nie cichną echa najnowszego pogromu Żydów w Amsterdamie.

„To, co wydarzyło się w Holandii dwa dni temu, jest najlepszym dowodem na to, że świat ma dość Żydów, ma dość izraelskiej arogancji i nie może znieść tej ogromnej nienawiści wobec ludzi” – powiedział polityk Autonomii Palestyńskiej Tayseer Nasrallah w państwowej telewizji.

Autonomia Palestyńska w piątek 8 listopada wezwała rząd Holandii do „zbadania [izraelskich] chuliganów i obrony Palestyńczyków i Arabów w Holandii przed izraelskimi osadnikami i żołnierzami, którzy przybyli do Holandii, aby przenieść swoje rasistowskie idee i zbrodnie do stolic europejskich”.

W rzeczywistości na kilka dni przed tym meczem pomiędzy izraelskim klubem Maccabi Tel Awiw a Ajaxem, w całym mieście rozwieszono plakaty domagające się odwołania meczu i wykluczenia Izraela z UEFA, europejskiej organizacji zarządzającej piłką nożną.

Jak pisze „Times of Israel”, Sheher Khan, członek rady stolicy Holandii, zwrócił się do burmistrzyni miasta, Femke Halsemy, z prośbą o zakaz przyjazdu izraelskiej drużyny. „Jeśli zaprosisz klub z Izraela, nieuchronnie doprowadzi to do demonstracji i konfrontacji” – powiedział później w wywiadzie dla gazety „New York Times”.

Dzień przed meczem władze Amsterdamu podjęły środki prewencyjne, które okazały się nieskuteczne. Kilka obszarów Amsterdamu, w tym dworzec centralny, Johan Cruijff Arena, na której miał się odbyć mecz, a także metro między nimi, zostały wyznaczone jako „strefy zagrożenia bezpieczeństwa”, aby policja mogła zatrzymywać i przeszukiwać osoby, które się tam znajdują, między godziną 13:00 a północą.

Propalestyński protest planowany przed stadionem miał zostać przeniesiony na ulicę oddaloną o około 15 minut marszu.

Do Amsterdamu przyjechało około trzy  tysiące izraelskich kibiców. Nie, nie wszyscy zachowywali się idealnie. Niektórzy zrywali palestyńskie flagi (jest dokumentacja filmowa), niektórzy zachowywali się buńczucznie i wyzywająco. Amsterdamska policja informuje, że pogrom był zorganizowany i sterowany. W nocy poprzedzającej mecz muzułmańscy taksówkarze otrzymali według policji apel do pojawienia się przed kasynem, gdzie było około 400 kibiców izraelskiego klubu. Policja odmówiła ochrony Izraelczyków. Ten incydent skończył się na agresywnych prowokacjach.      

Przed meczem w Internecie były liczne apele po holendersku i po arabsku wzywające do pogromu. „JUTRO PO MECZU NOCĄ CZĘŚĆ 2 POLOWANIA NA ŻYDÓW” – napisał jeden z członków. „Jutro nie pójdą do kasyna”.

Pogrom zaczął się po meczu i trudno o wątpliwości, że był doskonale zorganizowany. Bicie, najeżdżanie samochodami, wrzucanie do wody w kanałach.    

Zachodnie media z BBC na czele przedstawiały to jako „futbolowe zamieszki”, holenderski król mówi, że Holandia po raz drugi zdradziła Żydów, w dzień po pogromie rdzenni Holendrzy urządzili propalestyński wiec, holenderska dziennikarka, która w swoim mieszkaniu leżącym w odległości kilkuset metrów od muzeum Anny Frank ukryła kilku Żydów, powiedziała, że Amsterdam stał się miejscem, z którego Żydzi muszą znowu uciekać; patrzący z daleka ludzie łagodni i dobrzy pisali swoje komentarze w Internecie, preferując wersję wydarzeń prezentowaną przez Autonomię Palestyńską.

Czy powinniśmy się dziwić? Zarazki dżumy znalazły pożywkę nie tylko w barbarzyństwie hamasowskich terrorystów, nie tylko w wystąpieniach Guterresa, Borrela i innych, nie tylko w mediach łapczywie połykających i nagłaśniających każde kłamstwo o Izraelu, ale w odświeżonej pamięci o radościach przodków. Tych, którzy ponad sto lat temu zareagowali na wiadomość o nieodległości pogromami, tych, których ucieszyło zabójstwo prezydenta Narutowicza, i którzy krzyczeli „Żydzi do Palestyny”, tych którzy z radością przyjęli informację, że niemiecki okupant nie uważa mordowania, gwałtów i rabowania żydowskiej własności za przestępstwo, tych, którzy uznali za prawdę sowieckie hasło antysyjonizm to nie antysemityzm, mając nadzieję, że za to poparcie dostaną przy okazji awans, i ci najmłodsi, którzy nigdy nie zauważają, że ci, z którymi się tak bardzo solidaryzują, lubią pozdrawiać się nazistowskim salutem.

Czy ojcem zadżumionych jest Mahmud Abbas, Jaser Arafat? W przeszłości zarazę roznosiły chrześcijańskie kościoły, carska Ochrana, potem niemieccy naziści, potem KGB, przez cały czas zaraza była obecna w świecie islamu i zawsze chodziło wyłącznie o walkę ze złem, które tak miło jest mordować.

Młode, pozbawione wszelkiej odporności organizmy padają ofiarą zazwyczaj zarażając się od ludzi, do których mają pełne zaufanie i którzy przecież namawiają ich wyłącznie do poparcia szlachetnej sprawy. Ludzi łagodnych i dobrych nikt na ponowne przyjście dżumy nie przygotował, powtarzaliśmy zaklęcie nigdy więcej mając nadzieję, że to wystarczy.


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The IDF’s New Recruits

The IDF’s New Recruits


Hillel Kuttler


As small but growing numbers of Haredi men enlist in the Israeli military, attitudes in their strictly observant communities start to shift

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Former Defense Minister Yoav Galant visits Haim Traitel at Soroka Medical Center / Courtesy Office of the Defense Minister

Haim Traitel reclined in bed in a third-floor room at Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba on a late-October afternoon. During a two-hour interview, he discussed the battle injury he suffered the previous week in the Gaza Strip, his service in the Israel Defense Forces, and his motivation for enlisting.

Traitel spoke on the record and OK’d his photo appearing with this story. But he declined to name the specific Hasidic sect to which he and his family belong, beyond saying that it’s an “important” group in the Haredi-majority town of Bnai Brak, where he lives with his parents, brother, and sisters.

The 19-year-old sergeant plans to return to his unit after recuperating. Haim’s father, Moshe, plans to host a seudat hodaya, a thanksgiving feast—a traditional celebration after someone survives a life-threatening circumstance—and expects no problem in renting a hall for the occasion, but he’s sure the community’s leadership won’t attend.

That’s because military service is not encouraged where they live, Moshe told me while visiting his son the same day. For that reason, Haim added, he’s sure he won’t be asked to speak about his Gaza experiences at the family’s synagogue or the schools he attended.

Haim grew up knowing little about life beyond Bnai Brak, a city of more than 200,000 bordering Tel Aviv. He attended yeshiva, but wasn’t studious. He secretly bought a smartphone—Moshe, himself holding a smartphone during our interview, smiled at his son’s daring—and went online to learn about politics and national affairs. He read about the IDF and watched videos of soldiers’ exploits.

“I saw heroes with weapons,” said Haim. “It fires you up. When there was a terrorist attack, I’d say, ‘I’m enlisting.’ When there wasn’t, I didn’t. It hurt me that I wasn’t taking part in the [country’s] defense.”

Haim was fortunate to receive his parents’ support, and their hugs, when he announced at age 17 his intention to join the IDF. They attended the ceremonies when he was sworn in and completed basic training.

The reality of life for an IDF soldier from Bnai Brak, as in many Haredi (strictly observant) communities, is complex, even after Haim nearly was killed in Jabalia by a Hamas sniper’s bullet from behind that tore a muscle, exited his left shin, required seven stitches, and necessitated a monthslong rehabilitation.

And their community, Moshe and Haim explained, is—on the Haredi spectrum—relatively liberal.

“Is the blood of Haredim worth more?” reads a sign hanging from an overpass on Highway 7, east of Ashdod.

The question was jarring and ironic, given that I passed it while driving to meet this Haredi teenager who nearly was killed defending Israel.

The message apparently was painted by a secular Jewish Israeli upset by Haredim not sharing the burden of military service—specifically, fighting in the ongoing wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon that, as of Nov. 5, have taken the lives of 780 Israeli soldiers and other security personnel. Israeli governments since 1948 have allowed Haredim to study full time in yeshivot and skip IDF service that’s otherwise mandatory for Jews and Druze. But many Israelis have long resented what they see as Haredi abuse of the system to also exempt those not studying Torah full time.

“The sign is very, very painful,” Traitel said when I told him of it. “I understand the pain. There are not many like me.”

An IDF spokeswoman said figures aren’t available on how many Haredim are serving in the military. Experts estimate the number in the low thousands, minuscule in a population of 1.3 million Haredim.

The simmering social pot has been boiling over the past six months due to the long stretches, some more than a year, served by IDF reservists in the ongoing wars against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The renewed friction led the Supreme Court to rule in July that authority for the exemptions had lapsed and that draft notices must be sent to approximately 60,000 Haredi men. Three thousand notices went out—Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced last week, before he was fired from his post, that 7,000 more would be sent—but only a fraction of those summoned showed up at induction centers.

Anti-draft demonstrations continue to be held in Haredi areas. And last week, Haredi members of Knesset were threatening to withhold their votes for a national budget if a draft-exemption bill isn’t passed.

The issue continues to anger—and not only secular Jewish Israelis are venting. Resentment has come recently from the religious-Zionist (akin to modern Orthodox in the United States) camp, usually among Israel’s most unity-preaching sectors.

One such member, Rachel Goldberg, spoke emotionally during the shiva for her husband and the father of the couple’s eight children, Avi, killed in battle in Lebanon on Oct. 26.

Israel is at war “against accursed enemies, and many people wear green uniforms and join to fight in God’s army, the IDF, but we don’t have enough people,” Goldberg said in a video clip posted on Facebook. “I want to call on people learning Torah and not serving in the military to enlist in the Jewish people’s military.” She drew a parallel with pre-Shabbat preparations: “It’s not that one person sits at the table, praying that the house will be clean. Everyone must clean. Everyone must stand and act and exert one’s body. And whoever doesn’t—it’s not educational, not Jewish, not moral to give him something,” Goldberg said, referring to governmental subsidies for yeshiva students.

Rabbi Menachem Bombach, whose organization, Netzach, runs Haredi schools teaching secular subjects alongside Judaic studies, said in a phone interview: “There is an ethical and moral price for not participating in defending the Jewish state. … If this is your way, it is very selfish.”

Bombach served in the IDF, as did his son. “There’s now an awakening,” Bombach said of Haredim, of which he is one. “It’s not enough, but it’s a change.”

The social tension comes as Haredi opposition to IDF service appears to be softening, at least in the short term, due in part to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, murderous rampage across the western Negev that stirred Haredim emotionally. That’s the view of several community members interviewed for this article, including one who mentioned Haredim murdered that day. Haredim have visited those recovering from the attacks and soldiers wounded in battle, cooked for deployed soldiers, and donated needed products. Some interviewees reported Psalms and other prayers now being recited in their synagogues for the IDF’s success and for wounded soldiers’ recovery.

From there, they said, it’s less of a leap to Haredi men enlisting and to community members accepting their decisions to do so. But anything approaching broad Haredi enlistment “will take two or three generations,” said Dov Lipman, a U.S.-raised former Knesset member who is Haredi and whose son served in the IDF.

Tel Aviv University professor Nechumi Yaffe said she detects Haredi attitudes toward military service changing.

Yaffe and colleague Yael Itzhaki-Braun polled approximately 1,000 Haredim throughout Israel after Russia launched its war against Ukraine in February 2022, then following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, and then at points throughout the ensuing wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

The researchers asked whether the Haredi public must find a way to contribute to Israel’s defense, and found that affirmative answers jumped from 42% to 63% following the massacre. On whether the respondent personally should contribute to Israel’s military effort, the increase was higher over the same period: from 35% to 58%.

“The stigma [against] people who have served has significantly lowered,” said Yaffe, who is Haredi.

Still, negotiations and court rulings on compulsory military service have not considered any roles for Haredi women. (Druze and non-Haredi Jewish women, particularly in their observant communities, can perform national service, such as in schools or hospitals, in lieu of the military. Otherwise, Jewish women, like Jewish and Druze men, are subject to the draft.)

Anecdotal evidence of change, at least for Haredi men, abounds.

Haredi soldiers were known to change into civvies before returning on weekend leave, lest they face scorn or worse in their neighborhoods. That seems to be changing.

“They’re much less concerned about that post-Oct. 7,” said Karmi Gross, a Miami-raised rabbi in Ramat Beit Shemesh, who founded a program for Haredim that combines military service with both Torah learning and an academic program leading to a professional degree. The program is modeled after the hesder track for religious-Zionist youth, which entails Torah study and military training.

During the recent holiday period, one of Gross’ students told him of entering his synagogue for Mincha prayers in uniform.

“Half of the men started yelling at him to leave the shul. It’s very normal,” said Gross. “For the first time, another group—at least half—started yelling back to say, ‘Leave him alone.’ It’s very significant. Army service does not make you a leper anymore. A lot of that, I think, is the Oct. 7 effect. Once that wall falls, time will have its [further] effect. Are you going to see massive numbers [of recruits] coming? No. That will take time.”

Several interviewees remarked that the IDF now faces a golden opportunity to foster greater Haredi enlistment by enticing, not compelling; by reaching out to teenagers less drawn to yeshiva study; and by meeting the religious-observance needs of Haredim, such as their preferred kashrut for food, dedicated times for Torah study and prayers, and not having males serve with females—needs the IDF has made great efforts to meet since the 1990s in its all-Haredi units, including the three now operating within the paratrooper, Kfir, and Givati brigades. A full-fledged Haredi brigade, Hasmoneans, is due to launch in December.

But the military environment makes it “inevitable” that religious observance will be compromised, said Yitzchok Horowitz, 26, who served in the Haredi paratrooper unit.

Horowitz, raised in the Haredi neighborhood of Har Nof in Jerusalem, said he sees the sense in not forcing the issue: “The Haredi community, me included, believes that, yes, [Haredim] should sit and learn [Torah] because these people are protecting the Holy Land in a different way.”

A promising conduit to normalizing IDF service for the Haredi sector might be the track known as Phase 2. Revived by the IDF during this wartime period, it enables Haredi men who passed draft age to enlist, undergo two or four weeks of basic training, and serve in combat or noncombat roles. It requires the person to make a five-year commitment of annual reserve duty.

Phase 2 is “an opportunity we must take advantage of, to bring about a breakthrough, to show that Haredim are entering the military—and then youth will enlist,” said Eliezer Safrin, a 44-year-old real estate developer in Beit Shemesh who entered the program in August after six months of pressing the IDF to accept him. “It definitely gives a big sense of satisfaction and belonging, and a feeling of: ‘Why didn’t I do it earlier when I could’ve contributed more?’ If it weren’t for the war, it may not have crossed my mind.”

The track holds promise because participants are older and life-seasoned, less prone to social pressures against enlistment.

“If you draft at 18, they look at you askance. But if you enlist with a wife and family, it’s more accepted. They judge you less,” said David Klaristenfeld, 35, a married father of two and owner of an air conditioning repair business in Ramat Beit Shemesh.

Klaristenfeld had wanted to serve in the IDF in his youth but said he “couldn’t do it” due to his Haredi surroundings. Then came the Oct. 7 invasion and the gruesome videos he watched of Hamas slaughtering Israelis. “This was the chance,” he said. “I jumped at the opportunity.”

He enlisted, trained for two weeks, served for three months in the military forensics center, then patrolled along Israel’s border with Jordan. When Israeli pilots bombed military sites in Iran in late October, Klaristenfeld didn’t hesitate when his commander summoned him—on Shabbat morning—in preparation for a potential Iranian counterattack. “I have secular clients,” he said. “When I say I’ve just returned from reserve duty, they’re in shock. It’s a form of sanctifying God’s name.”

As for Traitel, he aspires, post-army, to study law or political science. Then, he said, he wants to work in the public sphere. “I can be the connection,” he said, “between the Haredi community and general society, to promote Haredi enlistment.”


Hillel Kuttler, a writer and editor, can be reached at hk@HillelTheScribeCommunications.com.


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Exposed: Anti-Israel Group Under Fire for Using Name of Raphael Lemkin, Zionist Who Coined the Term Genocide

Exposed: Anti-Israel Group Under Fire for Using Name of Raphael Lemkin, Zionist Who Coined the Term Genocide

Ira Stoll


Raphael Lemkin being interviewed on Feb. 13, 1949. Photo: Screenshot

Members of the family of Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” and pushed for the passage of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, say they are outraged that a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit organization is using the Lemkin name to pursue an agenda of extreme anti-Israel activism.

The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention was initially registered as a Pennsylvania nonprofit corporation on Aug. 19, 2021, and won US federal tax-exempt recognition in September 2023. In recent months, it has veered into strident anti-Israel political advocacy, supporting anti-Israel campus protests and reaching millions of viewers with social media posts that falsely accuse Israel of genocide.

Less than one week after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, the institute released a “genocide alert” calling the onslaught an “unprecedented military operation against Israel” while decrying the Jewish state’s actions against Hamas as “genocide.” The Oct. 13 message came before Israeli launched its ground offensive in Gaza.

Then on Oct. 18, 2023, the Lemkin Institute called on the International Criminal Court “to indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the crime of #genocide in light of the siege and bombardment of #Gaza and the many expressions of genocidal intent.” The social media post accumulated 1.3 million views, according to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The institute’s vocal anti-Israel advocacy has continued unabated for the past year. In September, for example, it described Israel’s war against Lebanese Hezbollah as “terrorism” and “the slaughter of Arab peoples” leading to “the wanton slaughter of all mankind.” The post did not mention that Hezbollah is an internationally designated terrorist organization that began firing rockets at Israel the day after the Oct. 7 attacks.

‘Totally Outraged’: Lemkin Family Disavows Institute

Joseph Lemkin, a New Jersey lawyer who is related to Raphael Lemkin, said he was unfamiliar with the institute until being informed of it by The Algemeiner.

Lemkin, who represented the family at a UN event marking the 65th anniversary of the genocide convention, described himself as “totally outraged” to see his late relative’s name used to push an anti-Israel agenda. His father was Raphael Lemkin’s first cousin.

“Members of our family were killed in the Holocaust, and Rafael Lemkin would be outraged by the use of his name and the abuse of the word genocide,” Joseph Lemkin said in a statement to The Algemeiner that was copied to eight of his family members. “Our family fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself and are fully in favor of US policies to support Israel. Indeed, we have many family members in Israel; family members who have served in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and others that have been impacted by the terror of Hamas.”

The family is discussing possible steps ranging from a joint public statement to a cease-and-desist letter aimed at getting the Philadelphia organization to drop the name.

The co-founder and executive director of the institute, Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, was previously an assistant professor and director of the masters program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University in New Jersey.

Joeden-Forgey did not respond to two emails and two cellphone voicemail messages from The Algemeiner left both last and this week seeking comment. Her co-founder, Irene Victoria Massimino, told The Algemeiner that she is no longer with the Lemkin Institute and “cannot speak on its behalf.”

A Pathbreaking International Lawyer Dedicated to Zionism

Lemkin was born in Poland in 1900 and eventually escaped the Nazis to America, where he joined the War Department, documenting Nazi atrocities and preparing for the prosecution of Nazi crimes at the Nuremberg trials. He dedicated much of his life to making the world recognize the horrors of the Holocaust and designating mass murder as a crime which could be prosecuted through international law. Forty-nine members of his family, including his parents, were killed in the Holocaust. He died in 1959 in relative obscurity.

Raphael Lemkin’s grave, Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, Queens, New York. Photo: Oberezny, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A 2017 article by James Loeffler, who now teaches at Johns Hopkins University, described what he called “the forgotten Zionism of Raphael Lemkin.” Loeffler noted that while “dead international lawyers rarely become celebrities,” Lemkin “has emerged as a potent symbol for activists and politicians across the world.”

Scholarly and popular attention to Lemkin has blossomed in recent years, with his story featured everywhere from the alumni magazine at Duke University, where he taught, to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” A search of one database of academic articles, JSTOR, turned up 1,515 references to Lemkin, of which 1,133 were from 2005 or later. Samantha Power, a Harvard professor who served as UN ambassador during the Obama administration and administrator of the US Agency for International Development during the Biden administration, highlighted Lemkin’s story in a 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning book; she is said to have kept a framed portrait of Lemkin on her office wall while serving as a White House staffer.

Loeffler traced Lemkin’s work as an editor and columnist of a Jewish publication, Zionist World. “The task of the Jewish people is … [to become] a permanent national majority in its own national home,” Lemkin wrote in one such column.

“It is not enough to know Zionism,” Lemkin wrote in another column quoted by Loeffler. “One must imbibe its spirit, one must make Zionism a part of one’s very own ‘self,’ and be prepared to make sacrifices on its behalf.”

‘A Genocidal State That Is Completely Out of Control’: The Institute’s Relentless Critique of Israel

The Lemkin Institute’s social media account has been persistent in defending anti-Israel activists that the US government defines as antisemitic. For example, the American ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, posted on Oct. 29, “As UN Special Rapporteur Albanese visits New York, I want to reiterate the US belief she is unfit for her role. The United Nations should not tolerate antisemitism from a UN-affiliated official hired to promote human rights.”

The Algemeiner has reported extensively on how Francesca Albanese has used her position as the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state.

Nonetheless, the Lemkin Institute’s account jumped into the replies of Thomas-Greenfield’s post with a defense of Albanese and an attack on the American diplomat.

“Your attack on UN special Rapporteur Albanese is so clearly intended to hide your criminal complicity in an ongoing genocide that you truly should be embarrassed,” the institute wrote in a post which, according to X, garnered 294,000 impressions. “Is there any trick from the genocidaire’s playbook that you will refuse to carry out?”

The post continued, “Francesca Albanese is an upstander. She will be remembered as a hero. You will be remembered as a perpetrator and an apologist. As experts on the crime of genocide, we can say this with certainty.”

The institute’s 2023 annual report listed only $10,300 in revenue. Yet in addition to the outsized social media footprint, the institute has also generated press mentions, with coverage and placements in media outlets including Newsweek and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Its website lists a seven-person leadership team that includes personnel devoted to outreach, education, research, communications, and operations.

A Facebook post from September by the Lemkin Institute accused Israel of “sexualized violence,” asserting, “This sexualization alone is indicative of genocidal violence, as it indicates a desire to destroy Palestinians as such by desecrating symbols of generation and undermining the ability of Palestinians to reproduce biologically and culturally.”

An August post from the organization criticized the elimination of Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh. “The Lemkin Institute strongly condemns this attack … We condemn Israel’s decision to assassinate Ismail Haniyeh, which sends a clear message that Israel is not interested in any peace, much less the ongoing peace process,” the institute said.

In April, the group issued a statement expressing solidarity with anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University and criticizing the Columbia administration for calling in police to clear a pro-Hamas “encampment.”

“Expressions of opposition to the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s apartheid policies are not the same as expressions of antisemitism or hatred of Jews and the Jewish faith,” the statement said. “What is being labeled as ‘antisemitism’ is, in large measure, the visceral outrage that many young people feel toward the State of Israel and its military for the deadly occupation of Palestinian land and the mass-murder genocide they see every day in the news.”

When Israel in September targeted Hezbollah terrorists by exploding their pagers and other communications devices, the Lemkin Institute issued a post with more than 700,000 views condemning what it called “Israel’s terrorist attacks against Lebanese people.”

“Hezbollah, the ostensible ‘target’’of the attacks, is not a simple ‘terrorist organization’ engaged in criminal activity. It is also a political party and a service provider for southern Lebanon, so it includes civilian doctors, nurses, teachers, and so forth. Are they terrorists?” the post asked. “What we see is a genocidal state that is completely out of control and supported by a Western world that is, in large measure, too racist and Islamophobic to care.”

“Shame on you for appropriating the Lemkin name to spread propaganda,” replied the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Strategic Tribune, Robert Silverman.

Silverman’s reply, seen by only a few hundred users, raised a cutting-edge legal question: Who has the right to use the Lemkin name?

“In the USA, in most states, people have rights of privacy and/or publicity based on common law or statute to the use of their own name or likeness or identity,” said Anita Allen, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on postmortem privacy rights.

“In some instances such rights descend to heirs or assignees after death. The details of a particular case would determine whether the organization in question is subject to civil liability,” she said. “They could be.”

A Burgeoning Field of Anti-Israel Critique

The Lemkin Institute’s use of the Holocaust as a weapon with which to critique Israel is not an outlier. Rather, it reflects how the rapidly expanding genocide and Holocaust studies fields, much of it funded by gifts and endowments from well-intentioned Jewish donors, have veered away from the facts and the law and toward, instead, anti-Israel activism.

In one case from earlier this year, a doctoral student at Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies reportedly confronted a visiting Israeli reservist and publicly accused Israel of genocide. Months later, in August, a professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University wrote in an article for The Guardian that it was “no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal actions.”

That same professor, Omer Bartov, joined other Holocaust and genocide studies scholars in declaring in the New York Review of Books that “Israeli leaders and others are using the Holocaust framing to portray Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza as a battle for civilization in the face of barbarism, thereby promoting racist narratives about Palestinians.”


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