If you are a Jew in this world today, chances are someone in your family – someone still living today – was a Survivor. The murder of Jews in Europe was so all-encompassing that there was blight in every family. Survivors ran to America and Canada, knowing they were no longer safe in Europe. Some eventually settled in Israel, once it came into being. As a little shiksa girl, I had the honor to shake three hands above which there were numbers on the forearm – real numbers, not Kate McMillan’s bike registration number. Even at 8 years old, you just know that those numbers are important.
The parents and grandparents of my Jewish friends – those parents and grandparents that got the hell out of Dodge as soon as they could, and settled down the block from where I would one day be born – are not long for this world. The war ended more than 60 years ago. Nobody lives forever. Their children and even grandchildren will have been raised with an inherent knowing of what happened Over There™, and will go about their daily lives with that specter on their shoulders at all times.
But for the grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the specter will not be as terrifying. They weren’t there. They didn’t see it. They never knew of grandma’s anguished screams, waking from her nightmares, safe in her American bed. They only know what they’ve been taught by rote, by those who were there. And those teachers are dying. Thankfully they have seen fit to leave us with a wealth of knowledge and history that would otherwise have been lost to us – as they themselves very nearly were.
As those who suffer the nightmares and who cannot forget eventually leave us, the focus will – and should – shift away from fighting a battle that ended 60 years ago. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be freed from the horrors that came before them, and will be better able to focus on the current threats to society. The living relics of a time long past are still fighting the Nazis, and we can’t begrudge them for it. We shout and rail against them for being blind to a new enemy while focused on one that no longer exists, but to them there is only the one threat: Hitler. There will only ever be Hitler.
It isn’t up to Bernie Farber and the people he represents in Official Jewdom to fight the Islamist hordes. It’s up to their grandchildren. Because Farber and those in similar positions do not take their orders – or their paychecks – from the grandchildren. They take them from the Survivors and their children. Farber & Co. cannot stop fighting the Nazis so long as Nazi Survivors draw breath – they need to know the Nazis are still being kept at bay. Even though there are no Nazis anymore. Jews under 45 should stop looking to Bernie Farber for strength in the face of Islamization of culture. They shouldn’t be looking to Bernie to protect them from Israeli Anti Apartheid Week or hostage takings at York University. Bernie Farber can’t even recognize IAAW, because he’s fixated on some 24 year old with a “cool” swastika tattoo.
I think younger Jews should stop complaining about Farber & Co as being so useless in today’s society, and allow them the hard-won privilege of living in the past. It’s up to you now. It’s time to fight a new enemy while your parents and grandparents retreat into memory.
UPDATE: Scaramouche, who has Jewish cred that I do not, disagrees:
My issue with Farber is that his obsession with being “the son of a Holocaust survivor” has tended to distort his percerptions about who are the Jews’ enemies today, and how to best deal with them. We can’t deal with them, for example, by calling for state censorship via HRCs and expecting that ingratiating yourself–or at least making the effort to ingratiate yourself–with the likes of the the CIC, the CAF, and, my absolute fave, Syed Soharwardy’s Islamic SUPREME Council, is going to pay off for Canadian Jews. It hasn’t; it won’t; it never will. (Besides, Islamists love it when you grovel–it’s the posture they expect of “dhimmis”.) In light of angry mobs of Hamas fans screaming things like “Death to the Jews!” and “Jews to the ovens!” in downtown Toronto, I think–or rather, I hope–Bernie’s beginning to figure that out.
When I was about 8 or 9 (I was born in 1959) Mom asked me to pop into a bakery in Winnipeg’s north end and get something for dessert that evening. The man behind the counter had a thick eastern European accent, which wasn’t uncommon in the north end, and when I pointed at what I want he said something I didn’t understand and asked if I was sure. I was nervous, and he was intimidating, so I just nodded, paid for the buns, and left. When we got home, Mom asked why I had purchased onion buns, and I realized what the man had been asking me. “Those are onion buns, are you sure that’s what you want to buy?”
It was only in a couple of years, when I attended Grade 5 and 6 in a school in the north end where I had several Jewish classmates and became good friends with them, that I understood why that man had a number tatooed on his arm, and that instead of being intimidated I should have taken the time to tell him I didn’t understand, because he would have made sure we had something nice for dessert.
My children, now 18 and 13, have heard that story several times in their lives, and from my conversations with them, continue to update their understanding of what Evil truly is.
That’s the issue we face. Not whether people live in the past or don’t.
I do not dispute the evil that was at play during the Holocaust. Yet I see the evil that is at play today, and am frustrated by the lack of apparent understanding on the part of those “Official Jews” as Ezra Levant calls them. How can they cry “Never Again!” while allowing the same evil under a new guise to happen all over again?
RG
“Even at 8 years old, you just know that those numbers are important.”
Interesting observation. I agree. So how did you feel when Kate defiled those numbers for cheap mockery of Kinsella?
“How can they cry “Never Again!” while allowing the same evil under a new guise to happen all over again?”
Well, perhaps because, unlike you and Shaild and Ezra, they actually lived through it. And they saw what happens when a handful of haters works long enough and hard enough to foster loathing in a country for an entire people or religion.
Bernie got himself a plum position but he’s got a constituency of zero. He’s not answerable to an electing population. His views are radically left-wing and in no way reflect the views of the active Jewish community.
The strongest words I’ve heard him say, have not been about the violent anti-semites at York, or the pro-Hamas thugs in downtown Toronto but about…. Kathy?!?!?!
Look, I’m very much part of the Jewish community. People are devastated by what’s going on at York, afraid for their kids, anguished over the demonization of Israel, nervous about Islamist anti-Semitism in Canada. Bernie lives on his own left-wing planet where he seems to be too intimidated to deal with reality. If he had a kid with a kipah at York he might be a little more conscious of the current dangers. I wish he’d just quit the CJC and run for the NDP already. And then we could dismantle the CJC and redirect community funds to truly worthwhile causes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uYt7K7udXI&eurl=http://swampie.wordpress.com/&feature=player_embedded
Freedom? What is it all about?
Some of us are still willing to give all we have. It’s more than just words.
RG, you are a gem. I know others know it, and others may tell you the same, but you need to know it.
KP
To this comment: “How can they cry “Never Again!” while allowing the same evil under a new guise to happen all over again?”
Balbie responds: “Well, perhaps because, unlike you and Shaild and Ezra, they actually lived through it. And they saw what happens when a handful of haters works long enough and hard enough to foster loathing in a country for an entire people or religion.”
So, because they lived through it and saw whet a handful of haters can do, they are now ignoring the Islamist threat, which is comprised of multiple islamic nations stuffed with jew hating whack jobs? That makes a lot of sense fer sure. Sheeeesh. Better start taking your meds buddy.
That arse wipe Accckmadeenajihad wants to wipe jews off the face of the earth and he’s President of a rather heavily populated nation fer christsake. Maybe balbie, Burnie and Catsmeat feel that three skin heads drinking beer in their fathers garage is more worthy of their attention. Not me though.
“Maybe balbie, Burnie and Catsmeat feel that three skin heads drinking beer in their fathers garage is more worthy of their attention. Not me though.”
Of course not. You’re too busy describing women who won’t have children as “traitors to their culture and race”.
Wendy’s sad-crazy, dude, but you’re scary-batshit-crazy.
“Scary batshit crazy”
Cool. I’m gonna put it on a t-shirt. Thanks. I especially like the ‘scary’ part.
And wait’ll you hear my views on abortion. Ooooweee. It’ll scare you shitless.
[...] RIGHT GIRL: “The Jews of History”; and YouTube: RightGirl on Michael Coren …. [...]
Sorry Wendy, but please allow me to direct attention to the post that Balbie is referring to with respect to the “describing women who won’t have children as “traitors to their culture and race” comment.
http://imnotparanoid.blogspot.com/
In context, maytbe I am batshit, whatever that means.
However, one thing is for sure – one person’s batshit is another man’s truth. And isn’t that what we are fightinging for?
If balbie or Catsalla are allowed to define what the term “batshit” means, or the word “bigot” or “racist” for that matter, then they control our perceptions and our understanding of what is real.
Personally, I’d rather not let them do that for me.
Hey balbie, bite me.
Why, Wendy. Have you joined the ranks of the Free Speech advocates who censor and edit?
How delightfully predictable.