Letters
The JC Letters Page, 13th September 2019
Michael Ezra, Tomi Komoly, Dr Anthony Isaacs, DAvid Shinegold, Mycal Miller, Daniel Cesarani, S L Conway and Sue Nyman share their views with JC readers
September 19, 2019 11:25
5 min read
Michael Ezra, Tomi Komoly, Dr Anthony Isaacs, DAvid Shinegold, Mycal Miller, Daniel Cesarani, S L Conway and Sue Nyman share their views with JC readers
September 19, 2019 11:25Professor David Aberbach’s article (The great Marxist lie about Jew-hate, JC, September 6) makes the following startling claim:
“Marx’s antisemitic prejudices were later cited with relish by the Nazis, including Hitler.”
While it is always difficult to prove the falsity of such a positive but unsourced claim, based on Hitler’s public pronouncements of which I am aware, it stretches credibility to suggest that he cited Marx’s antisemitic prejudices with relish.
In his public statements, the genocidal dictator suggested the opposite: he saw Marxism as some kind of Jewish plot.
He stated quite clearly in Mein Kampf (Volume 2 Chapter 4 as translated by Marco Roberto):
“Marxism represents the most striking phase of the Jewish endeavour to eliminate the dominant significance of personality in every sphere of human life and replace it by the numerical power of the masses.”
Hitler distinguished Nazism from Marxism precisely because the former focused on the significance of race.
To quote again from the same chapter of Mein Kampf: if the National Socialist movement failed to recognise the significance of race, “it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground.”
One can attack Marx for antisemitism, one can attack the Soviet Union for antisemitism, and one can attack Hitler for antisemitism.
However, to claim that Hitler positively cited Marx’s opinion on Jews is, until someone can provide a reliable source of which I am unaware, a false claim.
Michael Ezra
London NW3
Professor Aberbach obviously has great knowledge of Marxist literature and Soviet history. However, he has not lived in a communist country as I have, in Hungary between 1945 and 1956.
He correctly quotes some famous antisemitic lines from Karl Marx but ignores the vast majority of Das Kapital, which has few references to Jews.
He also writes profusely about Soviet history, which is very mixed in terms of antisemitism, before and after Stalin.
I would not argue with most of his statements, but of course it is not the history of Marxism.
I was subjected to five years of Marxist indoctrination, and never encountered a single antisemitic reference. And this was in a country that is a hotbed of antisemitism.
Tomi Komoly
Wilmslow
Cheshire
see books p44
One has to admire your ingenuity in creating a front-page “exclusive” from a casual encounter between a Board of Deputies official and Venezuelan communal leaders, on the basis that it might provide insights into the prospects for British Jews under a Labour government (JC, September 6). Aside from the fact that it would have been easier to hop on the 88 bus to speak directly to Labour leaders at Westminster, little appeared to have been revealed other that in Venezuela “most Jews are seen as being loyal citizens”.
A contrast, then, from Venezuela’s northern neighbour, where most Jews vote Democrat and thus, according to Donald Trump, show “disloyalty” . Curiously, it is in the United States rather than Venezuela that, encouraged by racist rhetoric, there has been a series of physical attacks on Jews, sometimes resulting in fatalities, as in Pittsburgh.
Rather than recycle an old photograph of Jeremy Corbyn with the late Hugo Chavez, would not a more prescient warning have been the pairing of Boris Johnson and the very much alive American President he admires and in whom he places hope for the salvation of the UK, in the event of Brexit?
Both have a taste for treating casually racist remarks as a kind of joke. But, as we have seen, words have consequences and can threaten the societal cohesion on which the future of all minorities depends.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
Rosa Doherty’s piece on the plight of grandparents who do not have contact with their grandchildren (JC, September 6) rightly evokes our sympathy. However, the article did not give a voice to those parents who may have very sound reasons for not allowing contact.
Whereas the vast majority of grandparents are able to have a loving and trusting relationship with their grandchildren, there is a small minority where contact would be both damaging and distressing to the grandchildren. This may be a harsh truth which, like the existence of abuse within some Jewish families, has taken us a long time to acknowledge, but if we ignore those situations where contact would put children in physical or emotional jeopardy, we would be failing in our duty as parents.
Nigel Huddleston MP has pointed out that, in the interests of child protection, we need to be aware of the small minority of cases where there is evidence which gives us reason to withhold contact.
In order to acknowledge such evidence, we must divest ourselves of the popular notion that all grandparents deserve an automatic right to have contact with their grandchildren.
David Shinegold
Worthing
On the subject of obtaining a get, Jonathan Lewis is correct to remind us of Devarim 16:20, “Justice, Justice shall you pursue” (Letters, September 6). The current state of affairs for women who are refused a get by recalcitrant husbands is so far removed from the concept of justice that the interpretation of halachah is self-evidently flawed. If halachah is not for justice, then what is it for?
Today’s rabbinical authorities seem incapable of adapting rules which are clearly no longer fit for purpose. These are man-made rules; made by men for the benefit of men.
Perhaps our rabbis are reluctant to face the possibility that the sages of ancient times got it wrong, or that society no longer regards women as the property of men.
Part of the problem is that there is no agreed mechanism for change. Judaism has no “synod” where representatives can come together to discuss these matters. We have no Pope who can make a final ruling. Instead we have ostrich-impersonating rabbis who refuse to take responsibility for the unjust system they perpetuate.
You were good enough to publish a letter from me on this topic in September 2005. Then, I pointed out that the agunot (chained women) should simply decide for themselves to be “unbound” by this absurd law. Nothing has changed.
Mycal Miller
London NW2
My late father, Professor David Cesarani, would have been flabbergasted to read Martin H Stern’s letter (JC September 6).
In it, Mr Stern quotes from my father’s book, Disraeli: The Novel Politician.
In doing so, he draws a comparison between Benjamin Disraeli and Benjamin Netanyahu, asserting that “we ignore at our peril great leaders… who, despite their financial flaws, saved nations”.
The only thing the two Benjamins share is their first name.
Any comparison is misguided, and using my late father’s research to defend the current Israeli Prime Minister is a manipulation of his scholarship.
Daniel Cesarani
London E1
There is a sad loss of Jewish communal places for Jewish youngsters (21 years and upwards) to meet and socialise together.
In my day, (and I’m well over 21) each synagogue had its own club for young people to meet. They used to operate on a Sunday in shul premises. They had social events, dances etc where our Jewish youngsters could socialise.
Where are they now? As a community, we want the kids to stay in the fold. Why, then, don’t the shuls and their like make this possible again?
I don’t think that online dating is a satisfactory method. Person to person is so much better.
Barring shidduchs, where are the youngsters supposed to meet? This is now a serious question.
As a community we are sometimes guilty of taking exhaustive account of our problems while failing to acknowledge our blessings.
What strikes me as astonishing about the acute financial strain now faced by our community’s schools (JC September 6) is the standard of both Jewish and secular education that so many of those mentioned continue to provide, despite such extreme pressures.
Yavneh College has been the highest performing non-selective state school in the country at A-Level for the past three years in a row and it is in good company, with so many other Jewish schools achieving similarly outstanding results.
This is only possible because of the talent and unrelenting commitment of our schools’ teachers. These dedicated professionals, who earn a fraction of what they are worth, deserve our deepest gratitude. We would all do well to remind ourselves and our children just how fortunate we are to have them.
Sue Nyman
Chair, Yavneh College Academy Trust