So will a conference on anti-semitism really make any difference?

[YaddaYaddaYadda]

I know I've posted a few times about anti-semitism (and I'm sure some people think I should give it a rest) but it's something that's really worrying me at the moment. There's a conference - see here starting today to look at developing strategies to combat the rise in anti-semitism but will it really make any difference? The optimist in me hopes so, the cynic in me doubts it...

I absoultely have no problem believing you posted that link in ignorance of it's full content Shera. No hard feelings

I haven't read the book rev, but will get back to you on the blog. it looks v interesting, havne't come across it before. I have a blardy headache at the moment!!

What difference if the Nazis viewed the Jews as a race or faith? Your point is.......

Actually Germany was the most likely place in Europe for it to start and start it did. Of course it was the culmination of 1000s of years of anti semitism. Having been fed lies and vile crap like on that website sherazade linked to for 1000s of years Germans were all to ready to embrace Nazi ideology. Something like that doesn't happen overnight.

And yes - in Russia, Lithuanai and Poland too the citizens did a disgraceful job of aiding and abetting the Nazis in their murder to the extent that they almost surupassed their enthusiasm for it.

You may mention disabled people and gypsies but you will not detract from teh fact that the Holoacuast is a uniquely Jewish tradgedy. Why the determined attempt to play that down/water it down/deflect from it. Anyway. You will not change history no matter how you try to colour it.

I really don't think it is any slur on Jews to call the Holocaust a humanitarian tradgedy before a jewish tradgedy. After all, Jews make up humanity too, and it was also a tradgedy for others, the disabled and the Roma especially. It was also a tradgedy for Germany in many respects. I think the word 'humanitarian tradgedy' is more apt in a wider sense. It doesn't mean it wasn't a specifuc tradgedy for Jews also - no one is going to forget that by calling it a humanitarisn tradgedy.

Why can't 'Holocaust' be an ^inclusive' term for all victims of genocide? Including recent victims, such as in Rwanda?

tragedy

I know what holocaust means and that similar to hetacomb. It is an odd word if taken literally, though I guess it has specific significance to the ovens in the extermination camps. It is more emotive - but that's understandable in the circumstances. For the sake of parsimony (not generally used in cultural studies, I grant you) it would be more politic use the term broadly rather than narrowly. The vast majority of people not holocaust scholars know the shoah as the holocaust, and reeducating them would be, I think, contrary to the aim of keeping the holocaust 'alive' in peoples minds whilst the last survivers pass on.

Schindlers List was Speilbergs way of marking that moment - when living memory became history. Just an aside.

The most anti-semetic person I ever met was jewish by race but not practising iyswim. She was an active member of a hard line socialist party and thus utterly oppsosed to Zionism, capitalism, globalisation, the influence of the West etc. She squarely blamed the Americans and the jews for much of these things. She would use blanket terms as if no jew in the whole world could be excluded...the jews are this, the jews have done that. All this despite being jewish herself.
It would have been interesting if it were not so sad.

I've just come back to this thread after an enforced absence (our broadband went down and then work got in the way) so I've just been trying to catch up on the 200 plus posts...

I didn't see the Karen Friedman link that caused so much controversy but I think it clearly illustrates one of the dangers of the internet. If you hold an extreme view you can always find someone who agrees with your view. Exchanging views / opinions may seem harmless but it starts to change people's perceptions of social norms which is one of the key determinants of behaviour. It's one explanation for how the behaviour of a paedophile escalates: they start off with fantasies, go online, find images and other people who share their fantasies, their view of the unacceptability of their fantasies changes, they move towards acting out those fantasies in real life... I've used paedophilia as an example because it's the most studied but you could apply the process to any extreme behaviour (racism, anti-semitism, islamaphobia etc).

StewieGriffinsMom - I've realised reading this thread that I really need to improve my knowledge of the history of the Holocaust and wondered if you could suggest a fairly accessible book or two? Ideally not too academic.

Justabout - you are such a fabulous diplomat, perhaps you should replace TOny Blair as the middle east peace envoy (how did he get that job?!?!)

Glad to see you back Yadda. I hope you will take a look at the links I posted to books. They are very interetsting.

I come to this debate as an athiest by choice - c of e by anointing.

I am an evoluionary scholar that hence tends to look at things from a broad human persective and not a narrow religious or ideological one - somehting that confuses many people, but has thankfully recently stopped confusing me and brought me muchg more clarity, thought I relish being challenged.

I wouldn;'t agree that Rev should replace BLair (or Brown) just yet. I do agree she (you - hello) have a fab talent for de-escalation, but that isn;t necessarlity a political skill. I think we in the war have forgotten what politics is actually - it's the first and last stop against warfare (and yes it does cross over at times) but without politics - whioch is necessarly 'spin', 'PR' and 'manipulation' our lives and all we enjoyed (guiltily) would end. The human race is a war like race away from kin and familiy. It is also an altrusitic race within kin and tribe - until resources become very scarce.

These is the terrible scales that policicians try to balence. I for one don't envy them.

apols for tyops - both dyslexia and Ds with ear onfection to blame. I normally try harder

I'd recommend any Primo Levi. He is actually the best from a compext humantitarian perspective and is totally descritive not prescriptive

and of course, he was famously 'liberated' from Auschwich by the Russians

There is a book, isn't there, will the names of all known victims?

One of my undergraduate lecturers was a specialist in the holocaust. He showed us Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard) which unfortunately gave a lot of amunition to holocaust deniers, though that wasn't the intention of course. He also showed us The Tin Drum - which is (arguably) a meditation on what Hitler might have been like as a child. The lynch mobs on the German streets were horrifying and the end of the film has some very harrowing pictures of children - one dead, the other just abut to be hanged. This kind of stuff is still happening around the world of course. Lost my thread now. Never mind..