Author Archives: Kerry Baker

Amsterdam to pay Jewish community $11M for Holocaust survivor taxes

Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan (4th R) leads a march from City Hall to the Auschwitz monument in the Wertheimpark in Amsterdam on January 26, 2014, during the national memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. AFP PHOTO / ANP / REMKO DE WAAL **NETHERLANDS OUT** (Photo credit should read REMKO DE WAAL/AFP/Getty Images)

Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan (4th R) leads a march from City Hall to the Auschwitz monument in the Wertheimpark in Amsterdam on January 26, 2014, during the national memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. AFP PHOTO / ANP / REMKO DE WAAL **NETHERLANDS OUT** (Photo credit should read REMKO DE WAAL/AFP/Getty Images)

“It’s hard being a Jew” goes the old Yiddish saying. That’s always been true and, with a few important exceptions, no period has been more difficult than our own. Especially because we had a temporary respite from anti-Semitism as usual after the end of WWII, I was among the many Jews who mistakenly thought things had changed for good, substantially if not completely. Edmund Fleg, the French-Jewish poet, famously wrote, “Everywhere suffering weeps, the Jew hopes.” Hope like that is indispensable but dangerous because it can obscure an ugly sub rosa reality.

It might be easy to make too much of the decision of the citizens of Amsterdam to give reparations to the Holocaust survivors who were required to pay taxes and special fees when they tried to return to their homes at the end of WWII. The current city administration is doing the right thing for the right reasons, and we ought to be happy and thankful for this.

That this recognition and payment come after a gap of more than 70 years is troubling. The background of this decision includes the rise of extreme right wing nationalist groups which encourage discrimination against Dutch minority citizens and even the murder of their supporters.

There are times when it’s had to find a blessing that is unmixed, and this is one of those times. —Rabbi Kerry Baker

Read referenced article: http://www.jta.org/2016/05/23/news-opinion/world/amsterdam-to-pay-jewish-community-11m-for-holocaust-survivor-taxes

The Sad Decline and Fall of Bernie Sanders

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Here’s the thing about Bernie. He’s not a pragmatic politician and never has been. He’s not motivated by practical, incremental improvement but by ideological “revolution.” For Bernie and the Sandernistas the opposition doesn’t just disagree; they are the disingenuous apologists for a corrupt, exploitative system. They’re the representatives of the nobility, the bosses.

What are the effects of this type of thinking? There can no common ground with such dupes of the privileged. Their policies are meant to hide their real interests, their professed values are empty and false. For the Sandernistas Clinton supporters are not just wrong, they’re bad and unredeemable. To engage with them constructively would be like dancing with the devil.

This sort of disrespect is dysfunctional because it is really arrogance disguised as principle. The Sandernistas are unable to find any value in Clinton or her supporters. They swallow every Republican lie, half-truth or misrepresentation about HRC; the GOP could not find a better bunch of dupes to do their work than the Sandernistas. They are unable to cooperate with Clinton supporters because they don’t believe there might be anything worth learning from them. It’s too bad that Bernie has been unable to share this Hebrew school lesson with his acolytes: as the Rabbis of the Mishnah taught, “Who is wise? The person who learns from everyone.” —Rabbi Kerry Baker

Read referenced article: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/05/decline-fall-bernie-sanders

Bill Clinton Defends His and Hillary’s Israel Record, Spars with Heckler over Gaza

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I wish others, including Bernie Sanders, were as clear-sighted as Bill Clinton in their view of the Middle East. Yes, Sanders believes that Israel should exist, as if that were up for debate and required his approval. This is what some have never understood: Israel’s existence cannot be a subject of negotiation. After the Holocaust, Jewish existence cannot be anything less than a fact, and those who do not recognize this are not friends, whether they have a hidden agenda or not.

There has been no greater abusive experience in world history than the Holocaust. Like other kinds if abusive behavior, the effects the the Holocaust are persistent, even permanent. This is true for the Jewish People as well as for Jewish people. Like other survivors of abuse, survivors of the Holocaust, which is every Jew with a memory and historical awareness, may strive all their lives to compensate for the impact of abuse. Many will be successful, to a greater or lesser degree, but compensation does not erase the experience; this is the nature of consciousness and memory.

Some say the Jews should just get over it. Some fault the Jews, including Israelis, for not moving on. Should the victims of domestic abuse just get over it? Should African Americans just get over it? Survivors have a moral and personal responsibility to make their lives as coherent, productive and healthy as they can, but they have no responsibility to forget. Others would argue that forgetting, ignoring or repressing past abuse is the wrong thing to do by 180 degrees.

The Jewish People lost almost half its population to the unspeakable barbarities of the Holocaust. This took place with the connivance, approval, neglect, inaction and indifference of the world. Why is anyone surprised that Israel insists that its existence and security are not bargaining chips in a grand geopolitical dance? And why would anyone think that some form of “neutrality” could possibly be the position of a friend and ally? Let’s not blame the victims for having a history of abuse. —Rabbi Kerry Baker

Read referenced article: http://www.timesofisrael.com/bill-clinton-defends-his-and-hillarys-israel-record-spars-with-heckler-over-gaza/

A Texan and an Israeli….

In honor of the visit of “A Prairie Home Companion” to Austin yesterday, and the great rendition of “Dayeinu” featured on the show, here’s a favorite story of mine, one of the few that involves Texans and Israelis:

A Texan and an Israeli were seat mates on a 747 Jumbo jet. The Texan, a friendly and loquacious fellow, if a bit of a braggart, began to regale the Israeli with stories of the exaggerated glories of his ranch. “Why, my ranch is so big,” the Texan declared, “that if I get in my car and drive from one end of my spread to the other, it takes me three days.” “I understand,” said the Israeli, not entirely impressed, “I used to have a car like that.”

Were Hebrews Ever Slaves in Ancient Egypt?

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So amazing, and exciting, to see some of the increasing evidence for the historical accuracy of biblical account of the Exodus. Biblical archaeology is one of the most tendentious of all fields of study precisely because there are such yawning gaps in the historical record that almost any scholarly argument is an argument from silence.

But all this misses the real point, IMHO. The truth of the tale of the Exodus is found on the level of story and myth. As many have remarked, the domain of how, what, when, and where, the realm of fact, belongs to science and history; the domain of why and who, the domain of story and myth, however, properly belongs to religion and philosophy.

When it comes to the historical and natural material recounted in the Bible, if you want to know what happened, how it happened, or when it happened, ask Hawking, et al; if you want to know what it means, ask your rabbi. —Rabbi Kerry Baker

Yes read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/.premium-1.713849

Passover: not “externalizing” God.

Speaking of the psychological aspects of Passover: Many years ago, not long after my mother (she rest in peace) remarried, it was decided that there would be a family seder for the newly formed, blended family. My stepfather, Herman Boxer (may he rest in peace), grew up in a Yiddish socialist family and attended Bundist camps and Workman’s Circle youth groups when he was young. For him, and for my new Aunt Frances, his sister, religious or spiritual Judaism was unfamiliar, if not alien.

As literally the rabbi of the family, I was designated to lead the Seder. In those days we used the Haggadah published by Maxwell House coffee. The Hebrew text was very traditional, the English translation was stilted and odd. For instance every page, it seemed, included the phrase, repeated again and again, “the Eternal, our God.” Like many families, we went around the table, each of us reading a small section of the text in turn. When we reached Aunt Frances, she would read the phrase “the Eternal, our God” as “The external, our God.” Which was exactly right for her. No one corrected her, especially because she was completely unaware of her slip.

And isn’t that another of the profound themes of Passover: How do people, overwhelmed, alienated, enslaved and empty, connect to the force that lifts them up, fills them with hope and guides them on the path of growth? The God who was external is external no more. —Rabbi Kerry Baker

November 4th Jewdayo: Arnold “the Brain” Rothstein

Rothstein does not look at all like Omar Sharif, who portrayed him in “Funny Girl.” Of all his nefarious deeds, the one I am most bothered by, oddly, is fixing the World Series. The so-called “black socks scandal” was a huge nail in the coffin of our notion of heroism. We suffer more than we know from the permeating since of cynicism which affects our social life, political life and home life. Certainly it is wise not “to put not [our] trust in princes,” yet not having anyone to admire provides protection from exploitation but at the same time closes us off from hope that our own best instincts might prevail.

Rabbi Kerry BakerEverybody Needs a Rabbi
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JEWDAYOFind us on FacebookFollow us on Twitter A project of Jewish Currents
Gambler and mobster Arnold Rothstein was shot in a New York hotel in a dispute over gambling debts on this date in 1928. He died two days later, age 46. Rothstein was an early bootlegger during Prohibition and is believed to have been the gambler behind the “fixing” of the 1919 World Series, in which eight members of the Chicago White Sox (henceforth called the Black Sox) were bribed to lose games intentionally. Historian Leo Katcher described Rothstein, whose father Abraham was a wealthy businessman and chair of the board of Beth Israel Hospital, as “the J. P. Morgan of the underworld; its banker and master of strategy,” while Meyer Lansky said “Rothstein had the most remarkable brain. He understood business instinctively and I’m sure that if he had been a legitimate financier he would have been just as rich as he became with his gambling and the other rackets he ran.” Among those “rackets” was the narcotics trade, for which Rothstein provided significant capital. His henchmen during the 1920s included Dutch Schultz, “Legs” Diamond, “Lucky” Luciano, and Frank Costello. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald based his character Meyer Wolfsheim on Arnold Rothstein, as did Damon Runyan his character Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls.“If a man is dumb, someone is going to get the best of him, so why not you? If you don’t, you’re as dumb as he is.” –Arnold RothsteinWant to comment? Click here.

On this Jewdayo in 2013:

Gay, Gay, Is There Another Way?

On this Jewdayo in 2012:
President Obama

On this Jewdayo in 2011:

The Assassination of Yitzkhak Rabin

On This Jewdayo in 2010:

Joseph Rotblat

 

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Hitler may have married a Jew, DNA evidence shows – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz

 

Hitler and Eva Braun at Berchtesgaden

Hitler may have married a Jew, DNA evidence shows – Jewish World News Israel News | Haaretz.

Speculation about Hitler’s life, at least as it touches hidden or secret aspects that putatively explain his otherwise inexplicable behavior, has been a feature of the global fascination with the Holocaust for years, especially speculation about a secret Jewish connection that would transform Hitler from an Aryan into a self-hating Jew.  The program is clear.  If Hitler is just another self-hating Jew, than Germans in particular and Gentiles in general are not responsible for the Holocaust,  or are only marginally responsible; non-Jewish anti-Semitism is only relevant in a secondary or derivative way.  Ultimately it is the Jews who brought the Shoah upon themselves.  Neat, huh?—Rabbi Kerry Baker