From: sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal)
Subject: Re: Irony continues in our history
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 17:27:24 GMT

In article <BsxIDy.1CM@apollo.hp.com>, goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com (Alex Goykhman) writes:
> In article <1992Aug11.174958.14352@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> sethr@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (seth.r.rosenthal) writes:
> >In article <BssH1K.3qJ@apollo.hp.com>, goykhman_a@apollo.hp.com (Alex Goykhman) writes:
> >> In article <0eVVZFK00WB3E9AJJE@andrew.cmu.edu> re0x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Radu Eugen Edelstein) writes:
> >> >Fifty years after fascist Croatians were slaughtering Jews, being
> >> >proud of the praises they were receiving from Berlin about it, we
> >> >are so loud in supporting their case against the Serbs (also Croats'
> >> >victims during WWII).  This is what we're doing here, on scj, without
> >> >even reading carefully the Israeli government's declarations in regard
> >> >to concentration camps (they are talking about *all* concentration camps,
> >> >not only about those controlled by Serbs).
> >> ...
> >> >The other irony for us, Jews, is that since its rebirth Croatia
> >> >made no attempt at acknowledging its role during the Holocaust.
> >> ...
> >> 
> >>     I am appaled by the knee-jerk reaction that many of us exhibit
> >>     toward the civil war in xYugoslavia.  Instead of being concerned
> >>     about the plight of the xY. Jews trapped in the midst of a brutal
> >>     civil war (remember what happened to them during WWII there?), we 
> >>     are rallying against Serbian concentration camps.  In doing this, we
> >>     are employing a truly bizzare and perverse logic to rationalize our
> >>     collective knee-jerk reaction.  It goes like this: "during WWII, 
> >>     the rest of the world (with a few notable exceptions) silently 
> >>     stood by while the Jews were being slaughtered, therefore we
> >>     the Jews, more than any other people in this world, are obligated 
> >>     to expend our precious moral and political capital on behalf of 
> >>     other nations, INCLUDING THOSE WHO ACTIVELY PARTICIPATED IN THE
> >>     HOLOCAUST."  Huh?
> >> 
> >
> >First of all, are the sins of the parents visited upon the heads
> >of the children and grand-children?
> 
>     Yes, that is why a war is raging on in xY.
> 
> >  Were Bosnian Muslims mistreating
> >their local Jewish population between 1945-1989?  I think not.
> 
>     I think B-H was a part of Croatia during WWII.  If so, by 1945
>     there had been no Jews left there.

Not true.  Like in every other part of Eastern Europe, Jews were
in the woods, in the cellars of neighbors homes, and in the partisans.
12,000 did survive in Yugoslavia, only 5,000 chose to stay there
after WWII.

> >
> >Second, the Jewish children of Sarajevo were flown to Israel, one
> >plane of Jews went to Spain, anyone else still there is there
> >because they want to be there, perhaps they identify with their
> >neighbors and don't want to leave.  There isn't much else to be
> >done there for the Jews of the area.
> 
>     It is good to see Israel helping the Jews while the
>     Jewish-American leaders seem to be more concerned with
>     the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims.

Look, the Jews of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, etc.
are not being threatened.  Most of them picked up and left.
The Jewish-American pocketbooks made sure they got out if
they wanted to.  Jewish lives are not on the line here,
they are not populating the camps, there is no need to
react to our own plight here.  If a parallel situation
existed in Russia or Ukraine, you would see different
priorities, but it doesn't.

> >
> >>     Don't you think that before speaking out on behalf of a nation
> >>     we should consider how that nation treated their Jews during WWII
> >>     and what, if anything, has changed in their collective attitude
> >>     toward the Jews since than?
> >> 
> >
> >How about doing whats morally right, and perhaps changing some
> >minds about their feelings towards Jews, rather than re-enforcing
> >existing hatreds. ...
> ...
>     This is an old fallacy that we can reform anti-semits by doing
>     good things to them: I do not know of a single case in our
>     history where it worked.  However, I can think of a group
>     of people in this country who in the past received a lot of 
>     support from the Jewish community, yet today seems to be blaming
>     more and more of their problems on the Jews.

You haven't read about the Grand Wizard of the Nebraska
branch of the KKK, who just converted to Judaism?
Most of that group of people don't pay much attention to
Farrakhan and Jeffries.



		Seth Rosenthal
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish