Whose Holocaust Isit Anyway?
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A short story by Kevin Guilfoile p 18 The Empty Bottle goes to Norway p 10 Got a car? Then you can drag race. p 16 CHICAGO’S FREE WEEKLY | THIS ISSUE IN FOUR SECTIONS FRIDAY, AUG 26, 2005 | VOLUME 34, NUMBER 48 Whose Holocaust Is It Anyway? Why Alan Dershowitz wants DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein fired Chicago’s first all-cupcake bakery, Mamet’s The Cryptogram PLUS at Stage Left, James Frey’s latest wild memoir, and more Section One Letters 3 Fiction 18 “Zero Zero Day” by Kevin Guilfoile Columns Excerpted from Chicago Noir Hot Type 4 Reviews The shameful secret about civil-rights reporting Movies 30 The Straight Dope 5 Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs What was Able Archer? Music 32 Chicago Antisocial 8 The White Stripes’ Get Behind Me Satan Underground venues are dropping like flies Theater 34 David Mamet’s The Cryptogram at Stage Left Our Town 10 The Empty Bottle goes to Norway, one man’s Books 36 solution for flyers on his windshield James Frey’s My Friend Leonard August 26, 2005 Photo Essay 16 Plus “Run what ya brung” drag racing at Ink Well Route 66 Raceway This week’s crossword: Flat Features ON THE COVER: CHRISTIANE GRAUERT (FINKELSTEIN), PAUL HORNSCHEMEIER (GUILFOILE), MARTY PEREZ (EMPTY BOTTLE, DRAG RACING), YVETTE MARIE DOSTATNI (CUPCAKE) Whose Holocaust Is It Anyway? Why Alan Dershowitz wants DePaul professor Norman Finkelstein fired : CHARLES ESHELMAN , RIGHT RBIS CO : RICK FRIEDMAN/ LEFT Dershowitz, Finkelstein By Jeffrey Felshman he “worst enemies in the struggle against real at the top of the list he puts Harvard professor and anti-Semitism are the philo-Semites,”writes author Alan Dershowitz. T DePaul University political science professor Dershowitz responds by calling Finkelstein an Norman Finkelstein in Beyond Chutzpah: On the anti-Semite, among other things. And he thinks Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, DePaul—where, according to the head of his depart- scheduled to hit bookstores on August 29. ment, Finkelstein is popular with students and facul- “Alongside Israel, they are the main fomenters of ty—should dump him. “I think they think they’re anti-Semitism in the world today. Coddling them is protected because he’s a Jew,” he told me. “That’s the not the answer. They need to be stopped.” Philo- defense. ‘Well, how can he be an anti-Semite? Semites, he says, are American Jewish elites who He’s a Jew.’ Well, he’s a Jew and an anti-Semite— use the Holocaust and the charge of anti-Semitism and a neo-Nazi supporter, and a Holocaust trivial- to silence any criticism of Israel or themselves, and izer, and a liar, and a falsifier of continued on page 26 26 CHICAGO READER | AUGUST 26, 2005 | SECTION ONE Finkelstein continued from page 1 1984 book From Time for Israel. Dershowitz says he the same way: “Kept under quotations and documents.” Immemorial: The Origins of the was using this quote before the wraps in deference to ‘political The two men first met on the Arab-Jewish Conflict Over Peters book even came out. correctness,’ the discontent will Democracy Now! radio program Palestine. Finkelstein had read Finkelstein also holds up the only fester. To avert a resurgence in 2003, after Dershowitz pub- Peters’s book carefully, combing word turnspeak, which he says of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust lished The Case for Israel. “I was through the footnotes in an Peters mistakenly attributed to profiteers must be publicly supposed to debate [Noam] effort to challenge her sources George Orwell, probably exposed and repudiated.” He also Chomsky, and instead he showed and undermine her thesis that intending to use newspeak. accuses the same Jewish organi- up,”Dershowitz recalls. “And he Palestine was practically unpop- (Actually Peters seems to have zations, along with the Israeli was like a little worm.” ulated when Jews began moving consciously coined the term government, of using the Finkelstein started out by accus- there and that most of the Arabs without reference to Orwell, Holocaust and the victimization ing Dershowitz of plagiarism, who fled in 1948 were them- defining it as the “cynical of Jews as an excuse to mistreat characterized one of his argu- selves recent arrivals. The use of inverting or distorting of facts, Palestinians and as a justification ments as a “very lovely bar mitz- “fraudulent history” to cover up which, for example, makes the for repressive policies in Israel, vah speech,”and wound up by say- Israeli “crimes” is one of his victim appear as culprit.”) which he thinks only causes ing he wasn’t sure Dershowitz had favorite themes, and in Beyond Turnspeak is in pages from the more resentment. even written The Case for Israel. A Chutzpah he writes that Peters’s first edition of The Case for Israeli new historians such as few days later Alexander book is a “colossal hoax.” Israel, which are reproduced in Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, and Ilan Cockburn repeated the plagiarism Dershowitz counters that he read Beyond Chutzpah. During their beer.” Finkelstein argued against Pappe have taken similar posi- charge in Counterpunch, and then the original sources Peters cited radio interview Finkelstein what he sees as the abuse of his- tions without being vilified in Dershowitz and Finkelstein and then quoted the originals. In attacked Dershowitz for using tory in his 2000 book The Israel the way Finkelstein has exchanged letters in the Harvard one footnote he writes, “See the word, and Dershowitz Holocaust Industry: Reflections been in the U.S. Finkelstein’s Crimson. Finkelstein wrote, “The Peters. Peters’s conclusions and replied, “I like it.”The current on the Exploitation of Jewish work is cited admiringly on neo- book he claims to have written is a data have been challenged. ...Ido edition of the book uses Suffering, charging American Nazis’ Web sites, and that—along hoax.”Dershowitz briefly defend- not in any way rely on her demo- newspeak. Dershowitz says that Jewish organizations with using with his tendency toward over- ed his work, then concluded, “I graphic conclusions or demo- Harvard reviewed all of the Holocaust to extort money statement and intemperate lan- will no longer dignify false and graphic data, but I have quoted Finkelstein’s plagiarism charges from Swiss and German banks, guage—probably explains some empty charges leveled by these several historical quotations that I and found they had no merit. then giving only a small percent- of the hostility he’s faced. serial fabricators. I rest my case.” first came upon in her book.” But plagiarism isn’t the main age to Holocaust victims. In a But his work also has been Finkelstein wasn’t about to let The centerpiece of Finkelstein’s target of Beyond Chutzpah. “Next 2000 article he describes a con- endorsed by Raul Hilberg, dean of him rest. In Beyond Chutzpah— case that Dershowitz plagiarized to Alan Dershowitz’s egregious ference to determine compensa- the Holocaust historians. And the title’s a reference to Peters is a quote from Mark Twain falsification of Israel’s human tion for slave laborers at which a though he’s been called a Dershowitz’s 1991 book that’s cobbled together from dif- rights record and the real suffer- German delegate told him, “On Holocaust denier, both of his par- Chutzpah—he charges that ferent parts of The Innocents ing such falsification causes,” our side we all feel like we’re ents were survivors of the Warsaw Dershowitz quoted without Abroad in Peters and is quoted in Finkelstein writes, “Dershowitz’s being blackmailed.” He writes ghettoand concentration camps, attribution from Joan Peters’s much the same way in The Case academic dereliction seems small that many Europeans may feel and the rest of his family died in WATCH OUR WANT TO APPLY FOR WANT TO CHANGE WANT TO RENEW YOUR BACK! 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Be sure to check out the new look of From Social Security benefits to buying surplus government property, the Reader’s billboard advertising all kinds of government information are just a click or call away. page at the very end of this (and every week’s) issue. 1 (800) FED- INFO CHICAGO READER | AUGUST 26, 2005 | SECTION ONE 27 Jews or the defense of Israel.” Finkelstein should be ashamed Finkelstein accuses Jewish organizations, In the introduction to The of the way he uses his parents to Holocaust Industry Finkelstein advance those views. “He charges along with the Israeli government, of using the writes, “The current campaign his own mother with being a of the Holocaust industry to Nazi collaborator,” he says. “Now Holocaust and the victimization of Jews as an extort money from Europe in what could be lower than that?” the name of ‘needy Holocaust That’s a reference to an excerpt excuse to mistreat Palestinians and as a victims’ has shrunk the moral from Finkelstein’s forthcoming stature of their martyrdom to memoir that’s on his Web site justification for repressive policies in Israel. that of a Monte Carlo casino.” (normanfinkelstein.com), in He also told me, “I believe that which he writes that, like Primo the Holocaust. He grew up dur- didn’t trust anyone,”Finkelstein their experience or the experi- everything having to do with the Levi, his mother often said, “Too ing the 60s in Brooklyn, where says. “They were great humani- ence of people like them to Holocaust is bad for the Jews.” delicate and refined, the best photographs of dead relatives tarians, they loved people. But rationalize unethical acts.