April 30, 1987

Rhode Island J ewish 1 Histor ical As s oc . Inside: 1 3 6 Sessions S t . Spring Fling Pullout Section P r o v. R. I . 02906 THE ONLY F;NGLISH-JEWISH WEEKLY IN R.I. AND SOUTHEAST MASS. VOLU ME LXXIV, NUMBER 22 THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1987 35¢ PER COPY Close Up: Demographic Study Mais Expresses Concern Over "Americanization" Of Holocaust by Aviva Cantor wiping out all the people of one Holocaust's uniqueness as the NEW YORK (JTA) - Israelis group without exception - "just watershed event in history that it involved with Holocaust research because they existed thev had to be is, you are dealing with it and are becoming concerned about the killed" - is what makes it avoiding it at the same time," he current tendency to go too fa r with significant and fundamentally said. "Americanizing the Holocaust" - diffe rent from the many other Avoiding the Holocaust making it accessible to the inhumane events in world history, eliminates the necessity to American experience by he said. confront the philosophical "packaging" it within a list of The Holocaust, Mais continued, assumptions it calls into question fam iliar evils, thus robbing it of its needs to be presented both as a such as the inherent goodness of uniqueness in hu man history. uniquely Jewish event and as one people, the belief in progress, the Characteristic of "going too far" having universal significance. value of education in forming good in "Americanizing the Holocaust" Making it accessible and relevant character, and the superiority of are statements such as "the to the American reality is valid. If Western civilization. Holocaust shows what prejudice, it is inaccessible, 1'one can't learn Early post-war ways of avoiding discrimination and intolerance can from it - it remains in an the Holocaust involved seeing it as lead to" and "the Holocaust is part archive. If it's placed on some an aberration, an idea that still inapproachable metaphysical Calvin Goldscheider (left) and Sidney Goldstein, professors of of the long history of man's exists in the popular mind, said pedestal" the questions it raises as sociology at Brown University in Providence, are directing a inhumanity to man," which make Mais. Statements such as "the it possible to avoid confronting its an event that happened on this Nazis were insane" and "Germans demographic study of Rhode Island's Jewish population. Herald earth cannot be confronted. editor Robert Israel interviews them in a report on page 4. quintessential difference and the were brainwashed" allowed people basic questions it raises. Authentic And Unauthentic to "pay lip service to the Holocaust This view was expressed by Approaches but to avoid confronting the basic Y itzhak Mais, director of Yad However, Mais said, there are fact that good husbands and good LaRouche Group Causes Vashem's Museum, in an interview authentic and unauthentic ways of fathers carried it out." with the Jewish Telegraphic making the Holocaust accessible. T he Eichmann T rial of 1961, Concern In Canada Agency here. American-born Mais, An authentic way of after which Hannah Arendt wrote who has been involved with "Americanizing the Holocaust" is of "the banality of evil," gave (JTA) - Despite its problems polled only .06 percent of the total Holocaust studies since his aliya in to deal with the American impetus to serious historical with the federal government in the vote, but it ran candidates for 1973, recently visited the U.S. participation in the event: showing research. But it was the period of United States, the organization of provincial, municipal and where he served as a consultant to the role of American liberators, the late 1960's that saw a real ,.. Lyndon LaRouche is currently school-board elections in four the United J ewish Appeal on its bringing in the experience of change in the Holocaust currying concern in Canada. provinces - Quebec, Ontario, Auschwitz exhibit, now being survivors, discussing what the U.S. consciousness of American Jews. According to Prof. Frank Chalk of Saskatchewan and British shown in Los Angeles and government did and did not do. "This was a time of ethnic pride Montreal's Concordia University, Columbia. What is of particular touring the country. Unauthentic ways in which and one when questioning and who is chairman of B'nai B'rith concern in Canada, Chalk told the To Mais, the uniqueness of the "Americanization of the protest were accepted," Mais said. Canada's (BBC) social action Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is the Holocaust lies in "the singling out Holocaust" is carried too far Feeling permission to question the committee, the LaRouchites in presence of LaRouchites at major of Jews to be killed because they involv_e placing it on a list of the establishment on civil rights and Canada ·are following a different airports, including Montreal, were considered racially horrors of human experience. "If Vietnam, American Jews came to strategy than in the U.S. and Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary, dangerous." T he Nazis policy of you don't acknowledge the ((·11n t i11 uf'd 11 11 paK<' Jil l constitute possibly more danger where they staff tables filled' with there. innocent-looking literature that Last month, BBC launched a travelers are rather easily Pentateuch Shipped To USSR nationwide "public awareness convinced to read. T his includes campaign" to counter the growth the Executive Intelligence Review, Five thousand copies of a 1902 of the U.S.-based LaRouche a Washington-based weekly Hebrew-Russian Pentateuch organization in Canada. At that magazine with European (chumash), originally printed in time, they released a report, "The headquarters in West Germany, Vilna (now Vilnius, capital of Lyndon LaRouche Network: T he which Chalk said looks like an Lithuania) in I 902, were Canadian Connection," which ordinary business publication. air-shipped to Moscow last week describes the activities of the "You might very well not perceive by the Appeal of Conscience rightwing, very eccentric group the ideology of the LaRouche Foundation, it was reported by that advocates mandatory AIDS organization by looking at it," Rabbi Arthur Schneier, ACF testing for all, the colonization of Chalk said. president. Mars, and has accused Queen He said that the organization Arrangements for the shipment Elizabeth of England and former has been fu nctioning through the were completed by Rabbi Schneier Secretary of State Henry Schiller Institute, which was in a meeting with Konstantin Kissinger of international drug founded in 1984 by LaRouche's Kharchev, chairman of the trafficking. German-born wife, Helga-Zepp Council of Religious Affairs, However, it is their racism, LaRouche, "for unclear purposes." USSR Council of Ministers, in anti-Semitism and revisionist The Institute has been trying to Moscow last February. version of the Holocaust, couched recruit students at Montreal's four Commenting on their discussion, in obscurantist allegations and universities, said Chalk, setting up Rabbi Schneier said: frequently self-contradictory, that tables on campus labelled "For a "T here is increasing recognition have garnered the attention to the High Culture." by Soviet authorities that 'religion group as a danger that must be They have tried to register at is here to stay' in the USSR and A Hebrew-Russian Chumash for Soviet Jews. Rabbi Arthur watched. the schools as a student that the government must meet Schneier holds a copy of a Chumash (Five Books of Moses) In the U.S., the LaRouche organization, but have been the needs of religious believers." originally printed in Vilna in 1902 - one of 5 ,000 copies of the candidates entered state primaries deterred till now fr.om doing it. At He cited ' among other Pentateuch just air-shipped by the Appeal of Conscience on the Democratic ticket, Concordia, said Chalk, a student developments the granting of Foundation for distribution to Jews in the USSR. confusing voters, particularly in complained to the school permission by Soviet authorities last year's gubernatorial primary authorities that the group was in February for two young Russian seminary - the only rabbinical to Rabbi Shayevich in Moscow, in Illinois, when Democratic anti-Semitic, and the school did men to study at the rabbinical training center in Eastern Europe who will supervise their candidate Adlai Stevenson III was not accredit them. seminary in Budapest beginning - were completed by Rabbi distribution to synagogues in forced to quit his party's ticket and Chalk said it is better to risk this fall, one to train as a kosher Schneier with the Soviet and various parts of the USSR. run independently after two giving the LaRouche people a little slaughterer (shochet), the other as Hungarian governments in 1974. Previous Shipment Sent LaRouchites won the primary as free publicity than to allow a cantor (hazzan). Rabbi Schneier also disclosed 10 Years Ago his running mates. Canadians to continue ·being T wo Russian students at the that a shipment of 5,000 Last week's shipment was part Nature Of The Concern largely unaware of what the seminary will be graduated next Hebrew-Russian prayer books of a total printing of I 0,000 copies In Canada, however, the organization stands for. 11 Some month and be ordained as rabbis (siddurim) was now being readied of the Vilna chumash completed LaRouche candidates have run on people who don't know what they to serve synagogues in the USSR, for delivery to the USSR by the by the Appeal of Conscience their own registered political are might vote for them," he said. he said. T hree other graduates of Appeal of Conscience. Both the Foundation in I 977, Rabbi party, the Party for the U.S. Federal Agents the seminary - including the chumash and the siddur will be in Schneier said.

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