The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism Historical facts on anti-Semitism as a reflection of Jewish social discord LAITMAN KABBALAH PUBLISHERS Michael Laitman, PhD The Jewish Choice: Unity or Anti-Semitism Copyright © 2019 by Michael Laitman All rights reserved Published by Laitman Kabbalah Publishers www.bundleofreeds.com [email protected] 1057 Steeles Avenue West, Suite 532, Toronto, ON, M2R 3X1, Canada 2009 85th Street #51, Brooklyn, New York, 11214, USA Printed in USA No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. ISBN: 978-1-6718-7220-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920463 Proof Reading: Mary Miesem Associate Editors: Joseph Donnelly, Alycia Larez, Debbie Wood, Michael Kellogg, Kathy Pirrello, Joseph Larez Copy Editor: Mary Pennock Cover Design: Rony Perry, Inna Smirnova Layout: Chaim Ratz Executive Editor: Chaim Ratz Printing and Post Production: Uri Laitman Cover images: Medal issued by Goebbels’s newspaper Der Angriff commemorating head of SD Jewish Affairs Office Leopold von Mildenstein’s six-month visit to Palestine. Photos: Courtesy of Kedem Auction House FIRST EDITION: DECEMBER 2019 First Printing Table of Contents Editor’s Note — Acknowledgments ..................................................... 5 Foreword: Why I Wrote This Book .................................................... 9 Introduction: Lessons from Our Past ............................................... 13 Chapter 1: Who Are The Jews & Why Is There Jew-Hatred ............17 Chapter 2: Self-Hatred in Antiquity ..................................................31 Chapter 3: From the Zenith to the Nadir ........................................ 45 Chapter 4: Spain — Former Jews vs. Present Jews ............................ 75 Chapter 5: Storms in the South & The Genesis of Zionism ........... 93 Chapter 6: The Unification of Germany & The Dissolution of German Jewry ..............................................115 Chapter 7: Nazism, the Holocaust, & Very Hard Questions ......... 129 Chapter 8: The Peculiar Case of Italy..............................................179 Chapter 9: Toward a Conscious Jewish People(?) ............................185 Appendices .......................................................................................201 Who Are You, People of Israel? ...................................................... 203 What We Jews Owe the World ....................................................... 209 Bibliography .....................................................................................213 Notes ............................................................................................... 229 “Modern reformers, who are constructing model social systems, ... would do well to look into the social system under which the early Jews were organized.” Henry Ford Editor’s Note — Acknowledgments Working on The Jewish Choice: Unity or anti-Semitism, was such an enormous task that it would have been impossible to achieve it within six months had it not been for the immensely hard work of so many people. During those months, researchers in English, Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, and Hebrew, worked tirelessly to comb through over one hundred books, dozens of academic papers, hundreds of letters in various languages, archived microfilms, online archives of news agencies, and other internet sites that document the fascinating- yet-tragic history of the Jewish people. Relentlessly, these precious people would dive into their task, and as soon as they completed it, would ask for yet another. But what astounded me most was that I did not approach even a single one of them; rather, they approached me and volunteered to research, edit, or assist in any way I needed. Without them, there would be no book. Below, I have listed the key researchers, but behind some of them were teams of anonymous equally dedicated soldiers. Joe Donnelly, besides being one of the editors, dug up unbelievable heaps of materials from US government archives. Kris Dawson spent days in the UK national archive browsing through letters from the 1930s. The unbelievably diligent Mary Pennock combed books, essays, academic archives, all while editing the text, being the book’s chief copyeditor. Norma Livne, besides being the content editor, raked through books, 5 THE JEWISH CHOICE: UNITY OR ANTI-SEMITISM academic essays, and internet sites in her “free time,” when most of us are sound asleep. Other helpful individuals were Noga Bar Noye (English and French), Kathy Pirello, and Masha Shayovich. German was a key research language in this book, but thanks to the hard work of dedicated friends, we managed to collect the documents we needed. Alex Stetter delved into books and searched through microfilms in Germany’s Bundesarchive (Germany’s National Archive). Miriam Priven searched through hundreds of letters that members of the Nazi Party sent from Palestine to the SS headquarters in Berlin, while also helping in English. Elisabeth Prelog-Igler was there whenever I needed an immediate translation of German texts. Rebekka Admoni took on some of the least pleasing texts to read in both English and German, and was extremely helpful going through the Wannsee Protocol describing The Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Russian was a big challenge, but Shelly Gaver and Misha Brushtein were extremely helpful in both finding the books we needed and digging up the relevant excerpts. Ariana Stridi searched days and nights on her tiny phone screen for materials in both English and Italian that brought valuable insights on anti-Semitism and Christianity in Italy. Many people offered their assistance in Hebrew. Yoel Meidan and Yuri Hechter helped in both English and Hebrew, and many others provided text and video materials in Hebrew and English. Nesi Hassid, David Malnichuck, Yaniv Si, Oren Levi, Dudi Aharoni, Leah Mendler, Ofer Nakash, Yaakov Priel, and Yoav Bernstein either sent helpful materials or were readily helpful when I needed them. A Word about Consistency Throughout the book, the key criteria in citing quotes were accuracy and authenticity. It was extremely important to the author that the excerpts brought in this book would be the writers’ own words without any alterations. Therefore, in order to maintain authenticity, we tried to keep 6 EEITtRES NEdi d AEKNtoLeE Note the quotes untouched, and where we did have to “edit” them, we stated it explicitly, to avoid any misunderstandings. Because the texts within this book were taken from numerous authors and sources, and from very different periods in history, inconsistencies in spelling and grammar are to be expected. Some historians, for example, spell the Russian word for “king” as “tsar” and some as “czar.” Nevertheless, we did not touch any of the inconsistencies in order not to tarnish the accuracy of the quotes or the authenticity of the sources. Sincerely, the editor 7 Foreword: Why I Wrote This Book I am a researcher, a scientist, and a kabbalist. But first and foremost, I am a Jew. I grew up in the former Soviet Union, and the vast majority of my family perished in the Holocaust. I have witnessed and experienced firsthand the myriad faces of anti-Semitism, tacit and overt. I have family, friends, and thousands of students in North America, Israel, and all over the world, and I see the lurking menace of another world war and another cataclysm to the Jews. Particularly, I am very, very worried about the future of the Jews in America and Israel. I am worried about my students, I am worried about my friends, and I am worried about my family. It is this grave concern that has prompted me to write this book, a plea to all the people of my fold to wake up now while it is still possible to reverse the ominous trajectory, as the downfall is already underway. We Jews must act now since from here on, matters will only go downhill. The “Herald Syndrome” In ancient Athens, they would throw heralds who brought bad news into a pit where criminals condemned to death were thrown. In Sparta, they would cast them into a well and leave them to die.1 Luckily, today it is illegal to kill bearers of unpleasant news. Yet, the “herald syndrome” of rejecting the bearer of unwelcome news still has the upper hand over most 9 THE JEWISH CHOICE: UNITY OR ANTI-SEMITISM of us. The previous century has shown that in the case of Jews, denial can be deadly. If we want to live up to the motto “Never again!” the herald syndrome is not an option we should consider. On October 30, 2014, I landed in Los Angeles. It was the start of a two-week lecture tour in the US, discussing anti-Semitism and the need for Jewish unity in order to remedy it. This was not the first time, nor the second, that I spoke about anti-Semitism in the US. I had discussed it many times before, at least since my first lecture tour back in 2002, and I was always met with disbelief, smugness, and often with contempt. Moreover, by 2014, I did not have to warn about a future danger of rising anti-Semitism. It was rampant everywhere in Europe and had pervaded universities and campuses all over the US. That October 30th, the first day of my tour, I had an online conversation with Mrs. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, head of the AMCHA initiative to combat anti-Semitism in US colleges and universities. It was a poignant, candid dialog. Tammi was well aware of the deteriorating situation of Jewish students precisely because they were