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What l00 Prophets could not accomplish...was accomplished by the ring of Achashveirosh...
This was sent to me by Shifra Hoffman. She sent me to
http://shuva.net/ which is a website that contains Nazi propaganda in America today. I personally saw original Nazi literature that was recently distributed on Capital Hill. It was picked up by my friend who simply picked up the literature that was being distributed. Amazing that no one on Capital Hill was stopping them from their "freedom of expression". Bayamim Hahem Bizman Hazeh. In those days in our times....
Let us not forget that Jewry, in Europe and in America were silent in pre Nazi Germany. Rabbinic Jewry in Eastern Europe discouraged Aliya because they strongly opposed the secular Zionist Movement. The majority of religious Jews went to the death camps rather than on Aliya. My husband is the son of a Holocaust survivor. (his mother ob"m was from Poland, miraculously survived the h-ll in the Warsaw Ghetto and the different concentration camps over the span of 5 or so years). My parents were from Czechoslovakia, also Holocaust Survivors. My Father ob"m lost his first family, his wife and daughter ob"m and my mother had it relatively "easy" with just one year or so in Auschwitz Labor camp. Many of her family members perished, like one sister who like too many were unfortunate to have been married with a baby. Mother and baby never had a chance....
My husband has a strong interest in history. Today, on Shabbos, he gave us a history lesson of the World Leaders in the time of WWII. He mentioned Chamberlain the appeaser and Churchill and Roosevelt who finally stood up to Hitler. I mentioned that Roosevelt did not do much to stop the flow of Jews to the Concentration camps. My husband added that in his defense, that American Jewry were Silent even after being approached by Hillel Kook a.k.a. Peter Bergson.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/HKook.html.
The Bergson Group tried their hardest to publicize the atrocities of Nazi Germany. There was much opposition to the Bergson Group.
Kook and his followers were widely opposed by large sections of the American public, particularly by many prominent American Zionist organizations. In December 1943, the American Jewish Conference launched a public attack against the Bergsonites in an attempt to derail support for the resolution. (Wyman 1984:202)
The British embassy and several American Zionist groups, including the American Jewish Committee and other political opponents sought to have Kook deported or drafted. (Wyman 184:346) They encouraged the IRS to investigate the Bergson groups finances in an attempt to discredit them, hoping to find misapropriation, or at least careless bookkeeping, of the large amount of funds the groups handled. The IRS found no financial irregularities. (Wyman 1984:346) Included in those trying to stop the Bergson Group's rescue activities were Steven Wise and Nachum Goldman (see the Wyman-Medoff book in References). A State Department protocol shows Nachum Goldman telling the State Department that Hillel Kook doesn't represent organized Jewry, and suggested either deporting him or drafting him for the war effort (See documents at end of the Wyman-Medoff book).
Did you know however that many Rabbanim including Rav Moshe Feinstein did actually protest. (It's something but one protest is nothing compared to the enormity of the atrocities).
The Day the Rabbis Marched
One of the Committee's more memorable activities was a protest Kook organized known as the Rabbis' March. The protest took place in Washington, D.C. on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. While the Bergson Group was largely secular, Kook successfully used his family's rabbinic heritage to convince between 400 and 500 Orthodox rabbis to attend. Among the participants were Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Eliezer Silver, president of the Va'ad Ha-Hatzala and co-president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States, Rabbi Mordechai Shlomo (sometimes recorded as Solomon Mordechai) Friedman, the Boyaner Rebbe of New York and president of the Union of Grand Rabbis of the United States, Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz, rabbinical dean of the Mir Yeshiva, Rabbi Naftali Carlebach, father of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg and his father, Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Hertzberg. The Lubavitcher dynasty was conspicuously absent as was Conservative and Reform Jewry.
Joined by Bergson Group activists, the Jewish War Veterans of America, and a number of prominent members of Congress including William Warren Barbour, the protesters marched on the United States Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, and White House, pleading for U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews in Europe. Though the delegation was reluctantly received by Vice-President Henry Wallace, Franklin Roosevelt avoided them entirely, both out of concerns regarding diplomatic neutrality, but also influenced by the advice of some of his Jewish aides and several prominent American Jewish spokespeople (including Dr. Stephen Wise), who thought the protest would stir up anti-Semitism and claimed that the marchers, many whom were both Orthodox as well as recent immigrants (or first-generation Americans) were not representative of American Jewry. Shortly before the protest reached the White House, FDR left the building through a rear exit to attend an Army ceremony, and then left for a weekend in the country. Disappointed and angered by the President's failure to meet with them, the rabbis stood in front of the White House where they were met by Barbour and others, and refused to read their petition aloud, instead handing it off to the Presidential secretary, Marvin McIntyre. The march garnered much media attention, much of it focused on what was seen as the cold and insulting dismissal of many important community leaders, as well as the people in Europe they were fighting for. One Jewish newspaper commented, "Would a similar delegation of 500 Catholic priests have been thus treated?" [1]
For your own viewing of Nazi Propaganda happening today please view
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4452153918748081072&q=Zionism+and+Christianity%3A+Unholy+Alliance
This will be posted on my blog Shemittah Rediscovered
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