I would have liked to join in but Parviz is doing quite a good job all by himself. Citizen k is also doing quite a good job defending his position even though he has to contradict himself (accusing Parviz of not reading the Talmud and then admitting that he had not read it either), inventing strawmen to distract from the discussion, and then getting nasty when none of that worked.

I do wonder what makes ck come out of lurkery and defend so vehemently his faith. every time Israel or Jewishness is discussed here out comes ck and JL. Is there some kind of spotlight that shines up from the blogosphere.... like the one Commissioner Gordon used to summon Batman in Gotham City?

all things considered I guess I have to go with catlady on this. bad people use religion for their own gain. that may not make religion bad by itself...surely there are peaceful non violent religions in the world. I don't think the aboriginal people in North America had conflicts with each other based on their beliefs in the supernatural. The Maya and the Aztec apparently did though. Religion fills a void that we create for ourselves, perhaps with easier access to knowledge we will neither create that void nor feel the need to fill it with fantasy.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 25 2007 12:21 utc | 201

Yup. Religion + testosterone.

[ducks out the door][slam!]

:)

Posted by: beq | Jul 25 2007 12:21 utc | 202

Parviz:

If the Jewish and Christian religions had never existed, do you think that a Holocaust would have been even remotely possible or even conceivable?

Yes. Absolutely.

From the Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin:

Tractate Sanhedrin is quite long - let's have a passage citation. Perhaps you could also give us the full title of the book in which you are finding this "quote".

Posted by: | Jul 25 2007 12:22 utc | 203

. Citizen k is also doing quite a good job defending his position even though he has to contradict himself (accusing Parviz of not reading the Talmud and then admitting that he had not read it either), inventing strawmen to distract from the discussion, and then getting nasty when none of that worked.

You need to look up the definition of "contradiction".

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 25 2007 12:24 utc | 204

perhaps there is a better word but what would you call it if you accuse someone of not reading something and saying what they state from that is false and then admitting that you had not read it?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 25 2007 12:46 utc | 205

Dan @205: I know enough about it to know that anyone who says he read it "cover to cover" is either a highly accomplished full time student of Talmud or a liar. And I've read enough of it to understand what a complex mix of things it is and to learn a little bit. Where is the problem?

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 25 2007 13:04 utc | 206

I do wonder what makes ck come out of lurkery and defend so vehemently his faith. every time Israel or Jewishness is discussed here out comes ck and JL

And to answer this question, I come here every now and then and often see the same bullshit about the horrible Jews. Seems to be a preoccupation here. Even Bernard's heartfelt meditation on the subject of Holocaust draws out nitwits who explain that by insisting on building too many Holocaust museums, the nasty Yids are forcing otherwise good people to hate 'em. Of course there are a few good jews, but I think RG's little poem spoke to that quite clearly.

Posted by: | Jul 25 2007 13:08 utc | 207

many things are discussed here by nitwits and deep thinkers alike. no one is given a free ride, whether it be republicans, democrats, greens, europeans, marxists or capitalists. you know that. this is however one and probably the only forum where discussions about Jewishness and Israel take place in a pretty damn civilized manner. Most everyone is past the Elders of Zion and global jewish conspiracy nonsense. There is no way that you can say that some Jews are not responsible for the state we (the US) are in right now. Since there are Jews who are making decisions that directly affect our lives then there is absolutely no reason why we should not discuss them.

all this crap about Holocaust and chosen people and conspiracy theories is used to obfuscate the issue. Why are you a champion for that?

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 25 2007 13:23 utc | 208

Mr AnonyMoshe, regarding your "Tractate Sanhedrin is quite long - let's have a passage citation. Perhaps you could also give us the full title of the book in which you are finding this "quote"."

certainly: The passage is from your Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin Chapter VII, translated by Dr. Freedman and edited by Rabbi Dr. Epstein (B.A., Ph.D., D. Lit.), and deals with the court of justice. This Tractate deals with methods of stoning, burning, strangulation and slaying, in full gory detail like the passage I quoted. The rest of the Talmud is so full of superstitious crap, arrogance, horror, gibberish and racism that if it were written today the writer would be either confined to a lunatic asylum or hauled before the court of human rights and sentenced to 10 years.

And Citizen K, as for your "I know enough about it to know that anyone who says he read it "cover to cover" is either a highly accomplished full time student of Talmud or a liar. And I've read enough of it to understand what a complex mix of things it is and to learn a little bit. Where is the problem?". The problem is that you assumed I was a liar, and not an accomplished full-time student, and even suggested these are the only 2 alternatives (another example of your logic). Actually I'm around 60 and read the Talmud, the Bible and the Koran from cover to cover during my lifetime, and am surprised that if a Muslim can take the trouble to study other scriptures the least you could do is to read your own damned scripture before "defending" it so vigorously!?!

If you want more juicy quotes (not "quotes" as AnonyMoshe so derisively suggested), I would be happy to oblige, but only next week as I am about to depart on an overseas trip. Better still, buy a copy and read it for yorselves. Learn the true nature of your 'religion' as I have done with yours and my own.

And please, no more knee-jerk reactions from either of you, lest it turn into a seizure.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 25 2007 13:52 utc | 209

And AnonyMoshe, when you refer to "nitwits who explain that by insisting on building too many Holocaust museums, the nasty Yids are forcing otherwise good people to hate 'em", what you're doing is simply denying that "one can have too much of a good thing", if you can understand the irony in that statement.

I am sick to death of Holocaust museums and memorials that outnumber other tragedies by a ratio of 1000:1 (Yes, that ratio was plucked out of the air, but you get the drift). I am equally disgusted by the overbearing presence of mosques in Europe, built by big fat Arab princes who don't allow Christians to bring even a Bible into their countries.

Of course, you will focus only on my statement concerning Holocaust memorials and totally ignore my continual, even-handed dismissal of all 3 major monotheistic religions. If you exhibit extremist tendencies don't blame others for reacting with similar extremism to your narrow, non-scientific, fanatically religious world view. And all because your I.D. carries the same stamp as your mother's. If you think with your birthright and not with your brain,then you contribute to ignorance and racism and should face the consequences.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 25 2007 14:03 utc | 210

Dan@208

I'm reacting to stuff like this:
I am disgusted at the thought of the Holocaust, but even more disgusted with the misuse of its memory. Jews have to realize that ramming the event down people's throats only breeds resentment.

When someone finds the advocacy of museums and demands on the part of some people for reparations to be more disgusting than the death camps, we have to suspect a little irrational animus is on display. When it is followed up by advice that we evaluate how many really did die in the camps and some remarks about the avaricious Jews counting their money, the suspicion turns to certainty.

"The Jews" in the US is a group that votes 70% democratic, includes current commentators and participants like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Eric Alterman, and Senator Fiengold, and the late lamented Paul Wellstone, and yet somehow it's AIPAC/Jewish-agenda/neo-con that is an obsession for some.

Posted by: | Jul 25 2007 14:09 utc | 211

Well, we really are going round in circles here: If my 6-year-old son steals money and, instead of spanking him, I force him to write that he is a thief every day for 10 years, I can guarantee that by age 16 he would be a rebel, a deviant and a professional thief.

If you keep ramming the Holocaust down everyone's throat every year for 60 years you can expect a HUUUUGE amount of resentment, even by normally unresentful people. And you act as if reparations by 'some' people are to be expected. Well, $ 150 billion from Germany and $ 1 trillion from U.S. tax-payers in direct and indirect payments would satisfy MOST people. Apparently, for SOME people the Holocaust is a huge cow to be milked at aeternam, and by doing so you are actually sullying its memory.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 25 2007 14:17 utc | 212

Parviz:

Do I care if they build a museum or memorial in Germany? No. Do I care if Germans pay reparations? No. Germany deserves to pay a lot more, but there is no justice on this planet. There are too many places that deserve reparations: The US should pay Iran for killing Mossadeq, the Belgians should all live in poverty wearing rags for 10 generations to pay back Congo, .... None of that will happen. I don't care.

Do I care if someone says that he is more disgusted by some group of people advocating additional Holocaust museums than he is by the Holocaust? Yes. Do I care if someone claims US taxpayer subsidy of Israel is due to whining about the Holocaust by "the Jews" ? Yes. Do I care if someone says that his resentment of the actions of some Jews makes him want to revise Holocaust history and justifies anti-semitism? Yes.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 25 2007 15:55 utc | 213

AIPAC/Jewish-agenda/neo-con that is an obsession for some

k you did indeed list a few names that are honorable men and women, I would include Jon Stewart as he has done more for political awareness than all those other folks combined. To counter balance those good decent people you have listed you have others like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Scooter Libby, Douglas Feith and Jonathan Pollard. Those people have a real impact on what happens in the US. I would also mention media ownership and control which according to my sources at the KKK include several members of Hebrew persuasion.

what most of us have come to realize is that certain forces determine our agendas and frame our debates. It certainly is not a Jewish conspiracy nor a Catholic nor even Baptist one. It is not only white guys and it is not only US. it is some but not all of them. There is a very disproportionate number of Jews in positions of power and influence in the US and Europe considering the numbers to be less than one percent of the total population. based on that many of us are curious as to how that came about. The Holocaust has been beat into our consciousness relentlessly. A week does not go by that it is discussed on teevee or radio. It is taught in our schools, it is a crime to question or deny it in several countries in Europe upon penalty of imprisionment. It is the cause of much tension in the middle east right now though there certainly would be problems even if all the Jews suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth due to the tremendous wealth found there.

of course it is important to you k, no one can deny that what happened in the camps was cruel beyond belief. but it is not unique and it will happen again. maybe not to the Jews but to others for sure.

Posted by: dan of steele | Jul 25 2007 15:55 utc | 214

Gotta go work. I will leave, however, with the great words of wisdom attributed to Diderot:

Mankind will never be truly free until the last cleric is strangled with the intestines of the last king.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 25 2007 15:58 utc | 215

memory, remembering remains the question & i'd suggest a book - 'the lost' by daniel mendelsohn

i find no dichotomy at all to remeber all the victims of the genocide of jews in europe & a strident opposition to the facts of the state of israel. indeed by advocationg for the rights of the palestinian people i am honouring the memories of the holocaust

but i think - b rasied a question - which had to do with what could be called operation procedures & the theatre of operations of genocide after the second world war - & i think we have strayed very far from the question

more b was very specific - in relation to the industrialisation of murder & how it is conducted & i don't think this question has been situated either by parviz or by citizen k

the question posed by steiner of how can a man who commits genocide by day listen to bach at nioght - is really inly part of the question

otherwise the criticism of ck by some here sails too close to anti-semitism. everyone knows here that there is a grand river that separates ck & myself but on this question - i feel very close

to take it further, to honour shtetl llfe which has dissapeared from the face of the earth because of nazism & its collaborators in the pale especially should remind us today of exactly how village life in iraq today has been totally extinguished by the invading u s armies & their collaborators in their criminal endeavour

& again b's question - of the industrialisation of murder - is pertinent

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jul 25 2007 15:58 utc | 216

There is a very disproportionate number of Jews in positions of power and influence in the US and Europe considering the numbers to be less than one percent of the total population. based on that many of us are curious as to how that came about

Are there? The jewish neo-cons are all second and third tier. Power is with Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld/Gates, etc. How many Jews at the top ranks of US power? None. Here's the list of 10 richest people in the World according to Forbes
1. William Gates III
2. Warren Buffett
3. Karl Albrecht
4. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
5. Paul Allen
6. Alice Walton
7. Helen Walton
8. Jim Walton
9. John Walton
10. S Robson Walton

but reasons for success are simple. The culture emphasizes learning and has learned to emphasize portable wealth. Jews are immigrants in every nation, and immigrants do better in a world economy. In fact, Palestinian Arabs run the Arab world now, for similar reasons.

You can imagine, however, that some of us, after 1000 years of Christian love and charity, are a little touchy when certain themes that have historically been associated with lynchings and pograms are voiced. As Kinky Friedman noted in his song about a bar fight, "they don't make Jews like Jesus anymore."

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 25 2007 16:08 utc | 217

The eagerness of the ruling elite to insist that there is only one genocide and only one that should ever be talked about is reflected in last week's Fisk column in the Independent called No wonder the bloggers are winning - Fisk really dislikes the blogosphere but that isn't the issue. Fisk decribes the machinations of the LA Times when one of their staff had the gall to refer to that incident in Armenia all those years ago as a genocide:

" First the Los Angeles Times. Last year, reporter Mark Arax was assigned a routine story on the 1915 genocide of one and a half million Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities. Arax's report focused on divisions within the local Jewish community over whether to call the genocide a genocide.

It's an old argument. The Turks insist - against all the facts and documents and eyewitness accounts, and against history - that the Armenians were victims of a civil war. The Israeli government and its new, Nobel prize-winning president, Shimon Peres - anxious to keep cosy relations with modern Turkey - have preferred to adopt Istanbul's mendacious version of events. However, many Jews, both inside and outside Israel, have bravely insisted that they do constitute a genocide, indeed the very precursor to the later Nazi Holocaust of six million Jews.

But Arax's genocide report was killed on the orders of managing editor Douglas Frantz because the reporter had a "position on the issue" and "a conflict of interest".

Readers will already have guessed that Arax is an Armenian-American. His sin, it seems, was that way back in 2005, he and five other writers wrote a formal memo to LA Times editors reminding them that the paper's style rules meant that the Armenian genocide was to be called just that - not "alleged genocide". Frantz, however, described the old memo as a "petition" and apparently accused Arax of landing the assignment by dealing with a Washington editor who was also an Armenian.

The story was reassigned to Washington reporter Rich Simon, who concentrated on Turkey's attempt to block Congress from recognising the Armenian slaughter -- and whose story ran under the headline "Genocide Resolution Still Far From Certain".

LA Times executives then went all coy, declining interviews, although Frantz admitted in a blog (of course) that he had "put a hold" on Arax's story because of concerns that the reporter "had expressed personal views about the topic in a public (sic) manner...". Ho ho. . . ."

I suspect that many who live in the black maw of amerikan culture have become too disconnected from other points of view to be able to objectively look at the all pervasive air of untouchable sanctity erected around the holocaust.

Sunday nights is the night when we (our little nuclear family) hang out together watching TV or a movie or talking after dinner. Mid-winter Sunday nights have the usual lowest common denominator TV pap. The best of the bad was a show called Numb3rs where it appears that xtian philosophy has so overtaken the FBI that the logical steps required for deductive thinking to solve a murder mystery can only be undertaken when overseen by a 'famous' professor of mathematics. Mere mortals having been brainwashed into illogicality I suppose.

A painting had been stolen, a Pissaro. Long story short it seemed that the picture was first stolen by Nazis and it resurfaced in the hands of a US serviceman who bought it in Europe in 1945. There had been a court case over the provenance put by a holocaust survivor. FBI have to interview survivor. Any even casual viewer of TV crime dramas knows that every character introduced is done so in a way that presents him/her as a possible suspect. However that notion was plainly not possible in this case as it may disturb the holiness of all holocaust survivors. So after introducing grandson to deflect the 'mystery' part of the plot onto, the FBI interview the survivor.

It seemed that they were approaching a messiah there so much bowing and scraping and reverence, yet all they knew about this woman was that a/ she reckoned the pic was hers (therefore should be considered a suspect) and b/she was a survivor. B obviously outweighed A. If the FBI approached all citizens in that manner that's fine, they should, but the clear implication from the show was that the horror that the woman had endured in the camps meant she was a martyr and beyond reproach.

Contrast the way that survivors of other horrors are handled on TV dramas nowadays where they are most often told to 'get over it' - their suffering doesn't give them the right for jackshit; much less an excuse to commit crime.

Taken in isolation the show was just another piece of dross but considered in context it is one piece of a huge mosaic of distortion and 'uniqueness' that makes all querying of even tangential issues such as the apartheid state of Israel, akin to blasphemy.

This state of affairs is not indicative of Jewish people running Hollywood. It is indicative of corporate capitalism using the atrocities committed during the holocaust as a bulwark for their fantastically distorted construct. A construct that is used to justify all manner of injustice committed to maximise the bottom line.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 26 2007 1:31 utc | 218

Debs:
It is a simple fact that being murdered or having your relatives murdered does not necessarily improve your moral purity - often times it does the opposite. In American culture, victims are privileged oddly - which is why we have these odd discussions about "closure" for relatives of murdered people who want to see the murderer electrocuted. And I'm not really disagreeing with you: I still recall my anger at Elie Weisel for his appeal to Reagan not to go to Bitberg, as if having the patron saint of the Salvadoran death squads visit a SS grave was anything but just more of the same. And I've experienced violent reactions from homophobic American Jews, when I explain that if the Nazis take power in America, they will want to put us in the same railroad cars as the gays. But I also draw your attention to the note above in which someone asks counter-factually why the perfidious horrible clannish selfish Yids can't spare a foot or two for the gypsies and the gay victims of the Nazis in their museum. Where does this lie come from and why does it have power to move people (after all, we never hear similar complaints about the Irish unwillingness to memorialize other victims of British oppression or ...) ? The answer is clear.

Posted by: citizen k | Jul 26 2007 2:41 utc | 219

Strange that you and Anonymouse

a) haven't apologized to me for having claimed that I hadn't read the Talmud,
b) haven't commented on the disgusting text I supplied as evidence of the gibberish and lunacy of that 'holy' book
c) continue to go off at a tangent by introducing matters totally unrelated to the Holocaust
d) still think that if Jews and Christians hadn't existed the Holocaust would nevertheless have occurred (I don't see how one non-existent religion can wipe out another non-existent religion, so please explain)
e) why some Jews (including yourselves) insist on sullying the memory of the Holocaust by fiercely ramming it down everyone's throats, and making a business of it (Finkelstein: "The Holocaust Industry") while Armenians, gypsies, red Indians and other genocidal victims try to move on from their own unimaginable sufferings.

Let me know when you've finished that grotesque religious treatise called the Talmud. I'm prepared to debate it with you anytime.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 26 2007 8:11 utc | 220

a) haven't apologized to me for having claimed that I hadn't read the Talmud,

Because you are obviously either a liar or too ignorant to realize that you have no idea what you are talking about. There are two Talmuds. They are both multi-volume. And yet you said you had read it "cover to cover."

Obviously you read some "readers digest" version, and your unwillingness to provide details shows that it was some unpleasant concoction.

So fuck off.

Posted by: | Jul 26 2007 11:40 utc | 221

Tut-Tut, language, young man. You've obviously lost it. I said from the very beginning that I had read the Babylonian Talmud from cover to cover, and my quote was from the Babylonian Talmud, so why don't you take your own advice, AnonyMoshe.

By the way, swearing is a sign of weakness. It's what cowards and bullies do when normal speech and logic fail them.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 26 2007 12:05 utc | 222

And, by the way, if you'd bothered to read your Wikipedia correctly you would have come across the following:

The process of "Gemara" proceeded in the two major centers of Jewish scholarship, Palestine and Babylonia. Correspondingly, two bodies of analysis developed, and two works of Talmud were created. The older compilation is called the Jerusalem Talmud or the Talmud Yerushalmi. It was compiled sometime during the fourth century in Israel. The Babylonian Talmud was compiled about the year 500 C.E., although it continued to be edited later. The word "Talmud", when used without qualification, usually refers to the Babylonian Talmud.

Some knowledgeable Jew you are ......... No wonder you have to resort to swearing.

Posted by: Parviz | Jul 26 2007 12:10 utc | 223