#Nazi | Political Leaders

[xtruss]

The Top-Secret World War II Mission That Killed Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., The Heir Apparent To The Political Dynasty

In August 1944, the Older Brother of Robert and John F. Kennedy Died While Piloting a Drone Aircraft over England, Leaving His Younger Siblings to Fulfill Their Father’s Dreams

— Meilan Solly, Senior Associate Digital Editor, History

L to R: John F. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. and Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in London in 1937 Keystone / Getty Images

By all accounts, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr.’s war should have been over.

As Allied forces advanced on the Western Front in the summer of 1944, the Navy lieutenant completed his 50th mission—twice the number required to fulfill a tour of duty abroad. Instead of returning home to the United States, however, he volunteered for a top-secret operation named after Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty.

“I am going to do something different for the next three weeks,” Joe Jr. wrote in a letter to his parents. “It is secret and I am not allowed to say what it is, but it isn’t dangerous, so don’t worry.” Somewhat wary in his response to his eldest son, the lieutenant’s father, former Ambassador to the United Kingdom Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., advised, “I can quite understand how you feel about staying there … but don’t force your luck too much.”

Three days after Joe Sr. wrote his reply, the hollowed-out aircraft carrying Joe Jr. and his co-pilot exploded over England, killing both men. The mission represented a fatal failure for Operation Aphrodite, which sought to transform battle-worn bombers into uncrewed, radio-controlled missiles—in essence, early drones.

The last known photograph of Joe Jr., taken on the day of his death, August 12, 1944. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Joe Jr. in uniform. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

On a more personal level, Joe Jr.’s death at age 29 dealt a staggering blow to his father’s grand dreams for the future. Groomed for the presidency since his birth, Joe Jr. had served as a delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention, with plans to run for Congress after the war. Upon hearing the news of his brother’s demise, John F. Kennedy, the family’s second-oldest son, reportedly remarked, “Now the burden falls on me.”

Previously “considered too ‘sloppy,’ fun-loving and physically unhealthy” for a career in politics, in the words of the London Times, John secured seats in the House of Representative and the Senate before narrowly winning the 1960 presidential election, becoming the first Irish Catholic commander in chief and the youngest person elected to the nation’s highest office to date.

“Just as I went into politics because Joe died,” John later said in an eerily prescient remark, “if anything happened to me tomorrow, my brother Bobby would run. … And if Bobby died, Teddy would take over for him.”

Born on July 25, 1915, Joe Jr. was the first child of Joe Sr., a wealthy businessman and prominent Massachusetts politician, and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, the daughter of a Boston mayor. The oldest of nine, Joe Jr. bore “a certain forcefulness of character that marked him as a natural leader” even in his youth, wrote Rose in her memoir. His younger siblings looked up to him, and he, in turn, set a strong example for them by excelling in school and sports. Still, Rose recalled, Joe Jr. “got into his share of mischief,” particularly when partnered with John, who was two years his junior. In 1923, the brothers wrote a song about bedbugs and cooties and started a club with a steep entry fee: To be initiated into the organization, new members had to consent to getting stuck with pins.

L to R: Joe Jr., Kathleen Kennedy, Rosemary Kennedy and John in Cohasset, Massachusetts, circa 1926 or 1927 © John F. Kennedy Library Foundation / Kennedy Family Collection/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

Both Joe Jr. and John attended Choate, a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut. There, Joe Jr. played football and edited the student yearbook. Before enrolling at Harvard University, his father’s alma mater, he spent the 1933 to 1934 school year studying under Jewish political scientist Harold Laski at the London School of Economics.

Joe Jr.’s time in Europe coincided with the rise of Adolf Hitler; when he visited Germany, he learned about the Nazis’ forced sterilization program—a policy he praised for doing “away with many of the disgusting specimens of men which inhabit this earth.” According to historian Kate Clifford Larson, Joe Jr. “held quite conservative views about the disabled,” a stance that was surprising given his close relationship with his younger sister Rosemary Kennedy, who had intellectual disabilities. Despite Joe Jr.’s similarly respectful attitude toward Laski, he also espoused antisemitic sentiment, claiming that Hitler had offered the “scattered, despondent and … divorced from hope” Germans a common enemy. “It was excellent psychology, and it was too bad that it had to be done to the Jews,” Joe Jr. wrote to his father. “This dislike of Jews, however, was well founded.”

Joe Jr. graduated from Harvard in 1938, then joined his family in London, where his father was serving as the U.S. ambassador. In February 1939, the 23-year-old traveled to Madrid, arriving soon after a shelling by insurgents fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Not dispatched on official business, he was “just looking around,” Joe Sr. told the Associated Press, adding, “His mother will die when she hears he is in Madrid.”

The Kennedy family at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in 1931. Joe Jr. is in the back row at right. Richard Sears/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum

The following year, Joe Jr. made headlines as a DNC delegate who pledged to vote for Postmaster General James Farley over incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt. Under pressure to switch his allegiance to the president, particularly as the son of an ambassador appointed by Roosevelt, he remained steadfast in his choice, believing that no commander in chief should be allowed to serve three terms. The burgeoning politician’s conduct at the convention won him the admiration of prominent attendees, one of whom told Joe Sr. that his son “seemed to gain the respect of everybody there,” adding, “I am sure he can have a political future if he wants one.”

Though Joe Jr. returned to Harvard for law school, he ultimately decided to enlist in the Navy as a pilot in June 1941 instead of finishing his degree. Prompted in part by his father’s staunch opposition to the U.S.’s entry into World War II—a scenario that seemed increasingly likely in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor—he defended his decision in a letter to Joe Sr.: “With your stand on the war, … people will wonder what the devil I am doing back at school with everyone else working for national defense.” John soon followed in his older brother’s footsteps, relying on his family connections to secure a position in the Naval Reserve, despite back issues that would normally have barred him from serving. When the U.S. finally joined the war in December 1941, both brothers were partway through naval training.

“Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. to Get Naval ‘Wings’ Today as Dad Looks On,” read a May 5, 1942, headline in the Boston Globe. The title telegraphed the family dynamics at play, underscoring the pressure placed on Joe Jr. by his father, whose presence and influence loomed large. Adding to the weight of Joe Sr.’s expectations was the surprising military success of John, who received a promotion to lieutenant and command of his own boat by the end of 1942. As his younger brother led a squadron patrolling for Japanese ships in the Solomon Islands, Joe Jr. was relegated to a naval air base in Virginia, where he launched lower-risk patrols in search of German U-boats.

Joe Jr. on the campus of Harvard University in 1938 Bettmann via Getty Images

On the night of August 1, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed into John’s boat, PT-109, knocking its crew into the water and ripping the starboard side clean off. Then 26 years old, Kennedy exhibited great bravery during the incident, leading the 11 surviving sailors to a nearby island before swimming, sometimes solo, to neighboring islands in search of food and aid.

The press, the Navy, and friends and family alike praised John as a hero. But while Joe Jr. was certainly glad that his younger brother had escaped death, he felt overshadowed and was eager to prove himself. “Colleagues commented later on his intense preoccupation with putting himself in harm’s way, and thus on the path to publicly recognized heroism,” wrote Edward J. Renehan Jr. in The Kennedys at War: 1937-1945. As fellow pilot Louis Papas later recalled, “There was never an occasion for a mission that meant extra hazard that Joe did not volunteer. He had everybody’s unlimited admiration and respect for his courage, zeal and willingness to undertake the most dangerous missions.”

Sent to Great Britain in September 1943, Joe Jr. spent the next several months flying patrols over the Atlantic, the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, piloting PB4Y Liberator bombers on anti-submarine details. By May 1944, he’d flown the 25 missions required for reassignment to the U.S., losing his co-pilot and numerous colleagues to enemy anti-aircraft fire in the process. Though he had permission to return home, he opted to stay in the fight. As he told his parents in mid-June, “I now have 39 missions and will probably have 50 by the time I leave. It is far more than anyone else on the base, but it doesn’t prove a hell of a lot.”

John (left) and Joe Jr. in their naval uniforms Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In the summer of 1944, Joe Jr. volunteered first for Operation Cork, an air patrol connected to the Allied invasion of France, and then for Operation Aphrodite and its Navy counterpart, Operation Anvil. The top-secret project was aimed at taking down the Nazis’ steel-reinforced concrete bunkers in occupied France, from which the Germans were launching their devastating V-1 cruise missiles and V-2 ballistic missiles. Uncrewed, gyro-controlled jets packed with explosives, the projectiles offered a low-risk way of terrorizing the British from afar.

Commander James Doolittle, of the Army’s Eighth Air Force, suggested converting war-weary bombers into pilotless missiles. “Control and autopilot technology [were] sufficiently immature to make the … program incredibly risky, but the perceived benefits justified the potential costs,” wrote Roger Connor, a curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, in a 2014 blog post. Though the bombers were remote-controlled, they required a two-person crew to get the aircraft off the ground and ensure it stayed on course.

When Joe Jr. heard about the operation, he readily volunteered for it. According to an account by a fellow officer, the lieutenant, “regarded as an experienced Patrol Plane Commander and … an expert in radio control projects,” was tasked with piloting “a ‘drone’ Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives into the air and [staying] with it until two ‘mother’ planes had achieved complete radio control over the ‘drone.’” After completing this transfer of control, Joe Jr. and co-pilot Wilford J. Willy were supposed to bail out over England, parachuting to safety as the plane continued on to the V-1 bunkers.

The motley group of Allied aircraft needed for the mission—among them a Mosquito carrying the president’s second-oldest son, Elliott Roosevelt, who was tasked with capturing the flight on film—took off from a Royal Air Force base shortly after 6 p.m. on August 12, 1944. Eighteen minutes into the mission, Joe Jr. shared a message over the radio: “Spade Flush,” the code phrase for the bomber to be handed off to the mother ship. At approximately 6:20 p.m., as Joe Jr. and Willy awaited the signal to bail out, two explosions rocked the plane, killing the pilots and nearly destroying the other aircraft in the formation. The pair’s bodies were never found.

The accident was “the biggest explosion I ever saw until the pictures of the atom bomb,” a pilot on board the mother ship said. No one on the ground was hurt, but debris from the wreck rained down on the English countryside, with one local witnessing an “enormous black pall of smoke resembling a huge octopus, the tentacles below indicating the earthward paths of burning fragments.” The cause of the disaster was never identified, but mechanical failure was a leading theory.

Operation Aphrodite continued through January 1945, with little success. In recognition of the pilots’ sacrifice, the government awarded Joe Jr. and Willy the Navy Cross, the second-highest military decoration. John, meanwhile, won the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, the highest non-combat award for heroism, for his actions aboard PT-109.

Joe Jr. sitting in an aircraft during training in 1941 Bettmann via Getty Images

John and his wife, Jackie Kennedy, watch a boat race while on board the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a destroyer named in Joe Jr.'s honor Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The Kennedys deeply mourned Joe Jr.’s death. With no body to bury and scant details of his final moments (the mission remained classified until after the war), the family commemorated their eldest son with a privately published book titled As We Remember Joe. In the text, John—now the heir apparent—wrote:

It may be felt, perhaps, that Joe should not have pushed his luck so far and should have accepted his leave and come home. But two facts must be borne in mind. First, at the time of his death, he had completed probably more combat missions in heavy bombers than any other pilot of his rank in the Navy and therefore was preeminently qualified, and secondly, as he told a friend early in August, he considered the odds at least 50-50, and Joe never asked for any better odds than that.

Despite the grief he felt over Joe Jr.’s death, Joe Sr. remained resolute in his ambitions for his family. “We’ve got to carry on,” he told his wife. “We must take care of the living. There is a lot of work to be done.” According to legend, Joe Sr. called John into a meeting, where he announced that the younger son would take his brother’s place as the family’s representative on the national stage. “It was like being drafted,” the future president later said. “My father wanted his oldest son in politics. ‘Wanted’ isn’t the right word. He demanded it. You know my father.”

Joe Jr., for his part, had seemingly predicted how events would play out in the event of his death. In a letter written just before his enlistment in the Navy, he wryly commented, “It seems that Jack is perfectly capable to do everything, if by chance anything happened to me.”

— 12 August 2022

[maythesharkyy]

The symbol for anarchy is now considered a domestic terrorist symbol by the fbi.

Acab is now considered a terrorist phrase by the fbi.

Everything pictured below is considered violent extremist terms

Note there's nothing against the swastika. Note that the richest man on the planet and one of our highest ranking government officials did the Nazi salute TWICE during the inauguration.

We live in a fascist country.

[cavenewstimes]

The Danger of Mass Conformity: Lessons from History and Today

Introduction Throughout history, societies have been led astray by charismatic leaders, dangerous ideologies, and mass conformity. The idea that “the majority is always right” has proven to be a fallacy in some of the darkest moments in human history. From Nazi Germany to Stalinist Russia, and from Mussolini’s Italy to modern political movements, the masses have often been manipulated into…

[jayeltontoro]

Maybe its my age that makes all the parallels between this and 1930's Germany so fucking evident.

My parents both lived through WWII , 8 family members dead in the fighting, one uncle was with the first troops liberating a NAZI death camp.

And living in belgium, as school children we were all taken to a preserved concentration camp dating from the NAZI occupation, -shown how it worked, who was killed there, what the methods of torture were and... the racial purity screening tools (Jew identifiers) including nose measuring calipers and fucking phrenology charts. After that tour of that lesser hell we were warned - it is your duty in a democracy to vote knowing this is what happens when you neglect your duty.

SO pretty fucking discouraged to hear donald trump liberally lifting from Adolf Hitlers speeches in his inauguration speech... Manifest Destiny... My struggle ('Mein Kampf' - fucking literally!!!)... with expansionist shit... annexing parts of the world 'that should be ours really' ... renaming things in 'racial purity' mode...

this is the fucking nazi party ... and the elonia's 'joseph goebbels style' warm up... to a fucking literal NAZI sieg heil not once, but twice.

The US of A just did a 1933 Germany on itself, and demands the world burn for the sins of its oligarchs.

[pinkfey]

i often think about how liberals water down leftist terminology to make it more palatable for conservatives. “abolish the police” became “defund the police” and both historically and now “from the river to the sea, palestine will be free” is too “radical” of a statement because it leaves no room for their two-state solution.

[widgenstain]

One thing that annoys/confuses me about biopics is that for some reason we always need to look at "heroes". Came from nothing, gained influence, faced hardships, prevailed and was a hero in the end. Why not focus more on how people are heroes until they get actual power, which then more or less slowly corrupts them? This has happened way more often in real life, is more historically accurate with most biographies anyway and makes for a much more interesting narrative too imho.

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

.

[wisdom-and-such]

People and Leader

(1942)

Our time, I said in 1927, wishes to be rid of the teacher in every realm. It believes it can manage with the leader alone. That is understandable. In an hour in which an enormous amount depends upon the independence and superiority of the spirit, those "spiritual men' who, without knowing what they are doing, have made the spirit into a clever and obedient little dog that retrieves ideologies for the existing powers that fling words to him, have contributed to the discrediting of the spirit, and of its guiding function in life.

Other and deeper forces have co-operated in this. The result is not merely what took place even earlier at times that the official politics of states proclaimed their independence of the spirit. Inner movements and groupings of the life of peoples also declare themselves free from the spirit; indeed, they glimpse their guarantee of success in their independence of it. And they are not entirely wrong. Leading without teaching is successful: one attains something. Only this something that one attains is something entirely different from, and at times a direct caricature of, what one actually wanted to attain. What then? As long as the goal was a pure goal, longing and hope rules; but when in the "attainment" the goal is transformed what then? Certainly the people that has no leader is unfortunate: but thrice as unfortunate is the people whose leader has no teacher.'

— Martin Buber

[tahyirasavanna]

The Astrology of Adolf Hitler

There have been many theories concerning the use of magick and the Nazi Reich, and even a possible astrological advisor of Hitler’s inner circle guiding their plans. Certain buildings and complexes were built for the specific purpose of occult practices within the SS. And in like kind, today we will explore the astrology chart of Adolf Hitler and his energetic impact on the world. Adolf Hitler…

[hi-hows-it-going]

*boo hoo they don’t respect me*

*does nazi salute*

Uh huh yeah normal person behavior keep it up Elon 👍

what do you mean elon musk did a nazi salute on live tv at the united states presidential inauguration twice and is now erasing the evidence off the internet by replacing the footage with the crowd cheering instead?

would be a shame if people reblogged this, wouldn’t it?

[creature-wizard]

Check your conspiracy theory. Does it sound anything like this?

There is an ancient global conspiracy plotting to create a one world government.

The one world government will be headed by a single leader.

The conspiracy intends to make everyone follow a religion it created.

The conspiracy is trying to destroy all true religion/spirituality.

The conspiracy deliberately stirs up conflict and starts wars.

The conspiracy deliberately does whatever it can to confuse, exhaust, and demoralize the people.

The conspiracy creates and/or manipulates art and entertainment to control and brainwash the masses.

The conspiracy uses mind-altering substances to manipulate and control people.

Progressive policies (EG, religious tolerance, equality) are part of the conspiracy.

Communism and collectivism are part of the conspiracy.

The conspiracy manipulates the economy to our detriment.

The conspiracy wants to do away with the gold standard.

The conspiracy wants to do away with the free market.

The conspiracy intends to tax the rich, which is bad because taxes are just legal theft.

Teaching people about the mistakes and atrocities committed by governments is part of the conspiracy.

The conspiracy creates new religions and spiritual movements to further their agendas.

All secret societies (EG, Freemasonry) are part of the conspiracy.

Presidents are manipulated puppets of the conspiracy.

The conspiracy manipulates anyone with a high political position.

The conspiracy grooms world leaders.

Agents of the conspiracy are planted everywhere, in all levels of society.

The conspiracy kills anyone who might expose their plans in ways that no one would suspect are actually murder.

The conspiracy follows/uses the Kabbalah.

Literally all of these were claimed in The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, an antisemitic hoax used by the Okhrana to justify violence against Russian Jews. It was used by Nazi Germany to justify the Holocaust, and today it still serves as the blueprint for most conspiracy theories - even if modern conspiracy theorists try to hide it, downplay it, or rationalize it with another, equally absurd conspiracy theory.

[drowndrawn]

Lula compares Israel's attacks on Palestinians in Gaza to Hitler's killing of Jews

Brazilian president Lula (PT) stated this Sunday 18th that what is happening in the Gaza Strip is not a war, but a genocide, and compared Israel's action to that of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler against the Jews.

“What is happening in the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people does not exist at any other historical moment. In fact, it exists. When Hitler decided to kill the Jews,” he said.

Asked about the Brazilian government's decision to be the new donor to the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, Lula criticized the leaders of the countries that decided to suspend contributions. “When I see the rich world announce that it is stopping contributing to the humanitarian issue for the Palestinians, I wonder how much political awareness these people have?”, he said. “And how big is the heart of solidarity of these people who cannot see that in the Gaza Strip there is not a war happening, but a genocide?”

The president also questioned: “Who will help rebuild those houses that were destroyed? Who will repay the lives of 30 thousand people who have already died? 170 thousand who are injured. Who will give back the lives of children who died without knowing why they were dying? Is this enough to disturb the humanitarian sense of the planet’s political leaders?”

“It is not a war between soldiers and soldiers. It is a war between a highly prepared Army and women and children. Look, if there was an error in that institution that collects the money, find out who made the mistake. But do not suspend humanitarian aid for the people who have been trying to build their state for decades”, concluded Lula.

I'm actually quite proud of having voted for him. He was bold, Brazilian's newspapers are roasting him for saying the TRUTH, but is this kind of boldness that we need right now.

[highlights-of-the-lowlife]

i desperately need people to understand how fascism started because i am seeing many on the left gleefully walk assbackwards into goosestepping.

fascism did not start out as a far right ideology even though that is the endpoint. in order to gain power, there was a deliberate false synthesis of left and right populist ideals in order to gain a wide base from people upset with the political status quo. this is why the nazis were called national socialists. because they stole rhetoric and language from socialist movements and twisted them to their own ends.

this is why average people supported the nazis. not because they were stupid or incredibly bigoted but because the nazi party promised we will provide just as soon as we deal with the Bad People. however once nazi control was assured, the entire left wing of the party were purged. Gregor Strasser who was the leader of the left wing was assassinated in the night of the long knives.

his whole political ideology was nazism but anti capitalist. pro trade union, anti banker, pro wealth redistrubution, pro socialised housing and medicine. all of which ended in them being slughtered when they were no longer necessary. these people existed and were the useful idiots that aided in hitler taking full power.

you need to pay attention to who is saying what and why. easy answers, scapegoating, portraying whoever the outgroup of the moment as being behind every ill in the world, surface level anticapitalism and anticolonialism, reactionary leanings in problem solving. anything to get you to point at a group and declare them they enemy.

this is why you need to learn history, pay attention to the sources you get your information from and what narrative they are trying to weave out of the situation.

[unsolicited-opinions]

Leftist antisemitism is a symptom - American Jews and the Illiberal Left

TLDR: I think we would be wise to stop regarding leftist antisemitism only in its own context and habitually recognize it is a part of a larger issue, the rise of the illiberal left.

Why are Jews are the most reliable supporters of Liberal policies and politicians in modern American history?

Haviv Rettig Gur seems to suggest that Jews in the US, recognizing that Liberal values resulted in their (imperfect but historic) emancipation in the US, became perhaps the most Liberal people ever. They understood that US Liberal values were what made Jews relatively safe in the US, and offered them opportunities which had been denied to them everywhere else.

When previously did a head of state speak to Jews the way George Washington did?

Gur suggests that this is why American Jews have historically been so invested in the struggle of black folks in the US. When I say invested, I'm talking about facts like these:

- Henry Moscowitz was one of the founders of the NAACP.

- Kivie Kaplan, a vice-chairman of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called the Union for Reform Judaism), served as the national president of the NAACP from 1966 to 1975.

- From 1910 to 1940, more than 2,000 primary and secondary schools and 20 Black colleges (including Howard, Dillard and Fisk universities) were established in whole or in part by contributions from Jewish philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. At the height of the so-called "Rosenwald schools," nearly 40 percent of Black people in the south were educated at one of these institutions.

- Jews made up half of the young people who participated in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964.

- Leaders of the Reform Movement were arrested with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in St. Augustine, Florida in 1964 after a challenge to racial segregation in public accommodations.

- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marched arm-in-arm with Dr. King in his 1965 March on Selma.

- The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were drafted in the conference room of Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, under the aegis of the Leadership Conference, which for decades was located in the RAC's building.

When I was a child and asked my mother why Jews seemed overwhelmingly to be Democrats, I was told "because of FDR and the Civil Rights movement." That's not wrong, in Gur's framing, but perhaps a more shallow response than the question deserves.

In Gur's framing, US Jews realized that the promises of Liberalism, over and over, no matter how much they delivered for other peoples, did not deliver for black Americans.

Gur suggests that US Jews worked to see that change for their black co-citizens because if American Liberalism didn't deliver for black Americans what it appeared to promise to all Americans, the sense of safety, security, and belonging which Jews felt in the US was an illusion.

US Jews believed that we had common cause with non-Jewish American Liberals. We thought non-Jewish liberals believed what we believed about universal civil rights, pluralism, enlightenment values and enlightenment reason. When Jews saw the "In this House We Believe" signs on our neighbors' lawns, We felt comforted because those beliefs are also our beliefs.

We thought, for instance, that our non-Jewish friends agreed that Liberal democracies were better for human rights than any form of government in the history of human societies. We thought they agreed that religious, racial, and ethnic intolerance were social ills which needed to be fought with information. We thought they valued data, reason, and reliable sources.

Since 10/7/23, we've been learning that we were mistaken. We've seen gentiles who we thought shared our values seem to discard those values.

We saw college educated friends share antisemitic (and alarmingly familiar) conspiracy theories about Israeli puppetry of US politics and the return of Nazi and Soviet antisemitic slogans/images.

We've seen highly educated "Liberals" preach ahistoric nonsense denying that the Jewish people are from the Levant and willfully ignoring the huge swaths of historical fact which don't support their favored narrative.

We've seen friends rage against "globalists" and "Zionists," when what they mean is 'Jews'.

We've seen people who we thought were allies against all forms of racism justify their racism towards Jews as righteous through specious reasoning like 'I don't hate Jews, just the 97% of Jews who believe that Jews should have self-determination in their homeland.'

We've been told that we cannot ask them to temper their use of antisemitic tropes, because doing so "weaponizes" concerns about antisemitism to obstruct them from their righteous crusade against the most evil nation on earth...which happens to be the only Jewish nation.

Despite this, about 80% of Jewish voters voted for Harris over Trump.

I think US Jews will continue to be Liberals, because Liberal values are dear to us and aligned with our values as Jews, as a historically oppressed minority, and as Americans who see more clearly than some others the gap between the promise of American liberalism and its long-delayed universal delivery.

The problem, I think, is in how many of our former friends simply aren't Liberals any longer.

I think Jews in the US need to spend a good deal more time scrutinizing the illiberal left.

Nine days after the attacks of 10/7/23, Jonathan Chait wrote:

Writers like Michelle Goldberg, Julia Ioffe, and my colleague Eric Levitz, all of whom rank among the writers I most admire, have written anguished columns about the alienation of Jewish progressives from the far left. I think all their points are totally correct. But I find the frame of their response too narrow. They are treating apologias for Hamas as a factually or logically flawed application of left-wing ideals. I believe, to the contrary, that Hamas defenders are applying their own principles correctly. The problem is the principles themselves.

...

Liberals believe political rights are universal. Basic principles like democracy, free speech, and human rights apply equally to all people, without regard to the content of their political values. (This of course very much includes Palestinians, who deserve the same rights as Jews or any other people, and whose humanity is habitually ignored by Israeli conservatives and their American allies.) A liberal would abhor the use of political violence or repression, however evil the targets.

...

The illiberal left believes treating everybody equally, when the power is so unequal, merely serves to maintain existing structures of power. It follows from their critique that the legitimacy of a tactic can only be assessed with reference to whether it is being used by the oppressor or the oppressed. Is it okay for, say, a mob of protesters to shout down a lecture? Liberals would say no. Illiberal leftists would need to know who was the speaker and who was the mob before they could answer.

...

One observation I’ve shared with many analysts well to my left is that the debate over this illiberalism and the social norms it has spawned — demands for deference in the name of allyship, describing opposing ideas as a form of harm, and so on — has tracked an older debate within the left over communism. Communism provided real-world evidence of how an ideology that denies political rights to anybody deemed to be the oppressor laid the theoretical groundwork for repression and murder.

There have been conscious echoes of this old divide in the current dispute over Hamas. The left-wing historian Gabriel Winant has a column in Dissent urging progressives not to mourn dead Israeli civilians because that sentiment will be used to advance the Zionist project. Winant sounds eerily like an old communist fellow traveler explaining that the murders of the kulaks or the Hungarian nationalists are the necessary price of defending the revolution. “The impulse, repeatedly called ‘humane’ over the past week, to find peace by acknowledging equally the losses on all sides rests on a fantasy that mourning can be depoliticized,” he argues, calling such soft-minded sentiment “a new Red Scare.” Making the perfect omelette always requires some broken eggs in the form of innocent people who made the historical error of belonging to, or perhaps being born into, an enemy class.

But more than three decades have passed since the Soviet Union existed or China’s government was recognizably Marxist. And so the liberal warning about the threat of left-wing illiberalism seemed abstract and bloodless. On October 7, it suddenly became bloody and concrete. It didn’t happen here, of course. The shock of it was that many leftists revealed just how far they would be willing to follow their principles. “People have repeated over and over again over the last few days that you ‘cannot tell Palestinians how to resist,’” notes (without contradicting the sentiment) Arielle Angel, editor-in-chief of the left-wing Jewish Currents. Concepts like this, treating the self-appointed representative of any oppressed group as beyond criticism, are banal on the left. Yet for some progressive Jews, it is shocking to see it extended to the slaughter of babies, even though that is its logical endpoint. The radical rhetoric of decolonization, with its glaring absence of any limiting principles, was not just a rhetorical cover to bully some hapless school administrator into changing the curriculum. Phrases like “by any means necessary” were not just figures of speech. Any means included any means, very much including murder.

Both Julia Ioffe and Eric Levitz have pointed out that decolonization logic ignores the fact that half of Israel’s Jewish population does not have European origins and came to Israel after suffering the same ethnic cleansing as the Palestinians. This is correct. But what if it weren’t? If every Israeli Jew descended from Ashkenazi stock, would it be okay to shoot their babies?

The problem is much greater than leftist antisemitism. The illiberal left has become nearly as great a threat to Liberalism as the far right.

It is often the case that a movement’s treatment of Jews serves as a broader indicator of its health. It’s not an accident that the Republican Party has become more attractive to antisemites as it has grown more paranoid and authoritarian. What the far left revealed about its disposition toward Jews is not just a warning for the Jews but a warning for all progressives who care about democracy and humanity. The pro-Hamas left is not merely indicating an indifference toward Jews. It is revealing the illiberal left’s inherent cruelty, repression, and inhumanity.

I'm annoyed that it is has taken me so long to catch on and alarmed by the implications.

I am, however, very proud of my 14yo, who sums up her experience trying to respectfully disagree with leftists this way:

"They're allergic to nuance."

[wilwheaton]

If our historical enemies—from the Nazis to the denizens of the Kremlin—sat down to enumerate the sources of American strength they wished to destroy—domestically and internationally, socially, economically, politically, and militarily—their list of targets would match perfectly with the Trump-MAGA agenda. That is why—as demented and disqualifying as Trump’s latest rant should be, as much as he should be the target of unceasing public opprobrium—the real problem is not the leader, but the movement. The greatest threat America faces today is from tens of millions of our own neighbors, friends, and family members who are willing to see the future of our country put in grave jeopardy for reasons of ignorance, anger, and greed. In other words, as outrageous as Trump’s comments were this past weekend, what is most shocking about them is that they have not and will not result in his immediate rejection by the members of his party. And, therefore, the goal in November must not be just to defeat Trump but to decisively defeat—and thereby begin to destroy—the entire MAGA GOP movement.

Trump Is Telling Us He’s an Enemy of the American People

[spacelazarwolf]

before yom hashoah ends, i want to remind folks that sephardi, maghrebi, and mizrahi jews were also deeply affected by the holocaust.

this is by no means inclusive of all communities who were affected by the holocaust and its aftermath, i do not have the emotional bandwidth for that, but hopefully this gives you some insight into jewish experiences outside of what's usually talked about.

the jews of morocco, algeria, tunisia, libya, and italy were all subjected to the racial laws of the vichy regime or fascist italy, which prevented them from attending educational institutions, holding public office, and owning businesses and sometimes property. moroccan jews were protected from some of the violence faced by other jews of the mediterranean and north africa because of the moroccan sultan mohammed ben youssef, who was vocally opposed to the anti jewish laws. he reportedly told the vichy government, "there are no jews in morocco. there are only moroccan subjects." he believed he had a god-given responsibility to protect moroccan jews. "moroccan jews are my subjects, and it is my duty to protect them against aggression."

unfortunately, other jewish communities did not receive that kind of protection. algerian jews faced a pogrom by the local arab population in constantine, killing 25 and destroying several jewish homes and businesses. 2000 algerian jews were sent to concentration camps in bedeau and djelfa, where many died from hunger, exhaustion, disease, or beatings. 5000 tunisian jews were forced into labor and detention camps where over 400 of them were killed. in libya, there was a violent pogrom which killed 500 jews out of a community of 4000. 2600 of the survivors were sent to the giado concentration camp, of which 526 died. in tunisia, there was a violent pogrom which killed over 130 jews (including 36 children), injured hundreds, and left 4000 homeless. italian jews faced pogroms, the jewish ghetto in rome was raided and over a thousand jews were detained and sent to concentration camps. a total of 7680 italian jews out of a population of nearly 45,000 were killed.

in greece, thousands of jews were deported to auschwitz. as many as 50% died en route, and only 10,000 out of over 75,000 survived, a nearly 90% death rate. their homes were looted and their property was stolen, and when the few survivors tried to return after the war (a difficult task as the greek foreign ministry attempted to delay or prevent their return to greece), most were unable to regain their property and possessions, forcing most to seek asylum in israel or other countries.

egyptian jews were not directly affected by the axis powers, but extremist organizations like young egypt and the muslim brotherhood sympathized with the nazis and even secured nazi funds to distribute thousands of antisemitic propaganda pamphlets. sporadic pogroms took place throughout the 40's, stoked by political leaders like mahmoud an-nukrashi pasha who said to the british ambassador, "all jews were potential zionists" and dr heykal pasha who said "if the u.n. decides to amputate a part of palestine in order to establish a jewish state, ... jewish blood will necessarily be shed elsewhere in the arab world ... to place in certain and serious danger a million jews." this political extremism prompted the 1948 cairo bombings that killed 70 jews and wounded 200, with many more being killed in the riots following, and eventually led to the expulsion of nearly all egyptian jews, whose money and posessions were all confiscated by the egyptian government.

similar political persecution was directed at iraqi jews, leading to the farhud, a pogrom which killed 180 jews and forced tens of thousands to flee. though there were many who did not support the nazi regime or agree with their views, there were just as many in arab countries who did, in no small part because of active effort by the nazis to gain sympathy from arab populations who already did not get along with their local jewish populations. this led to several other pogroms that took place in the 30's and 40's across lebanon, syria, and british mandate palestine, including a pogrom in jaffa which killed 9 jews and forced 12,000 jews to flee, and another in tiberias which killed 19 jews (including 11 children), most of whom were stabbed to death.

it's understandable that most of what the general public knows about the holocaust is the stories of ashkenazi jews from central and eastern europe, because they comprise the vast majority of the victims. hopefully, this encourages you to do further research into the ways other parts of the diaspora were also affected.