#or specialists for jewish history

[hyperpotamianarch]

-Hey, Arch?

Yes, fake audience voice?

-Why are you reblogging your question a third time?

I'm so glad you've asked! See, I've went over some historical stuff and came across a completely different answer for the first question. So, since the other reblog line (the Jewsade) has become too long, I've decided to start over.

-Why not reblog some other post that discussed that topic? Also, why the heck did you not do the proper historical research while working on the origi-

All right, that's quite enough.

So, another answer to question one! How exciting! Especially since everybody loved the original so much. So, you see, it has come to my attention that some 17th century events might have greater bearing on-

-It's because you liked the idea of the Jewsade too much, isn't it? You've spent a whole whopping Shabbat researching David Reubeni, Shlomo Molcho and John Calvin, and it was so darn exciting-

Shut up!

-on the presence of Jews in certain places by the time HDM occures at. You see, Menasseh Ben Israel-

-You were so caught up in your idea of a Jewish Messiah getting somewhere and then failing miserably. Why? Was that a commentary on the State of Israel or something?

Shut UP! I'm trying to-

-Trying to nothing, you keep allow me to break you because you enjoy this way of portraying stuff and don't have a proper outline to anything about Menasseh Ben Israel!

All right, fine! I'll admit it.

So. Umm. That.

Yeah, as my fake-audience-voice (-Hi!) said above, I did get caught up with research on David Reubeni, even though I knew about Menasseh Ben Israel's bearing on the history of Judaism at the time. The truth is, the thought hit me on my way to the Synagogue on Shabbat eve and I got so excited I kept it in mind for the entirety of the Shabbat. Then I wrote my post immediately when Shabbat ended where I live.

Those are not very important details, but I think they explain my odd focus on the Jewsade on the other post. I got excited. It was a cool - if slightly disturbing, considering its relation to the crusades - event that didn't happen in our world but could happen elsewhere. Only problem is, the alterations were slightly too early.

I don't know at what year was John Calvin elected pope in Lyra's world. However, besides it changing very little (the people who mattered for the sake of the Jewsade are the kings more than the pope), it was also likely after both Reubeni and Molcho were imprisoned by Charles V. It doean't have to be that way - slight alterations, even prior to the major deviation point, are not hard to make - but it makes it more of an independant idea.

Menasseh Ben Israel, however, held an important role in the history of Judaism, and lived during the 17th century, placing him in an easy place to be affected by this alteration. I will admit to lazyness in my historical research - when galvanized during the Shabbat I can do a lot, but Ambaric and Computing devices tend to distract me easily during the weekdays. That's a weak excuse, but this is why my reading on Ben Israel was mostly just his Wikipedia article.

Either way: Menasseh Ben Israel was the son of Porugese Anusim, forced converts. His family lived in La Rochelle for a time as a way to escape the Inquisition, but later moved to Amsterdam, where Menasseh Ben Israel spent most of the rest of his life. For the record, the time cite in Wikipedia for their move to the Netherlands is 1610.

Now, it's probably important to note that the Netherlands were only starting to become independant - there was a war, which was somewhat related to the Netherlands being mostly protestant while Spain, which sort of controlled them, was famously Catholic. This is probably significant, since most Netherlanders were not just any type of protestant - they were Calvinists.

To get to the point, though, Menasseh Ben Israel apparently attempted to explain Judaism to the Christians of the world - he was in a good position for that, I guess, having been raised in a family of Anusim. He also made efforts to convince Sweden and Britain to allow Jews to live in them, under the belief that the salvation of the Jewish people will only come once they reach the farthest corners of the Earth. He had limited success with Sweden - a small Jewish community was founded there during 1680s, but was later expelled. He didn't live to see that, though, or the eventual success of his efforts in Britain, because he died at 1657 while trying to bring his son's body to burial in Amsterdam.

To be fair, it took about a century more for Sweden to truly allow Jews in again, but Menasseh Ben Israel is, in some ways, the man who caused those two countries to accept Jews. Incidentally, if you follow Lyra's journey, most of the time she's in her own world is in one of those countries. Plus a portion in Greenland (Svalbard and Lord Asriel's hut, possibly the Station as well) and some time in India (I think? I'm pretty sure it was a mountain range in Southeast Asia in the book. In the series it was a somewhat forsaken island, IIRC). Though, considering she was unconcious for most of her time in that last place I'm not sure it counts.

Well, I just checked and it turns out there were Jews in Denmark earlier than in Sweden - it's not clear if there were Jews there during the Middle Ages, but Jews were allowed there in 1622, when Menasseh Ben Israel was about 18. So maybe I exaggarated his influence a bit. I'm not sure what bearing it has on Greenland, though. Anyway, attempting to avoid uncomfortable topics: with changes in how the church functions, a lot of stuff in Europe will change. I've said so in the other line of reblogs already, but I don't know if the Magisterium will start by giving the Inquisition more authority or close it entirely. We know that by Lyra's time the Inquisition isn't active anymore, but the hints that it was active in the past might indicate it survived Calvin's reforms to the Catholic church. So, in short, the Ben Israel family might have nowhere to go in fear of the Inquisition. It can affect Menasseh's life in a myriad of ways - he may have went to live in America, for example - and many of them can lead to no one raising to Cromwell, or whoever else might be controlling Brytain at the time, the topic of allowing Jewish return to it.

Without the Jewsade (assuming I'm dissuaded from it. I'm not yet - still attempting to work on a fanfic, which doesn't mean much considering it has been less than a week), the results of simply not having such an important figure will mostly just be no Jews in Sweden or Brytain. For the same reason Menasseh Ben Israel doesn't fulfill his function in our timeline, it may be that there won't be Jews in Denmark and Norway either. It might be that there would be mass emigration of Ashkenazi Jews to North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, or America due to expulsions. Alternatively, there will be much more Anusim.

What you may have noticed by now in this attempt at historical research and alternative history is the prominence of Portugese Anusim and Expelled people. Or you might have chucked it to the "two is a coincidence" bin. I'm not sure what to think of that myself, as I'm usually more focused on the Spanish Expulsion as a significant event for Judaism in that era. The Portugese one usually comes as an afterthought. I do think it points out to a significant fact: the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula were very well educated and strongly affected every community they got to. There were Jews in Italy prior to the Banished Sepharadim, but instead of joining those local congregations - the Sepharadim started their own. In North African and Middle Eastern Congregations they're considered to have had a significant effect on practices.

If you're wondering what I'm getting at, you should know I myself don't know. Maybe that instead of talking about some French theologian I have to focus on Spain and Portugal when talking about the History of Judaism at the beginning of the Modern Era? Also, a lot of religious development in Judaism at the time occured in the Ottoman Empire, where Rabbi Joseph Karow wrote the Beit Yosef and Shulchan Aruch. One religious and political shift in Christianity isn't enough to change that. The Jewsade possibly has the largest effect because it's shaped by European politics and will change the state of affairs for Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Other than that, though, it's just a question of more oppression or less oppression.

And I'm starting to ramble. Main takeaways:

a. Shifts in the timeline might result in Jews not only being kept out of Brytain and Sweden for the forseeable future, but also migrating from Christian countries to Muslim ones or to the newly-sprouted coloniess.

b. Most everything related to that is shaped by the Spanish and Portugese Expulsions, forced conversions and Inquisition. Considering the possibility of those expanding all over Europe, I'm not sure what role Spaniard and Portugese Jews might play. They had a significant role at this period already, to be honest, but they might even have an even bigger one here, if very different.

c. Honestly, I'm not very good at this historical research thing. I love reading lore details about alternate histories and such, and feel that Judaism is usually ignored in the grand scale of things in most works about that (excepting WW2 related works, which is something of a tired trope to my understanding), but I don't see myself as the right person to change that. I just decided to drop History as a topic for my BA, and got a barely decent grade in the only class o the topic I took this year. I'm fascinated by history, but some things in its study are slightly boring me. In short, I really want someone else to take this from me. That might be why I just wanted to see the post by the Tea Detective instead of doing all this work: I knew, if subconciously, that I don't have the willpower to do it well. So please, if anyone reading this is as interested as I am in the topic and actually knows how to do historical research, please help.

Huh. Glad to have this off my chest, but not sure I expected it.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed reading that and found it interesting. Thank you for reading, and have a good day!

All right. So, first: if you are either Jewish, like His Dark Materials, or both, please reblog. If you aren't any of those but know someone who is - please share it with them. I want to get as many thoughts on this as possible.

In essence, I just want to ask two simple questions. I have the beginnings of answers for myself, but Judaism is nothing if not full of discourse and many opinions on one topic. So, again: reblog. Share your thoughts and opinions. Hopefully, it will give us a wide variety of possibilities and answers.

The two questions are: where are Jews in Lyra's world? And what are the theological and Halachic concequences of having dæmons?

I intend to share my opinions in two separate reblogs, but please share your thoughts even if you don't see mine. The short version is that I looked about events in Jewish history around John Calvin's time for the first question (pope John Calvin being the major alternation of history in HDM). As for the second question - I have some thoughts relating to the Chabad thought stream. Elaborations, again, going in reblogs.

Thank you in advance!

(PS, question number 1 was handled once by the sadly deactivvated user the Tea Detective, though their full post disappeared. Link to a reblogging of the first half: here. Note, another reblog mentions other religions - feel free to discuss them, I'm focusing on Judaism because I'm Jewish. Another post asking this question was posted here, so have fun with it. Meanwhile, this post is about dæmons and religions in general and lightly touches Judaism.)

[therealcocoshady]

how do u feel that ppl r saying Eminem is supporting a "genocide party" after the Kamala Harris rally? and that he shldnt even be involved in politics bc he hasnt said anything abt Palestine in any of his music or on social media this entire time?

Well… that’s a complex issue. As someone who is not from the US, hasn’t lived there and is not a specialist of American politics, I have a limited understanding of what is going on. So please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

As far as I know, none of the parties are actively involved against the genocide that has been going on in Palestine. On the one hand, there is VP Harris, who worked alongside Biden, whose policies have supported Israel in many ways (though I believe a call for a ceasefire ended up being made at some point ?). On the other, we have Trump & the Republican Party, whose support for Israel is matched by their xenophobic and Islamophobic stances. So, anyone supporting any of the candidate is supporting a party who has not made a clear display of support for Palestine. As far as I know, none of them have expressed any intention of applying pressure on Netanyahu or recognizing Palestine… Then, by that logic, anyone supporting either candidate is supporting genocide, you know ?

As far as Marshall Mathers himself, he has not made any statement regarding his views on the matter. He hasn’t expressed any support for Palestine, nor has he expressed any for Israel after the events of 10-07-2023. I’ve seen people reaching, arguing that Paul Rosenberg might be a Zionist (as far as I know he hasn’t spoken either ?) which would mean Em is one too, or that some people he has worked in the past support Palestine, meaning that so does he. Honestly, there is no way to know what his views are.

Now, I assume there is a underlying question to your Ask, which would be : what do I think of the fact that he hasn’t spoken on the issue ?

Well… I’m not sure. To be clear : I am 100% supporting Palestine 🇵🇸. I am 100% AGAINST the killing of innocent people. And I am 100% AGAINST the expansionist policy of Netanyahu. This is how I feel as a human being, and as a Christian from Jewish descent.

Now, the issue of people with a tremendous platform having a duty to speak out on issues is a complex one. We could write tons of posts and probably a book about the arguments against or in favor of it. There are moral and ethical issues at play which, I believe, coincide with economical and reputational stakes.

I can understand why artists would be wary to speak out. Or why their management might advise against it. It sucks because the cause could use their platform, whether it is about spreading awareness or raising funds.

I wish more artists would speak up but I am also not someone who would cancel someone for not speaking. I don’t know people’s reasons to stay silent. At the end of the day, he is a grown man with his own moral compass, making his own decisions.

He often speaks about wanting to be on the right side of history, though. So I wish that, regardless of the candidate he chose to endorse, he had used his influence. But I’m not going to stop listening to his music or being a fan because he didn’t speak up, you know ?

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again : I do not believe that him supporting Harris means he agrees with every single thing she stands for. I think this is him supporting the candidate who is the best option, and aligns with his views as much as possible.

I want to end with this : just because people are silent doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing good deeds. I believe that Eminem is a prime example of that, seeing as he doesn’t advertise everything he does for others. Who knows, maybe he is helping in other way ? 🤷‍♀️

Hope this answers your question !

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

Anyway back to the scheduled program: a massive congratulations to all of you who have denied rape by Hamas. You have set the clock back on women’s rights against sexual violence even further than it was before. You’re a bunch of fakes. Here’s a note about rape denial. Perpetrators who are successful in discrediting their victims do so because they have dehumanized their victims, and this dehumanization becomes echoed by a world that sides with the perpetrator. That is what Hamas has achieved. The total dehumanization of its victims. Posters ripped down. Rapes denied.

Trauma specialist Judith Herman writes:

"When the traumatic events are of human design, those who bear witness are caught in the conflict between victim and perpetrator. It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict. The bystander is forced to take sides. It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing.… The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain."

History shows us that we need movements around women in order to protect our rights and our bodies. What is happening currently with the denial of sexual violence against women in Israel sets all women back. And it does so by design. Women who are victims of the October 7 attacks are far less likely to come forward and testify knowing how the world has taken enormous pleasure in the suffering of Jewish women, and in the sordid details. Efforts to seek justice often require further traumatization, too. Perpetrators of trauma know this.

The more evidence against the perpetrator, the more extreme lengths the perpetrator has to go to deny the truth, and instead to focus on humiliating the victims, for there is great social currency in this. As we have seen even before this war, rape has become a subject of sickening entertainment on apps like TikTok. Hamas know this too. Hamas know that the more Israel issues evidence, the more those who take glee in the rapes will post their depraved responses. Does that mean we should stop releasing evidence? Absolutely not.

The element of joy found in extreme prejudice is a crucial element of both antisemitism and misogyny. When the two are combined, the effect is nuclear. By the way, this is all fairly textbook stuff. What's shocking is that it should be familiar to and recognized by every feminist. And it's not, because the movement protects all women, except Jews. Jews are imperfect victims. Israel is an imperfect victim. Israel doesn’t just roll over and die when she’s attacked. So Israel’s a little hard to get behind.

The world denies the sexual violence by Hamas because it sides with Hamas, and if it were to accept these acts there is no possible way the world could remain a bystander. All arrows point in the direction of Israel as the victim. Hamas is the perpetrator of unspeakable acts.

There is no justification for Hamas's continued existence, or any group of people who support Hamas. Whereas Israel has a right to exist free from such crimes against humanity, and Israel is perfectly within its rights to wage this war. Rape denial is part of the brainwashing. The only way to continue to ignore Israel's victimization is to discredit the individuals targeted by Hamas on October 7 and since. And failing that, mocking and humiliating the victims and/or anyone who speaks out in their defense, or dehumanizing us with libelous claims (racist! TERF! ZIONIST! — OK that one’s true). They can single us out as "Zionists" and warp the definition of Zionism to suit their needs, but it doesn't absolve them. Those who participate in such antisemitic rhetoric are no longer mere bystanders, but active assailants to the perpetrators, ie Hamas.

[justforbooks]

Yahya Sinwar

Hamas leader who plotted the 7 October attack on Israel that triggered war in the Middle East

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who has been killed by an Israeli patrol in the Gaza Strip at the age of 61, was the principal architect of the attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 that killed 1,200 Israelis, kidnapped 251 hostages, and propelled the Middle East into its greatest peril since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.

The overall leader of Hamas after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in July 2024, he was its key strategist before and after 7 October, Israel’s most wanted man and the ultimately pivotal Hamas figure during ceasefire negotiations. Though presumed to have been hiding for most of the year within Gaza’s vast tunnel network, he was killed alone in a ruined apartment in Rafah, according to the Israeli military.

Despite repeated vows by Israeli leaders to assassinate him during their devastating retaliation for the 7 October attack, and after what Israel announced was the killing of his close collaborator Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, in July 2024, Sinwar was the last survivor of the three Hamas leaders against whom the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, sought arrest warrants for suspected war crimes.

Sinwar first came to prominence in 1985 when Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, founder of the organisation that would become Hamas in 1987, put him in joint charge of an armed internal enforcement agency known as al-Majd.

He missed direct participation in the momentous Palestinian events of this century’s first decade, including Hamas’s election victory in 2006, the subsequent imposition of an international boycott, and its armed seizure of full control in Gaza in 2007, because he was in jail. In 1989 he received four life sentences for orchestrating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers and the execution of four Palestinians suspected of cooperating with Israel. According to his interrogators, Sinwar admitted without remorse to personally strangling one victim with his bare hands.

By a historical irony, he was among the 1,027 prisoners released in 2011 by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to free a kidnapped Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. The exchange reinforced Sinwar’s belief that such abductions were needed to release Palestinian prisoners. During his 22-year incarceration he assumed a commanding role among Palestinian inmates and tried at least twice to escape. Jail, he later said, had been turned by militants into “sanctuaries of worship” and “academies”. He learned fluent Hebrew, studied Israeli politics and society, and by his own account became “a specialist in the Jewish people’s history”.

Sinwar was born in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza. His father, Ibrahim, and his mother had been forced to flee Majdal, now Ashkelon, as refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. He would tell fellow inmates in prison, said one, Esmat Mansour, that he had been heavily influenced by conditions in the impoverished refugee camp, with its daily humiliation of queueing for food. He was four when Israel overcame Egypt in the six-day war of 1967 and took control of the Strip. He attended Khan Yunis senior school for boys and then the Islamic University, graduating in Arabic language. Sinwar was active in student organisations fusing Islamism with Palestinian nationalism after the perceived failures of the secular PLO. He was briefly detained in 1982 and again in 1988 after Israel’s discovery of al-Majd weapons.

An autobiographical novel he completed in prison in 2004, called Thorns and Carnations, describes the protagonist Ahmed sheltering with his family during the 1967 war, only to find their dreams of Palestinian liberation shattered by Israel’s victory; Ahmed becomes an Islamist after a cousin convinces him of the religious concept of the waqf – the God-given Muslim land from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean. Infatuated with a young woman, Ahmed ends the relationship – chaste in accordance with strict Muslim custom – because in “this bitter story” there was “only room for one love”: for Palestine.

Also in 2004, Sinwar had a brain tumour removed by Israeli surgeons, detected by a quick-thinking Israeli prison dentist (and later intelligence officer), Yuval Bitton, who had Sinwar rushed to hospital. Over multiple conversations in jail before and after this life-saving episode, for which Bitton was warmly thanked by Sinwar, he recalled the prisoner telling him: “Now you’re strong, you have 200 atomic warheads. But we’ll see, maybe in another 10 to 20 years you’ll weaken, and I’ll attack.”

After his release, Sinwar was elected to Hamas’ political bureau in 2012 and, in what was seen as a shift towards its militarist tendency, to the faction’s Gaza leadership in 2017, replacing Haniyeh, who subsequently succeeded Khaled Mashal as political bureau chief. Hamas was losing popularity after two wars with Israel, in 2008-09 and 2014, and Gaza’s deep impoverishment by the blockade imposed by Israel (and Egypt) since 2007.

Sinwar seemed at times to adopt a relatively pragmatic approach. No ally of Mashal, he worked to restore relations with Iran that Mashal had ruptured by opposing Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, in his repression of a popular revolt. But he did not demur when Mashal published a (for Hamas) innovative 2017 document which, without recognising Israel, or abandoning its aspiration for the whole land, indicated it would meanwhile accept a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders – comprising the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

In 2018 Sinwar conspicuously appeared at the Great March of Return, a series of unarmed mass protests at the border barrier. Increasingly organised by Hamas, to the chagrin of some civil activists who had devised them, the protests seemed briefly to offer some alternative to armed insurgency, despite the lethal gunfire against them by Israeli troops. Sinwar even wrote (in Hebrew) to Netanyahu, proposing a long-term truce.

But a turning point came in 2021, when Sinwar and Deif are thought to have begun planning for what became the 7 October attack. By then, the 2020-21 Abraham accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain had reversed the Gulf countries’ refusal to recognise Israel unless the Palestinians secured a state. How far this – and the fear in 2023 that Saudi Arabia might imminently follow suit – dominated Sinwar’s thinking is unclear. But in his 7 October speech praising Sinwar and Deif for the attack, Haniyeh excoriated the Arab states for seeking “normalisation” with Israel.

Sinwar reacted defiantly during Ramadan in May 2021 when police raided the al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, after clashes in the city between Palestinians and rightwing Israelis. When police did not leave the compound by a Hamas-set deadline, Gaza militants fired 150 rockets, Israel responded with airstrikes, and there was a short but intense 11-day war. Sinwar warned that Hamas, whose rockets had reached deeper into Israel than before, had enacted a “general rehearsal” for what would happen “if Israel tries to harm al-Aqsa again”.

Less conditionally, in December 2022 Sinwar addressed Israel at a Gaza rally: “We will come to you, God willing, in a roaring flood. We will come to you with endless rockets, we will come to you in a limitless flood of soldiers.” Hamas would name the 7 October attack the “al-Aqsa flood”.

So secretive was its planning that Sinwar kept its timing and scale – though apparently not that something was being prepared – from most of the Hamas external leadership. Western intelligence agencies also believe he did not confide his intentions in advance to Iran or its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah.

According to a June 2024 Wall Street Journal report, Sinwar described the huge Palestinian losses in a wartime message to Hamas leaders in Qatar as “necessary sacrifices”. In another, on the seizure of women and children as hostages, but without clarifying whether he was referring to Hamas fighters or others who joined the attack and its accompanying atrocities, he said: “Things went out of control … People got caught up in this, and that should not have happened.”

Though he told hostages he met in the tunnels that they would be protected and exchanged in a prisoner release, one 85-year-old peace activist, Yocheved Lifshitz, freed in the week-long ceasefire in November, said she had challenged Sinwar on whether he was “not ashamed to do such a thing to people who have supported peace all these years. He didn’t answer. He was silent.”

In 2011 he married Samar Abu Zamar, and they had three children, the fate of all of whom is unknown. Sinwar’s brother (and close ally), Mohammed, is still being hunted by Israeli forces.

🔔 Yahya Ibrahim Hassan Sinwar, politician, born 29 October 1962; died 16 October 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[zvaigzdelasas]

[CBC is State Funded Media]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the decision to invite an elderly Ukrainian Second World War veteran who fought for Nazi Germany an "egregious error" that "deeply embarrassed Parliament and Canada." On Wednesday, he offered what he called "unreserved apologies" on Canada's behalf for the hurt it caused. Many experts say they're skeptical about the prospect of Canada's political leaders and institutions learning something from the now-infamous episode that capped President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's trip to Canada. Many historians will tell you that what we've witnessed over the last several days is history coming back to bite Canada — specifically over its refusal down the decades to acknowledge or own up to the decisions that allowed Yaroslav Hunka, who served with the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician), to immigrate to Canada in the 1950s.[...]

There was a reckoning of sorts in Canada during the 1980s. A public inquiry, headed by Justice Jules Deschênes, attempted to determine if Nazi war criminals and sympathizers ended up making this country their home and, if so, how many there were. The Galician division featured prominently in that investigation. Jewish groups, notably the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, gave the inquiry a list of 217 former members of the unit who apparently had immigrated to Canada. (The Deschênes commission concluded that 86 per cent of those named never landed in Canada and "no prima facie case has been established against" the 16 under suspicion.)[...]

Trudeau, in his apology, said everyone in the House of Commons regretted "deeply having stood and clapped even though we did so unaware of the context." The old phrase "ignorance is no excuse under the law" might be modified in this instance to include the word "history." After almost eight decades, it would be easy to chalk this up to a history-challenged staffer working somewhere within the labyrinth of the House of Commons, or to failure on the part the now-former speaker Anthony Rota — someone simply ignorant of the complexities and grievances. That may well be part of the political calculation. With Rota gone and with the prime minister having apologized, the reflex may be to rebury the past and carry on to the next political crisis.

But one war crimes researcher and historian says the international stakes, given Russia's use of the event for propaganda, make a thorough investigation — and public airing — indispensable. "I think the Canadian government owes it to itself to determine how on earth this thing happened," said Efraim Zuroff, a director at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel office and a specialist in Nazi war crimes in Eastern Europe.

It's not just about how such an invitation was extended. It's also about the airbrushing of history — Rota's carefully worded tribute mentioned Hunka having fought against Russia, as though Moscow had been the enemy at the time. "People are so ignorant [of] that history, it's pathetic," said Zuroff. "People suffer from such ignorance when it comes to the Holocaust and other things as well ... And it's a complicated subject. It took place in many different countries and played out to a certain extent in different ways."

Aside from the list involving the Galicia division, Zuroff has personally submitted to the Canadian government another 252 names of other suspected Nazis — or Nazi collaborators — from Eastern European countries other than Ukraine who are believed to have come to Canada. Out of that entire list, only one individual was ever charged. Following the Deschênes commission's report, the Criminal Code of Canada was amended to make it easier to go after suspected Nazi war criminals. Much of that work came to a screeching halt with the failed prosecution of Imre Finta, a former Hungarian police commander who was accused of organizing the deportation of over 8,000 Jews to Nazi death camps. He was acquitted on the defence that he was following the orders of a superior. Zuroff said the Canadian courts that accepted that verdict are the only ones in the world that recognize that legal defence — and consequently, no one else has been prosecuted. Since that case was tried in 1990, Canada opted to go after war criminals through the immigration system.

Any meaningful reflection on the Hunka tribute must include an examination of how Canada has dealt with these cases, Zuroff added.

Beyond the legal context, a leading scholar at the University of Ottawa, history professor Jan Grabowski, said the country needs to acknowledge how people like Hunka — who fought with the Nazis for what he hoped would be Ukrainian independence — got into Canada in the first place. Britain and countries like Italy, where some members of the Galicia division ended up, were eager in the late 1940s to be rid of refugees and surrendered soldiers. Canada willingly accepted them and by 1950 had made a special accommodation for Ukrainians. According to the Deschênes report, the prevailing feeling in the government at the time was that these former soldiers "should be subject to special security screening, but should not be rejected on the grounds of their service in the German army."

The context of the time, said Grabokski, is crucial, because when the Cold War began, Canadians shifted to a totally different "frame of mind."

"Anti-communists were prized above everything else," he said. "So we need to understand that this was a totally different political situation and most of the time, the Canadian authorities knew that they were letting in people who were allies of Hitler. But it was not enough, let's say, to make them hesitate." The B'nai Brith demanded this week that Ottawa take this opportunity to finally open all Holocaust-related records to the public, including the second part of the Deschênes commission's report, which has been kept secret for almost 40 years. Instead of reflection, though, Canadians might be in line for more political theatre.

28 Sep 23

[blueiscoool]

Gustav Klimt Portrait Missing for a Century Sells for $32 Million

A portrait by Gustav Klimt that was unseen for almost a century has sold for $32 million – the bottom end of its pre-auction estimate.

The “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser,” thought to be one of the Austrian painter’s final works, created huge excitement in the art world, but it ended up selling at the lower end of its valuation of €30 million-€50 million ($32 million to $53.4 million).

Bids started at €28 million and the work went for a hammer price of €30 million. This does not include the auction house’s fees.

The sale price was less than half that fetched by another Klimt painting – “Dame mit Fächer” (Lady with a Fan) – in London last year. The last portrait completed by Klimt became the most expensive artwork ever to sell at a European auction, when it sold for a £85.3 million ($108.4 million).

The “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser” had long been considered lost, according to Vienna auction house im Kinsky. However, it recently emerged that it had been privately owned by an Austrian citizen.

“The rediscovery of this portrait, one of the most beautiful of Klimt’s last creative period, is a sensation,” the auction house said in a press statement on its website prior to its sale on Wednesday afternoon.

The intensely vivid and colorful piece had been documented in catalogues of the artist’s work, but experts had only seen it in a black and white photo.

The sitter is known to have been a member of a wealthy Austrian Jewish family who were then part of the upper class of Viennese society, where Klimt found his patrons and clients. Nevertheless, her identity is not completely certain.

Brothers Adolf and Justus Lieser were leading industrialists in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Catalogues of Klimt’s work state that Adolf commissioned the artist to paint his teenage daughter Margarethe Constance. However, new research by the auction house suggests Justus’ wife, Lilly, hired him to paint one of their two daughters.

The statement on the auctioneer’s website reveals that the sitter – whoever she was – visited Klimt’s studio nine times in April and May 1917. He made at least 25 preliminary studies and most likely began the painting in the May of that year.

“The painter chose a three-quarter portrait for his depiction and shows the young woman in a strictly frontal pose, close to the foreground, against a red, undefined background. A cape richly decorated with flowers is draped around her shoulders,” the auction house said.

It added: “The intense colors of the painting and the shift towards loose, open brushstrokes show Klimt at the height of his late period.”

When the artist died of a stroke the following February, the painting was still in his studio — with some small parts not quite finished. It was then given to the Lieser family.

Its exact fate after 1925 is “unclear,” according to the auction house.

“What is known is that it was acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s and went to the current owner through three successive inheritances,” the statement said.

The painting was to be sold on behalf of its Austrian owners, who have not been named, along with the legal successors of “Adolf and Henriette Lieser based on an agreement in accordance with the Washington Principles of 1998,” the auction house said.

Established in 1998, the Washington Principles charged participating nations with returning Nazi-confiscated art to their rightful owners.

Claudia Mörth-Gasser, specialist in modern art at im Kinsky, explained the situation in an email.

She said the auctioneer checked the painting’s history and provenance “in all possible ways in Austria,” adding: “We have checked all archives and have found no evidence that the painting has ever been exported out of Austria, confiscated or looted.”

But by the same token, she added: “We have no proof that the painting has not ever been looted in the time gap between 1938 and 1945.”

And this is the reason “why we arranged an agreement between the present owner and all descendants of the Lieser family in accordance to the ‘Washington Principles,’” she said.

Klimt’s portraits of women “are seldom offered at auctions,” the press release stated. It continued: “A painting of such rarity, artistic significance, and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.”

By Lianne Kolirin.

[sefaradweb]

Instituto Cenvantes: Presentación del libro HISTORIA DE LOS JUDÍOS EN LA ESPAÑA CONTEMPORÁNEA

🇪🇸 El 15 de agosto de 2024 a las 18:30 h, el Instituto Cervantes de Tel Aviv acogerá la presentación del libro "Historia de los judíos en la España Contemporánea" del historiador Jacobo Israel Garzón. Esta obra, que consta de tres tomos, es el resultado de una exhaustiva investigación sobre la presencia judía en la península ibérica. Durante el evento, participarán Susy Gruss y Silvina Guesser, expertas en literatura judeoespañola e historia cultural de España, respectivamente.

🇺🇸 On August 15, 2024, at 6:30 PM, the Instituto Cervantes in Tel Aviv will host the presentation of the book "History of the Jews in Contemporary Spain" by historian Jacobo Israel Garzón. This three-volume work is the result of extensive research on Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula. The event will feature contributions from Susy Gruss and Silvina Guesser, specialists in Judeo-Spanish literature and Spanish cultural history, respectively.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Druids and Weeds

After decades, nay centuries, of study, investigation, experiments, debates, and volleys of papers and counter-papers, botanists and ecologists alike have settled on this concise definition.

Weed: A plant in a place you don’t want it.

No, seriously. Botanists, and especially invasive species specialists, have had to settle on this, because there just isn’t anything else problem plants have in common. Kudzu is a perfectly well-behaved plant in most of Eastern Asia, where its main predators are human beings. In the Southeastern U.S.? Not so much. Likewise, Spanish needles are a common native plant on disturbed areas in Florida... and a galumphing mass of well-over-six-foot weeds in roadside China.

(Saw them in the background of a Jackie Chan movie. “Wait a minute, that looks like...!” I checked, and sure enough. Spanish needles are invasive in China.)

A lot of our modern agriculture is dependent on growing food plants places they weren’t native to, and even some of our food plants used to be weeds thousands of years back. See lettuce, a former weed of wheat-fields, and apparently one of the “bitter herbs” in the Jewish religion before we bred it to be tastier.

So what does this mean for a druid?

From what I’ve been able to find, the word for druid comes from the same root as the word for oak. Druids are, through history, associated with oak groves.

Groves that they or their predecessors planted, because acorns are food.

We may not think of it much today, because European oaks and wheat like a lot of the same soil and light conditions, so over the centuries wheat fields often won out. But oaks were traditionally huge sources of food. Some produce sweeter acorns than others, and those you treated and ate; others, with more tannins, were a major part of the nut mast you fattened up livestock on. In the culture druids came from, wealth was livestock. Survival was livestock, even more than grain. So historically druids have always been involved in agriculture. In choosing which plants were weeds, and which weren’t.

Meaning a responsible druid of the interface between city and wild will be checking on plants and animals people bring in, to see how they behave. And what happens when they escape.

...Look, if there’s one thing human history teaches us, it’s that it’s when, not if. We fortunately do not have a breeding population of tigers in NYC. But not for lack of people trying, given how many cops have discovered in people’s apartments!

(Hey, horror fans! Plotline for you!)

It’s valid to see fantasy druids as defenders of pristine wilderness. Yet it’d be equally valid to see them as the ultimate doomsday preppers; ensuring there’s wild game, herbs, and healthy pasture for livestock if everything goes to heck. That kind of druid would be a way to build resilience into the (demi)human ecosystem, and give it some slack for stress - disease, famines, breakdowns in trade, and inevitable war.

Or, you know, random dragon raids. Can you imagine the hit to a fantasy medieval farming community if even one red dragon strafes the fields at harvest? Brrr.

Think about druids in your world; of how they would interact with nature. They may surprise you!

[danjaley]

Jo's school, the war, those Germans and how to write a good character purely by accident.

A literary essay that came to my mind yesterday, through the conversation with @nocturnalazure

Originally I wanted to include this in the favourite characters tag, but it required so much background information: It's easy to find good characters in well-written books. One of my favourite characters in a badly written book is Frieda Mensch from the Chalet school series (the blonde girl, in the back on both images)

I discovered the Chalet School series at a jumble sale a few years ago, and I enjoy reading it because I like to imagine what could have been done with some good plotting skills. Also it's full of motifs that only made sense in the mid 20th century (the chain-smoking lung specialist) and the German spoken by the characters is simply hilarious. (Onkel Reise - a very tall man.)

Interestingly, the series is heavily inspired by Little Women and its sequels, especially Jo's school. It's about the English sisters Josephine (Joey) and Madge (not Meg!) Bettany who set up an international school in Austria around 1930. There's also an unrelated little Amy around.

Frieda Mensch is an Austrian girl who goes to that school and becomes a friend of Joey's. So far that's nothing special, the series is literally about Joey being everyone's supportive friend. In volume two the sisters spend Christmas with Frieda's family in Innsbruck, which makes her stand out a little. Then, because her first name means "peace" and her surname means "human", the author assigned her the role of the peacemaker in her class. She's portrayed as a serious, law-abiding girl, but of course schoolgirls must also be good sports and know when to break the rules. Even if it's possibly an accidental contradiction, this gives her an implicit conflict. Gradually she becomes the main loyal friend who supports Joey if needs be (like on nightly ice-skating-rescue-missions ^).

When the girls in the books are around 19 and just left school, in real life the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany hit. By the time the school could be fictionally evacuated, war had begun too. Suddenly this Austrian girl whose name means "peace" and "human" becomes hugely symbolic. Frieda has to flee to England, one of her friends' father is tortured to death, her fiancée is also shortly imprisoned and suddenly she's a girl with a fate. She also helps Joey, who is married by then and has recently given birth, to cross the Channel. At the end of that volume Frieda gives a speech to what's left of the school, about peace and acting humanely despite political conflicts. Wars change many lives and reveal unknown strength in some people - sometimes this is even true for fictional characters.

(If I were set the task to write a novel in which an international school defies the Nazis, my first thought would be that they might have some Jewish students they must protect. Interestingly, this thought never crossed the author's mind. The Nazis turn their full force on this English school because the girls privately vowed to always keep up their girl guide ideals, even the Germans and Austrians from whom they're about to be separated. While violence against Jews is mentioned in the story, it shows how little the threat to them was taken seriously abroad. It also shows the hope that the decent-minded Germans might get the upper hand again after a while. It's strongly biased in its own way, but it's a perspective one doesn't find in books that were written with the whole history in mind. That's why I enjoy historic fiction so much.)

If I ever get so far with the McCarrics, I'm going to steal a lot from Highland Twins go to Chalet School. In fact I've already named Shiena after a character from that book.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

(CNN) — A portrait by Gustav Klimt that was unseen for almost a century is expected to fetch millions when it goes up for auction this spring.

The “Portrait of Fräulein Lieser,” thought to be one of the Austrian painter’s final works, is expected to fetch up to $54 million at a sale that has created huge excitement in the art world.

The painting had long been considered lost, according to Vienna auction house im Kinsky.

However, it has now emerged that it had been privately owned by an Austrian citizen.

“The rediscovery of this portrait, one of the most beautiful of Klimt’s last creative period, is a sensation,” the auction house said in a press statement on its website.

The intensely vivid and colorful piece had been documented in catalogues of the artist’s work, but experts had only seen it in a black and white photo.

The sitter is known to have been a member of a wealthy Austrian Jewish family who were then part of the upper class of Viennese society, where Klimt found his patrons and clients.

Nevertheless, her identity is not completely certain.

Brothers Adolf and Justus Lieser were leading industrialists in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Catalogues of Klimt’s work state that Adolf commissioned the artist to paint his teenage daughter Margarethe Constance.

However, new research by the auction house suggests Justus’ wife, Lilly, hired him to paint one of their two daughters.

The statement on the auctioneer’s website reveals that the sitter — whoever she was — visited Klimt’s studio nine times in April and May 1917.

He made at least 25 preliminary studies and most likely began the painting in the May of that year.

“The painter chose a three-quarter portrait for his depiction and shows the young woman in a strictly frontal pose, close to the foreground, against a red, undefined background. A cape richly decorated with flowers is draped around her shoulders,” the auction house said.

It added:

“The intense colors of the painting and the shift towards loose, open brushstrokes show Klimt at the height of his late period.”

When the artist died of a stroke the following February, the painting was still in his studio - with some small parts not quite finished. It was then given to the Lieser family.

Its exact fate after 1925 is “unclear,” according to the auction house.

“What is known is that it was acquired by a legal predecessor of the consignor in the 1960s and went to the current owner through three successive inheritances,” the statement said.

"The painting is to be sold on behalf of its Austrian owners, who have not been named, along with the legal successors of 'Adolf and Henriette Lieser based on an agreement in accordance with the Washington Principles of 1998,'” the auction house said.

Established in 1998, the Washington Principles charged participating nations with returning Nazi-confiscated art to their rightful owners.

Claudia Mörth-Gasser, specialist in modern art at im Kinsky, explained the situation in an email to CNN.

She said the auctioneer checked the painting’s history and provenance “in all possible ways in Austria,” adding:

“We have checked all archives and have found no evidence that the painting has ever been exported out of Austria, confiscated or looted.

But by the same token, she added:

“We have no proof that the painting has not ever been looted in the time gap between 1938 and 1945.”

"And this is the reason why we arranged an agreement between the present owner and all descendants of the Lieser family in accordance to the ‘Washington Principles,’” she said.

Klimt’s portraits of women “are seldom offered at auctions,” the press release states.

It continues:

“A painting of such rarity, artistic significance, and value has not been available on the art market in Central Europe for decades.

The painting will tour internationally ahead of the sale on April 24, stopping in Switzerland, Germany, Britain and Hong Kong."

The last portrait completed by Klimt became the most expensive artwork ever to sell at a European auction, when it fetched a staggering £85.3 million ($108.4 million) in London last year.

Depicting an unidentified female subject, “Dame mit Fächer” (Lady with a Fan) also established a new record for Klimt, outselling “Birch Forest,” which went for $104.6 million in a sale from the collection of the late Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen in 2022.

Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement.

[totallyhussein-blog]

The stories we share and the legacy of food

Throughout the history of the Jewish people, food has served as a bridge between their ancient heritage and the present day, as Daniela Ghelman explains in the Boca Raton Observer.

Culinary Curator and Jewish and Israeli Food Specialist Naama Shefi’s latest cookbook, “The Jewish Holiday Table: A World of Recipes, Traditions & Stories To Celebrate All Year Long,” highlights this connection exceptionally well.

Hailing from Givat HaShlosha, a small kibbutz in central Israel, Shefi arrived in New York City in 2005, following a career path in film. While navigating the bustling pace of her new life in America, she turned to food to reconnect and strengthen her Jewish identity.

She began organizing various culinary events across the city, such as gefilte fish conferences, an Israeli Moroccan Seder and an Iraqi Jewish comfort food pop-up. These projects paved the way for the Jewish Food Society, a nonprofit that Shefi founded in 2017 that preserves, celebrates and revitalizes Jewish culinary heritage.

“Following the success of launching many delicious Jewish food events across the city, I started to imagine a home for Jewish food,” says Shefi, 43, of the nonprofit. A great inspiration was her husband’s grandmother, Nonna, who Shefi says opened her eyes to the connectivity, hospitality and spirit around the Shabbat table.

“I thought back to Nonna and realized there are countless cooks like her whose recipes tell the stories not only of their lives and those before them but also of their communities and Jewish experience. I knew that if those recipes disappeared, so would a crucial and irreplaceable part of our history and culture.”

[mediaevalmusereads]

The Satan: How God's Executioner Became the Enemy. By Ryan E. Stokes. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: biblical studies

Series: N/A

Summary: Many people today think of Satan as a little red demon with a pointy tail and a pitchfork—but this vision of the devil developed over many centuries and would be foreign to the writers of the Old Testament, where this figure makes his first appearances. The earliest texts that mention the Satan—it is always “the Satan” in the Old Testament—portray him as an agent of Yahweh, serving as an executioner of evildoers. But over the course of time, the Satan came to be regarded more as God’s enemy than God’s agent and was blamed for a host of problems. Biblical scholar Ryan E. Stokes explains the development of the Satan tradition in the Hebrew scriptures and the writings of early Judaism, describing the interpretive and creative processes that transformed an agent of Yahweh into the archenemy of good. He explores how the idea of a heavenly Satan figure factored into the problem of evil and received the blame for all that is wrong in the world.

***Full review below.***

I picked up this book because I'm expanding my exploration of biblical studies - particularly studies of the Hebrew Bible and the history of certain ideas or figures. And honestly, what character is more interesting than (the) Satan?

Overall, I found Stokes's book to be well-researched, well-argued, and incredibly compelling. Stokes's main argument is that the Satan first emerged as a superhuman Executioner in God's employ, and over time, Jewish writings associated the Satan with opposition to God and the cause of human suffering and evil. Through each chapter, Stokes does a good job convincing the reader of his main points and supports each claim with multiple close readings and language studies that made his argument seem logical and natural. I particularly liked (or appreciated) that the study was confined to ideas and traditions in the Hebrew Bible (though there is one chapter on the New Testament); while other books trace the history of "Satan" up through the modern era, Stokes limits his analyses to a particular period/set of texts, and I found this focus to be beneficial.

All that being said, I wouldn't recommend this book for casual readers. As accessible as I think this book is for non-specialists, Stokes does a lot of comparisons and analyses that require the reader to have some familiarity with the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish writings. For an academic like myself, this book is easy to read, but if this is your first foray into biblical studies, it might be a little difficult to follow.

TL;DR: The Satan is an exemplary monograph on the history of the figure of the Satan in early Jewish writings.

[dweemeister]

The Zone of Interest (2023, United Kingdom/Poland)

Over the last decade, English director Jonathan Glazer questioned whether it was appropriate for him to make a Holocaust movie from a Nazi perspective. Glazer, who comes from a Jewish family in north London, said that his family never spoke about the Holocaust at home, but it nevertheless loomed over their lives. His late father, when learning about Glazer’s decision to adapt Martin Amis’ novel The Zone of Interest, expressed disapproval. Yet Glazer forged ahead, his vision now complete.

I am no expert in the area of Holocaust cinema (of which there is a growing and always-controversial history) and do not profess to be a specialist of the Holocaust or Nazism. Nevertheless, I do believe it is possible to make a moral Holocaust narrative film from a Nazi point of view. Does Glazer succeed in doing so? That is a question that still perplexes me, and I am not sure if I can provide any satisfying answer. Given Glazer’s moral agonizing while making and within the visuals of this film, I am not sure if he knows either. So while I will still attempt to engage with the morality of The Zone of Interest (which, by many accounts, resembles little of Amis’ novel), this write-up’s premise will concentrate on two of the film’s goals as stated by Glazer himself.

The first is to immerse the viewer into the psychologies of Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel; Rudolf Höss was the longest-serving commandant of the camp) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), and understand how their mindset is similar to how the viewer compartmentalizes modern-day atrocities. In these respects, Glazer succeeds. Just. Secondly, Glazer, “wanted to remove the artifice of filmmaking” in order to make as natural a film as he could, so that the audience can pay stricter attention to what is occurring on-screen. This is where The Zone of Interest falters.

It is 1943 in Nazi-occupied Poland. The Höss family lives in an estate just outside the walls of Auschwitz. Some days, the five children and their parents spend a lazy outing at a nearby riverbend, swimming and enjoying nature. At home, the Höss parents shield their children from the ugliness of the Second World War and the mass human suffering occurring just beyond the walls of the camp next door. Hedwig’s perfectly manicured garden, replete with flowers for decoration and herbs for cooking, is her escape – a world without wants. A small pool in the spacious backyard provides the children plenty of swim time. On a clear day, we can see the smoke stacks of an approaching train in the distance, soon to drop off its passengers to a place worse than hell itself. At night, Auschwitz’s crematorium spews an unearthly red – piercing the sky and sneaking past the drawn curtains of the Höss estate. And at all hours, we hear gunfire and screaming emanating from inside the camp.

Never do cinematographer Łukasz Żal’s (2014’s Ida, 2018’s Cold War) cameras show any glimpses of life within Auschwitz’s walls. None of the human suffering wrought by the Nazis appears directly in the film. We have a fleeting glimpse, obscured by foliage and for purposes unclear, of chained prisoners walking outside the camp’s walls under military escort. In another moment in the Höss household, a female prisoner comes to Rudolf Höss’ office for what is presumed to be forced sex; we never see or hear from her again, as we witness him wash his genitals (filmed from his backside) after their encounter. The particulars of what the Nazis did to the inmates of Auschwitz and the other concentration camps is for another film, Glazer says, a self-admission that he cannot hope to capture that suffering in narrative or documentary form. The decision not to show any Holocaust cinema has precedent, as seen in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah (1985, France) – largely seen as the 566-minute magnum opus of Holocaust cinema.

Instead, Glazer is more interested in something that has become a cliché in all writings on The Zone of Interest – what philosopher Hannah Arendt deemed the “banality of evil” – in order to allow modern audiences understand their own complicity in contemporary atrocities. Writing on the 1960 trial of Adolf Eichmann (one of the crucial facilitators of the Holocaust) in Israel, Arendt’s definition of the “banality of evil” stemmed from her subject’s lack of ideological fanaticism towards Jews, coupled with his inclination towards professional progression if it meant not having to think critically about any moral issues tied to said progression.

Arendt’s definition of the “banality of evil” has been controversial ever since the publication of 1963’s Eichmann in Jerusalem – a common accusation that Arendt was trying to diminish the severity of Eichmann’s guilt (she was not). Controversies aside, The Zone of Interest, on a cinematic surface, adopts that same “banality of evil”. The Höss parents never engage in explicit anti-Semitic language or refer to Auschwitz’s inmates as subhuman. Though Rudolf washes his genitals after the presumed sexual encounter with the prisoner and Hedwig seems uneasy when going through the luxury clothes of incarcerated/deceased camp inmates, life otherwise appears normal. In a scene where Rudolf is meeting with a private contractor on a more efficient crematorium system, both Rudolf and the contractor speak not with genocidal terms, nor carefully-worded innuendos. Instead, their meeting covers only the mechanics of the proposed system, in numbers and cold engineering efficiency. Without the historical context of The Zone of Interest, that discussion might eerily fit in a plain industrial meeting (not so much a later meeting with other concentration camp commandants as they discuss an imminent influx of Hungarian Jews to their camps).

To what lengths can a person accept the rationalizations of a leadership bent on the mass slaughter of innocent people on an industrial scale? Similarly, how does one reckon with their ostensibly peaceful existence when that peace is made possible only by revolting violence just a stone’s throw away? For these questions, we never receive any answers from anybody in the Höss family or their associates depicted within this film or from history itself. They live life without examining themselves, with no hints of regrets.

With the Höss parents not providing potential answers, it then turns to the viewer to ask themselves those same questions. I do not wish to come off as a youth-basher, but younger (American) viewers will need additional context for this film, if generational rates of Holocaust denialism are to be believed. For the rest of us, can we imagine ourselves turning a blind eye or going about our daily lives knowing that our happiness rests on the oppression, subjugation, or mass murder of a people? What do you share, personally, with Rudolf and Hedwig Höss? Does The Zone of Interest, in reaction to popular Hollywood Holocaust dramas of the 1990s and 2000s (see: 1993’s Schindler’s List, 2002’s The Pianist), paint the Holocaust as a non-unique event? This is a provocative work from a filmmaker who, in the absence of a grander narrative or intentional moralizing in his work, turns all of the introspection onto the audience. Beyond that, the film in and of itself is ideologically hollow.

The other half of Jonathan Glazer’s aims for The Zone of Interest was to create a film with minimal cinematic artifice. Łukasz Żal’s unobtrusive compositions and mostly-still camera certainly help in this regard, but too often some of the interior shots of the Höss household appear as if they are coming from the corners of the room, like anachronistic security camera footage. Most anachronistic of all are the black-and-white scenes in night vision for exterior shots of a young girl leaving apples around workplaces at Auschwitz. How jarring that the most humanistic moments of The Zone of Interest appear in the most visually artificial scenes of the film. The use of a night vision camera broke whatever hold The Zone of Interest had on me, cinematically. It comes off as a needless artistic flourish, as if to impress a captive audience.

Worst of all is Mica Levi’s horrific and unlistenable score. The score, for the ten to fifteen minutes it plays (hardly a score given a 106-minute runtime), is an atonal howler that shares a close relationship with the sound mix* – to the point where numerous other film critics have conflated the two. If Glazer is attempting to dissociate his film from the artifices of cinema, I cannot think of a better encapsulation of how quickly he fails than with this collaboration with Levi. In a time when many directors are telling their composers that they do not want noticeable music (in most instances, a fundamental misunderstanding about the dramatic and emotional capabilities of film music), Levi’s score is inescapable. Its heavy sonic distortions; complete dismissal of any familiar intonation (one of Levi’s primary influences is experimental composer Harry Partch, whose music obliterates the familiar seven pitches of a diatonic scale in favor of a 43-tone scale with uneven intervals); and bizarre use of electronically-manipulated choral screaming (a kitschy musical decision that borders on the insensitive and tasteless) might perfectly set the tone for some viewers. For myself – especially the scenes shot in night vision and the moment the screen fades to red – it was a discordant distraction that, again, only served to take me out of the movie.

The best film scores have several disparate but heavily interdependent and coequal qualities: they empower, but not overtake, the comedic/dramatic and emotional power of a movie and its narrative (if a narrative is present); they should typify exemplary musicianship (in composition and performance); and the viewer should be able to hear the music. Levi and Glazer share the failure on the the first two aspects. It is only on this third aspect that Mica Levi’s work truly contributes to The Zone of Interest – a film that would be better treated without a score.

The Zone of Interest raises pertinent questions of culpability and human responsibility in reckoning with humanity at its worst. There are moments in here – mostly scenes in which the reality of the Holocaust leaves its terrible shadow over the Höss family, moments where you expect them to possibly recoil from what they are doing – that stick with me, and haunt my ruminations over how I rationalize living in a society built on violence. Crucially, The Zone of Interest is not unique in inspiring such thoughts in a person, as some are suggesting. Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave (2013) also provoked a similar introspection in me – these films depict two episodes within the context of the two original sins of my home nation. And though neither of those films centralize the goodness of others (far from it), if one looks close enough, one can find the banality of good (amid more naturalistic filmmaking).

In the end, Jonathan Glazer’s treatment of The Zone of Interest buckles underneath the weight of his promise to forego the conventions of art cinema. His objectives conflict with the artistic trappings – in its cinematography, music, sound mix, and an intellectual remove from human nature that I am unsure is appropriate for this subject matter – found within. It leaves his promise utterly broken.

My rating: 5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

* You hear nearly everything in this film. Sometimes, a little too perfectly. There are several moments in The Zone of Interest in which you hear the screams of Auschwitz’s prisoners or gunshots and they sound as if they are far too close to the Höss household than they should be. It reminded me, to paraphrase Larry Mantle on the December 15, 2023 episode of FilmWeek, of stage plays using off-stage tapes to play sounds for activities ostensibly not occurring "on stage". While that might work in a stage play, that is not the sort of comparison I wish to be making when writing on a film.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jaryn Crouson

Professors connected to anti-Israel protests head programs that received millions of taxpayer dollars, according to a report released Wednesday by government transparency group Open The Books.

The Department of Education has spent $283 million on foreign studies grants since 2020, with over $22.1 million going towards programs studying the Middle East, Open The Books found. The study analyzed the top three grant recipients, Indiana University, Columbia University and Georgetown University, and found that each highlighted anti-Israel professors as distinguished staff in their programs.

“These universities all have multibillion dollar endowments,” Amber Todoroff, deputy policy editor at Open The Books, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “They get tax breaks, government-backed student loans, and enormous sums through federal grants and contracts. Through these Title VI grants, they’re getting funding specifically for departments that have hosted radical professors, instigating shameful protests nationwide. It’s high time Congress takes a closer look at how this money is being spent, and, with so many new ways to learn languages and international culture, if it’s even necessary at all.”

Universities received these funds in the form of two different grants: National Resource Centers grants, which go directly to departmental programs, and Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) grants, which can be used to give students fellowships to study foreign regions or languages, according to Open The Books.

Columbia received $2.8 million in FLAS grants from 2020 to 2024, according to the report. Its program is meant to “examine transnational connections, develop Islamic studies, and deepen specialist expertise on the region,” according to Columbia’s 2018 grant proposal.

The 2018 application mentioned Joseph Massad, a professor in the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department, as a selling point for the university’s program, noting that his classes “focus on the modern history, gender, political economy, international relations, politics and culture of the region.” The university received $653,632 in an FLAS grant in the 2022-2023 school year that was used in part to fund a fellowship for a student to take Massad’s “Gender and Sexuality in the Arab World” class, according to Open The Books.

Massad was alleged by students to be biased “against both Israel and the West” in his classes, according to Open The Books, citing nonprofit group Middle East Forum. The professor published an article the day after Hamas’ attack in 2023 calling it a “stunning victory,” and he gave a talk at the university in 2002 titled “On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy.”

Columbia experienced intense anti-Israel campus protests during the spring semester that resulted in over 100 arrests and multiple safety concerns. (RELATED: Many Pro-Palestinian Protesters Remain In ‘Good Standing’ At Columbia)

🧵On October 8, Professor Joseph Massad described the Oct. 7 brutal terror attack as “awesome” and a “stunning victory.” He also happens to be the chair of an important academic approval Committee. Watch as @Columbia President claims: “he is no longer a chair of that… pic.twitter.com/rRU32HQnTv — House Committee on Education & the Workforce (@EdWorkforceCmte) April 17, 2024

Indiana University raked in $2.84 million in federal grants from 2020 to 2023 for its Middle East program, and touted professor Abdulkader Sinno its 2018 grant application for his specialization in “the evolution and outcomes of civil wars, ethnic strife and other territorial conflicts; Muslim representation in Western liberal democracies; Islamist parties’ participation in elections,” according the report. Sinno reportedly served as a faculty advisor for the university’s Palestinian Solidarity Committee, which was involved in hosting an “anti-Israel counter protest” where members confronted participants of a Hillel demonstration.

Sinno attempted to sidestep university policies to host the pro-Palestinian speaker Miko Peled for the organization, booking the speaker as an academic event rather than student event, according to the university’s students newspaper, the Indiana Daily Student. The decision led to a two-semester suspension from teaching and a year suspension from advising student groups, according to Open The Books.

Even after the suspension, Sinno gave a speech at an “alternative” graduation for anti-Israel activists during which he praised them for being part of a “proud tradition” and said that their protesting showed “empathy and caring,” according to WFYI.

More than 50 protesters were arrested on Indiana University’s campus in April after a clash with police that left multiple injured, according to Fox 59.

Georgetown received $2.64 million from the Department of Education from 2020 to 2023 in FLAS funding, and it named Associate Professor and Director of Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies Dr. Fida Adely in its 2018 grant proposal, the report found. Adely is a member of the Faculty for Justice in Palestine’s National Advisory Board, according to Open The Books, which is a group that “encourages academic and cultural boycotts of Israel and Israeli academic institutions,” according to its website.

Hundreds rallied on Georgetown’s campus during the spring semester, hosting an encampment that lasted more than a week and scuffled with police, according to the university’s student newspaper, The Hoya. Adely participated in an October rally, calling on the university to divest from Israel-linked companies, according to a separate student paper, The Georgetown Voice.

“By funding schools that teach radical ideologies and practice a far-Left DEI philosophy, controversial professors and administrators are also gaining access to a vast ecosystem of tax dollars, and influence over impressionable young people,” the report concluded. “These funds can be used to advance their research, build their standing as credentialed academics, gain tenure, and impact international policy discussions. Meanwhile, our national interest in these grants comes into considerable question. Are we encouraging more professionals who will be credible in these fields and represent U.S. interests, or more folks who are determined to ‘dismantle’ the ‘settler colonialism’ they see all around them?”

Columbia, Georgetown, Indiana University, Massad, Sinno and Adely did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

The way Ridley Scott responded to historians is insulting and immature. Telling them to "buy a life" and that they cannot know because they weren’t there. He is talking to specialists, people who study and read every new researches on the period or the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. But, during interviews, he keeps giving false historical facts about Napoleon Bonaparte.

He made a movie about a very important historical figure in France, which still has an impact on our society today (the law is based on his Code Pénal), and a figure that fed French nationalist propaganda and colonialism for centuries. We have still not got rid of all the negative influence he had on France (Pro-coloniasm was still taught to children 40 years ago). Napoleon Bonaparte is not a historical figure you can play around with and make do whatever you want.

It's already really hard to make some French folks understand that they were fed propaganda about Napoleon (Criticizing Napoleon is "believing in English propaganda" in their eyes, when Napoleon betrayed the revolutionary's spirit and French people's wishes), we really didn't need more bs to be taught.

No, Napoleon didn't shot the pyramids. He was an asshole, but history and archeology are an interests of the two Napoleon emperors, they actually weren't bad in that aspect. No, Napoleon wasn't there when Marie-Antoinette was beheaded (they both loved slavery and hated human rights, btw). He betrayed his family (the Bonaparte survived murder attempts in Corse for being against the monarchy and for a republic, and he created an empire), the Revolution's ideals (brought back slavery and the "godly family in charge of the country") and the French people (coup d'état = high treason, with a lot of people killed)

Also, he was the first to talk about creating Israel (so he could have a colony. He wanted to use the Jewish people to steal a land and make a colony. The Jewish people didn't fall for it at the time)

[thorntopieces]

[Image 1 ID: White text on a black background. the writing reads: "Remember this lady? I didn't either."

Underneath these two sentences is a picture from the 30s/40s of Irena Sendler, a woman with pale skin and dark hair, wearing a dark coloured dress. The woman's hair is braided around her head and is well kept. She is wearing a neutral expression.

The text underneath continues: "Irena Sendler. Died: May 12, 2008 (aged 98). Warsaw, Poland. During WWII, Irena, got permissino to work in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a plumbing/sewer specialist. She had an ulterior motive. Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried. She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids. Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto. The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises. During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants. Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi's [sic!] broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely. Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out, in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard. After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family. Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted. In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not seleted. Al Gore won, for a slide show on global warming."

The text at the bottom reads: "Irena Sendler. Thank you for giving so much and saving so many." To the right of this text is a picture of Irene Sendler as an old woman. She is smiling in the picture, wearing a dark partial headcover and a dark dress. End Image 1 ID.]

[Image 2 ID: a screenshot of a tweet from @/GP_Hildreth. The text reads "So many heroic women we are never taught about in history. Here is a true hero." End Image 2 ID.]