Dennis Prager: Jews Who Cheapen the Holocaust
[Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host and columnist.]
If there is any group that should know the uniqueness of Nazi evil and should not want the evil of the Holocaust cheapened for political purposes, it is the Jews. Yet, there is at least a 50-50 chance that if you read or hear a public personality use Nazi imagery to describe conservatives, the person is a Jew. Specifically a Jew on the left.
Of course, non-Jews on the left also compare conservatives to Nazis, and some non-Jews on the right will sometimes compare the Left to Nazis, but there are three important differences.
First, however many or few tea-party banners compare President Obama to Hitler (and such comparisons are as reprehensible as they are self-defeating), conservative public figures — such as politicians and prominent columnists — almost never compare liberals to Nazis, while public figures on the left often compare conservatives to Nazis.
Second, among liberal Jews, the percentage that believes that Americans on the right are just a step or two away from being Nazis seems to be greater than the proportion of liberal non-Jews who believe that.
Third, when Jews on the left call conservative Americans Nazis, they mean that in its literal sense — they really do regard the conservatives they compare to Nazis as racists, comparable to Nazi anti-Semites. On the other hand, when conservatives use the term, it is meant to signify non-democratic or dictatorial policies, regimes, or individuals — e.g., Seinfeld’s “soup Nazi” or Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazis” — and not potential or likely mass murderers....
When liberal Jewish columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote recently that tea-partiers had engaged in a “small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht,” he meant it. Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”) is widely considered the opening act of the Holocaust. In November 1938, in the course of two days, tens of thousands of German Jews were arrested and deported to concentration camps, scores of Jews were beaten to death, 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized....
Because when Frank Rich and most other Jews on the left see right-wing non-Jews, they see swastikas. It is an inversion of the famous scene in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall in which a WASP character is depicted as seeing the Woody Allen character as a Hasidic Jew. Most American Jews on the left (like leftist professors on college campuses) inhabit an insular universe, where regular (never mind intimate) contact with conservatives — especially Christian conservatives — is almost non-existent....
Read entire article at National Review
If there is any group that should know the uniqueness of Nazi evil and should not want the evil of the Holocaust cheapened for political purposes, it is the Jews. Yet, there is at least a 50-50 chance that if you read or hear a public personality use Nazi imagery to describe conservatives, the person is a Jew. Specifically a Jew on the left.
Of course, non-Jews on the left also compare conservatives to Nazis, and some non-Jews on the right will sometimes compare the Left to Nazis, but there are three important differences.
First, however many or few tea-party banners compare President Obama to Hitler (and such comparisons are as reprehensible as they are self-defeating), conservative public figures — such as politicians and prominent columnists — almost never compare liberals to Nazis, while public figures on the left often compare conservatives to Nazis.
Second, among liberal Jews, the percentage that believes that Americans on the right are just a step or two away from being Nazis seems to be greater than the proportion of liberal non-Jews who believe that.
Third, when Jews on the left call conservative Americans Nazis, they mean that in its literal sense — they really do regard the conservatives they compare to Nazis as racists, comparable to Nazi anti-Semites. On the other hand, when conservatives use the term, it is meant to signify non-democratic or dictatorial policies, regimes, or individuals — e.g., Seinfeld’s “soup Nazi” or Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazis” — and not potential or likely mass murderers....
When liberal Jewish columnist Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote recently that tea-partiers had engaged in a “small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht,” he meant it. Kristallnacht (“Night of the Broken Glass”) is widely considered the opening act of the Holocaust. In November 1938, in the course of two days, tens of thousands of German Jews were arrested and deported to concentration camps, scores of Jews were beaten to death, 267 synagogues were destroyed, and thousands of Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized....
Because when Frank Rich and most other Jews on the left see right-wing non-Jews, they see swastikas. It is an inversion of the famous scene in Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall in which a WASP character is depicted as seeing the Woody Allen character as a Hasidic Jew. Most American Jews on the left (like leftist professors on college campuses) inhabit an insular universe, where regular (never mind intimate) contact with conservatives — especially Christian conservatives — is almost non-existent....