By Jerry Klinger
Bigotry, hate, antisemitism, and ignorance are not owned by any one group, nor by any one culture or nationality. There is a universality to it.
Antisemites repeat, with vicious relish, the false canard that Galut Jews are disloyal, cowards. They never volunteer as soldiers, fight for their country, and if called to service will find a way to hide in the back ranks. Israeli soldiers are simply cruel brutes.
For lies to live, it does not take much. The much to give lies life only requires people who know the truth to remain silent. They must be timid and afraid to sweat the small stuff. The lie will live forever. It will be believed over time.
Mark Twain was one of, if not the greatest American literary humorist, journalist, and observer of American popular culture in the 19th century. He reflected the majority American view of the American Jew.
“He is a frequent and faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier — like the Christian Quaker,” Twain wrote in “Concerning The Jews” in Harper’s Magazine, March 1898.
Twain had the willingness to learn and the decency to admit when he was wrong.
A year later, he publicly wrote his ignorant bigotry led to serious hurt.
“When I published the above article in Harper’s Monthly, I was ignorant—like the rest of the Christian world – of the fact that the Jew has a record as a soldier.
“I have since seen the official statistics, and I find that he furnished soldiers and high officers to the Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. In the Civil War, he was represented in the armies and navies of both the North and the South by 10 percent of his numerical strength —the same percentage that was furnished by the Christian populations of the two sections.
“This large fact means more than it seems to mean; for it means that the Jew’s patriotism was not merely level with the Christian’s but overpassed it.”
Antisemitism, the world’s longest hatred (a term coined by renowned historian Robert Wistrich), does not end so simply.
Across the “Pond,” Roald Dahl was a famous British author of popular culture novels and stories, many for children, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His books have been published in the hundreds of millions of copies. His influence has been vast. His antisemitism, especially in contemporary Britain, is well-established and blisteringly damaging.
British antisemitism is shamefully in resurgence. Dahl, himself a former RAF pilot during WWII, probably knew better. He never let go of his lifelong hatred.
Just before his death in 1990, Roald Dahl said, “Why do so many hate Jews? Hitler was a stinker but was he right about Jews?’ … ‘I never saw a Jew in the front line.”
Dahl never apologized for his hatred. His family did after he died.
The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation (JASHP) places historical interpretive markers around the world reflecting on the commonality of the Jewish experience. Jews were here. Jews contributed…
Tribal cynics unpleasantly add their two cents, “they (the markers) are only pinpricks in the thick hides of the antisemites. They are meaningless wastes of money. No one sees those small Jewish historical markers; No one cares.”
The U.K. Branch of the JASHP is led by respected historian, educator, and Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women archivist Martin Sugarman. Eight times in 2021 he has heard the cynical put down of successful JASHP efforts fighting antisemitism in the U.K.
A single marker is a pinprick. But pinprick after pinprick, soon the antisemite takes note of the pain. The cumulative pain upon pain, forcing truth to be seen and told, makes a difference.
With funding from the parent organization, Martin is a man on a mission. Jews and non-Jews are recognizing his cumulative impact on hatred, ignorance, and British antisemitism.
A few weeks ago, a new marker was placed below a second-story window in Camden, London. The marker honors Captain Simmon Latutin, who lived in a flat in the building on the second floor. He volunteered for front-line duty.
The son of Jewish immigrants, Latutin lived here from the 1920s until 1940. He was posthumously awarded this highest medal for bravery when attempting to save the lives of three men in a burning barracks in Mogadishu, December 1944.
Posthumously, the King of England presented the George Cross to Latutin’s family.
The small marker is one more big stick in the eye of antisemitic haters like Dahl.
Martin, with JASHP’s backing, steadfastly soldiers on. The war against hate is far from over. New markers, more markers, are planned for 2022.
The need to confront antisemitism, in any way possible, is growing.
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.