Nazis – Don't Gel Too Soon

ISIS, Nazis, Trump and Dr. Caligari

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - "Original German One-Sheet" — The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – “Original German One-Sheet”

These are scary times. A terrible sense of vulnerability has enveloped all of us. Is my son safe at his Jewish preschool? Should I still ride the bus? Continue to refuse to own a gun? Most importantly, trust my neighbors?

Worst of all, in the ramp-up to the Presidential election, can I continue to vote my hopes and ideals, not the base instincts of fear and distrust that Donald Trump evokes so skillfully? Here’s what TV host and former Hill staffer Chris Matthews said about Trump the day that he challenged President Obama’s patriotism.

For those who applauded him today, cheered at his insinuation that the President hides himself as a defender of Islamist terrorism, I can only say this,You should be ashamed. None of us should applaud this 21st century McCarthyism, this cheap insinuation against a fellow American backed up by nothing but hate.”

Matthews described a “21st century McCarthyism;” perhaps there are even stronger parallels with the Germany’s Weimar Republic, which ruled during the desperate years between the end of WWI in 1918 and 1933, when Hitler was elected — and with the legendary film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” released in Germany in 1920.

Considered the “first horror film,” it is the tale of an insane hypnotist who uses a somnambulist to commit murders. Its protagonist, Dr. Caligari, according to Siegfried Kracauer in his remarkable From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film “stands for an unlimited authority that idolizes power as such, and, to satisfy its lust for domination, ruthlessly violates all human rights and values”*. The somnambulist, (sleepwalker) Cesare is meant to be ordinary man, conditioned to kill.

There is much to connect our time with those Weimar years. Some of it is a reach – but some of it is not. The Harvard Film Archive describes the Weimar Republic as “A period of great political and economic instability – of rampant inflation and unemployment.” I remember learning about times when Germans needed a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread, of hunger and sometimes even starvation, and about a deep resentment that the money that might have eased some this misery went instead to pay reparations to France and other victors.

The impact of this humiliation, along with deep resentment of Germany’s changed role in the world, is considered to have supported the response to Hitler’s message and his subsequent rise. Kracauer late wrote:

Whether intentionally or not, [CALIGARI] exposes the soul wavering between tyranny and chaos, and facing a desperate situation: any escape from tyranny seems to throw it into a state of utter confusion. Quite logically, the film spreads an all-pervading atmosphere of horror. Like the Nazi world, that of CALIGARI overflows with sinister portents, acts of terror and outbursts of panic.

Familiar?

I spent some time Friday with a psychiatrist who listens to people all day. I was ranting about the dangers of feeding fear and anger, encouraging blanket discrimination and even violence. “We need someone to address our better angels, not our untrammeled fears.” said I.

His response: Never, ever had things been like they are in this country at this moment, when no none knows what to do. Every one of his patients, he added, described feeling some sort of real anxiety, if not abject fear.

I responded pretty much as Chris Matthews had. In his limited sample, my friend replied, Trump was the only candidate who felt to patients like a “strong American.” It was that impression that led them to feel such a strong affinity for him.

So here we sit. Certainly not Weimar but unsettled and seeking a “stronger” leader and allowing a man (whose qualifications. — beyond his brilliant ability to read a crowd) are questionable, to suggest that we ban Muslims from our shores.

We need to decide whether we are willing to be sleepwalkers. If we’re not, we’ve got to wake up everybody else.

Lanny Budd, Hero for a Lifetime: a Pilgrimage to Juan-les-Pins

Lanny Budd lived somewhere on this hill .

He’s been part of my life for more than fifty years – dashing, smart, generous and always on the side of the angels. With him I wandered through most of the 20th Century in the company of critical figures including playwright George Bernard Shaw, powerful arms dealer Basil Zaharoff, Adolph Hitler and his brilliant propaganda director Joseph Goebbels, Leon Blum, the first Socialist (and Jewish) Prime Minister of France and of course Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, as well as the infamous “modern dance” pioneer Isadora Duncan, Chinese rebel leader Mao Tse Tung, and, among so many others, Albert Einstein and of course, FDR, whom he served as a Secret Agent from before WWII to well after the war.

When we met, he was 13 and I a couple of years older and, much like the NYT’s Julie Salamon, my mom introduced us and from our first meeting I knew that I would love him forever. His remarkable life revolved around his home base of Juan-les-Pins, where he grew up, and to which he always returned.

The house was built on the top of a rise, some way back, from the sea. It was of pink stucco with pale blue shutters and a low roof of red tiles. It was in the Spanish style, built around a lovely court with a fountain and flowers; there Lanny played when the mistral was blowing, as it sometimes did for a week on end.

Last week we went there, where Lanny lived, with Beauty Budd, his artist model mother. Though she and his father Robbie Budd, a New England arms dealer, never married, Robbie visited often, struggling to transmit his conservative capitalism to a young man living in dire danger of corruption among artists, journalists, socialists, communists and wealthy ladies, many of them an earlier version of trophy wives. Their fierce conversations were a wonderful window on the conflicts of those times.

Lanny is, of course, not real – at least not to everyone; he’s the hero of eleven novels written by the prolific Upton Sinclair (yes, he’s the one who wrote The Jungle) tracing world history between 1913 and 1949. Best-sellers all when they appeared in the 40’s and early 50’s and translated into 16 languages in 20 countries, the books formed much of my political and historic perspective and I was hardly alone.

When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime, I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to Upton Sinclair’s novels. — George Bernard Shaw

As we walked through the village I turned to my ever-tolerant husband with a catch in my voice, said – surprising myself with the depth of my emotion “I’ve known him almost longer than I’ve known anyone except my family.” He and the saga that surrounded him felt, in so many ways, just that real.

One of Lanny’s childhood friends, Silesian, and bitter about the deprivation caused by enormous war reparations after WWI, became a Nazi; another, British and liberal, a fighter pilot and socialist.

His first wife ended up hanging around with with the Nancy Astor and the pro-German “Cliveden Set.” My world view was formed through their eyes and conversations and the events they faced as allies and sometime adversaries.

The books, Lanny, and the characters who moved in and out of his life were, for me – a very personal window on the horror and violence, courage and evil, glamour and idealism that was the first half of the 20th Century.

Oh, and of course, it being the South of France, the literary folks hung around there too. We had lunch at Scott Fitzgerald’s “Villa Saint-Louis”, just down the hill from Lanny’s neighborhood and now the Hotel Belle Rives.

Belle Rive fitz patio — “With our being back in a nice villa on my beloved Riviera (between Cannes and Nice) I’m happier than I’ve been for years. It’s one of those strange, precious and all too transitory moments when everything in one’s life seems to be going well.”  —F. Scott Fitzgerald, March 15, 1926, Juan-les-Pins (Plaque outside the hotel that was his home on the Riviera)

Clinton confidante Lanny Davis was named for Lanny Budd. The late NBC News anchor John Chancellor once told me he wanted to be Lanny Budd. At 15, I wanted to marry him.

Now, I wish I could have gone up the hill to the pink villa, rung the bell and just thanked him for all I learned from him, how much more available I am to travel and political thought and my own role in the world because I’ve known him. He may not be “real” but his impact on me, and so very many others, was profound.

Indeed, thanks Lanny, and Upton Sinclair, and my long-suffering husband who tolerated a pilgrimage to a place where not so much happened in the “real world” but plenty happened to me.

SCARY TIMES: DO WE FACE A NEW GREAT DEPRESSION (AND DOES SARAH PALIN STILL MATTER?)

Every decision my parents ever made was influenced by the Depression. What we ate, what we wore, where we shopped, when and how we took vacations, what we "needed" vs what we "wanted" and, in their own lives, what careers they followed and where we all lived. They had been teenagers in the Depression, and although both went to college (on scholarships and several jobs at once) neither studied what they’d wanted to. I’ve talked about all this before – my mother refusing even to talk about her life then, my dad so concerned when any of us made a job change or took any professional risk.

I felt it too. I still read menus from the price to the item, skipping the ones that are too expensive. Ditto with price tags on clothes. I’ve always clipped coupons and bought things on sale, shopped at big box stores and always, always read the unit prices of things. And, as an American Studies major I took several courses dealing with the Depression. I needed to know more about it not only as a student but as a daughter.

I know that this is not the Great Depression. I know that there are more protections in place, even if too many of them have been removed in the past eight years. But the economic chaos of the past week has been scary on more than one level. Of course I worry about us, getting near retirement age. But my bigger worry is the impact such a colossal change will have on the lives of the younger people we love. Our sons, first of all, at the beginning of their careers. And all the families in this community who mean so much to us – just starting families and facing years of tuitions and outgrown winter coats and activity fees. I also think about just-retired or nearly retired "elders" so well represented by Ronni Bennett’s blog, and all the people living from paycheck to paycheck — who will be endangered by cuts in hours and devastated by the loss of their jobs.

And this is where Sarah Palin comes in. And John McCain. Because every day the level of negative language rises, the indulgent response to enraged constituents yelling things that should not be spoken in an American election or any other time: threats and bigoted characterizations and more. This kind of language is far more dangerous in a bad economy. Hitler was successful partially because the German economy had so badly frightened people, men like "Father Coughlin" (that’s his picture) preached racism and anti-Semitism on the radio during the Depression with substantial response. There other, less prominent hate-mongers too – and they had a real following. People needed someone to be angry at and were vulnerable to that sort of demagogery. It’s a very scary shadow over the economic crisis, the campaign, and the souls of the American people. NOW, go read Josh Marshall on why the ghost of Father Coughlin haunts him, too. And read this very thoughtful post about a tough electoral decision.

The consider what sort of leader allows such things – and doesn’t stand up and tell his/her supporters to cut it out? What does that say about their leadership once they’re in office?

MOURNING ENORMOUS LOSS: TISHA B’AV, THE TRAUMA OF MEMORY AND THE WISDOM OF JEWISH TRADITION

The lights were out; all that remained were small spotlights where the readers sat. It was a day of sorrow and mourning, so we spurned comfort and, as tradition dictates, sat on the floor. In front of the Sanctuary, the readings began: Eichah – Lamentations, the prophet Jeremiah’s horrifying account of an ancent time of soul-shattering misery. Reading it aloud is part of the holiday** but,
since I was newly observant, it was previously unknown to me, as was the
enormous impact of the dimly lit room and haunting content and trope of the reading. That first time, just three years ago, I didn’t have a clue what was coming — that night or the next morning, when the readings continued.

Accompanied by a 25 hour fast, this all takes place on the holiday of Tisha B’Av – the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, to commemorate the multiple horrors believed to have taken place on that day.*

This is a lot of sadness (and foreboding of more to come) to have
taken place on the same date. So it’s fair to observe a period of
mourning and remembrance. What happened to me, though, was that the
language of mourning is so fierce, so hideous, and in some ways, so
applicable to what we see happening around us now, that it is almost
unbearable to listen to. And so, the first time I heard it, I fled in
the middle and went across the hall into the childcare room. My sweet,
ridiculously smart friend Aliza, with her
infant daughter and unable to join the prayers, was off to the side
praying on her own. In tears, so troubled that I was trembling, I
interrupted her prayers, something I would never do otherwise, and
demanded to know why it was necessary for us to listen to this. And to
know we’d be doomed to do so every summer. In her quiet way, she
replied that perhaps once a year isn’t too often to recall these
fearsome times in our history.

At the time, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but now, I’m,
shocked to discover that I look forward to this annual observance,
which
comes this weekend. Why? I guess after three years some of the shock
has worn off. Of course there’s more: as usual when I listen to Aliza,
I’ve had to think harder. One thing I’ve realized is that this day,
ignored by most Jews, is a kind of anchor — keeping us in place,
connecting us, those who came before, and those who will follow.

I can’t trace my family past my grandparents on either side; all my
grandparents and their siblings came here years before the Holocaust
and any records of their ancestors were lost or destroyed as the Nazis
decimated Europe. That they were Jewish, though, is irrefutable. Now
I find that, although I can’t share their stories and traditions, we do
share a history. I realize as I am writing this that moments which
commemorate that common history are not just religious, but also family
connections. Our mourning on the 9th of Av honors not just God’s
anger, which led Him to allow the destruction of the Temples, and not
just the martyrdom of so many, but also each individual, unknown person
whose DNA is mixed with mine.

I had often
protested that we need to honor that which we value as the positive
attributes of the Jewish experience, not just the martyrdoms that
remind us of our history of suffering, but also the joy and pride
our tradition offers. What I’ve realized is that we can’t forget..
There’s much to be learned by what’s
come before and by acknowledging our connection to it. And this deeply
moving, haunting and humbling tradition is connected to each of us
right
now, this minute.

* With thanks to the OU Tisha B’Av website :

In the time of Moses, the "sin of the spies" whom he sent out
to evaluate the situation in the soon-to-be conquered Canaan and who
returned with horror stories that questioned God’s power to protect the
Jews and caused Him to decree that none from the generation who went
out of Egypt would be permitted to go into Israel.
The destruction of the first Temple under Nebuchadnezzar. (587 BCE – 3338 in the Hebrew calendar)
The destruction of the second Temple under Titus. (70 CE – 3895 in the Hebrew calendar)
The Romans conquered Betar, the last fortress of the Bar Kochba
rebellion and Hadrian turned Jerusalem into a Roman city. (135 CE –
3895 in the Hebrew calendar)
King Edward I signed the edict that expelled all Jews from England (1290 CE – 5050 in the Hebrew calendar)
Jews expelled from Spain because of King Ferdinand’s decree (1492 CE — 5252 in the Hebrew calendar)
The last Jews left Vienna under expulsion orders there. (1670)
World War I began (1914 CE — 5674 in the Hebrew calendar)
Himmler presented the plan for the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish
problem" to the Nazi party. (1940 — 5700 in the Hebrew calendar)
Nazis began deporting Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. (1942 CE — 5702 in the Hebrew calendar)

** Also, interestingly, quoted in Christian prayers for Zimbabwe,

THERE WAS A TORAH IN AUSCHWITZ

On Sunday, more than a hundred people stood in the aisles of their gathering place, most of them weeping. It wasn’t a funeral, at least in the usual sense of the word, but it was an event so profoundly moving that few were left untouched. We all stood, in our synagogue, on the final day of Passover, in the presence of a Torah that had been hidden in Auschwitz and has only now been recovered and restored. [First though, it’s important that you know that the Torah is the central road map of Judaism – all traditions and laws, ideals and values, emerge from these five books: Genesis (B’reshit), Exodus (Sh’mot), Leviticus ( Vayyikra), Numbers (Bemidbar) and Deuteronomy (D’varim.)] It’s an amazing story and best told by our rabbi, who is responsible for bringing this moment to us. The story, in his words, appears at the bottom of this post.

Even the most spiritual person – one who easily connects to G-d, needs help sometimes. Praying, feeling any connection at all, takes work and concentration. But this day — this day — we were in the presence of something so remarkable that the sense of holiness was everywhere. I know this sounds way over the top – but stay with me. Here’s what happened:

On Sabbath (Saturday), Monday, Thursday and holidays, we always read from the Torah during services. On Regular Sabbaths and weekdays we make our way through the five books; on holidays we re-read selected excerpts that relate to that particular festival. On this day, closing Passover, we read the prescribed passages, and then, a dear, gentle member of our congregation who is himself a Holocaust survivor took this special Torah, which contained four panels that had been hidden in Auschwitz and began to walk slowly up one aisle and down the other so that everyone who wished to could reach it. As he walked, another congregant – with an exquisite and soulful voice, sang Ani Mamin, the prayer that, witnesses told his family, his own great-grandfather (as had so many other Shoah victims) sang as he marched to his death at the hands of the Nazis. Orthodox services include no musical instruments, just voices, so only this sole, mournful chant swept our friend along as he made his way through the synagogue.

There was no other sound in the room. Silently, each of us moved to the aisle to touch this sacred representation of so much pain and so much faith. Silently, we watched as it passed and made its way to the stand where it would rest as it was unrolled, and read. As its cover was being removed, our rabbi urged us all to "move closer" – leave our seats and, from each side of the mechitza (room divider), gather near. He was right. Imagine looking at, seeing before you, a Torah panel that had been smuggled into Auschwitz and hidden there as long as it was a death camp. It’s such a feeling of reverence, sadness, mourning and privilege that you need to imagine it for yourself; it’s not possible to describe. I will tell you ,though, that almost everyone was either teary-eyed or weeping openly. And so it went as the Torah was read, wrapped, silently marched through the congregation one more time and placed in the Ark until it could be returned to those who gave us the privilege of being in its presence.

This all sounds VERY melodramatic, I know. I myself had often argued that our identity as Jews can’t be built upon the suffering of those murdered six million – that we must feel our faith as a positive force, not only as a continuation that honors their suffering. But not this day. This day we all shared a connection with those who died, many who must have been our ancestors, whose grandchildren would have been at our weddings and bar mitzvahs, who really did belong to us – and who read from the thousands of Torahs that, unlike this one, did not survive the pillage and flames. Every time the Torah is returned to the Ark, the congregation sings a song about it that ends:

It
is a tree of life to those who hold it fast and all who cling to it find
happiness. Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are
peace.

This day – we all heard these words in such a different way, understanding what these few pages must have meant to those who had hidden them for so long.

I can’t tell, if you weren’t there – if it’s possible to understand the experience — at least at the hands of my limited skills as a writer. But I wanted you to know about it — that it’s possible still to find such a moment of clarity and understanding. That even someone like me, so reluctant to place meaning in things — even articles representing faith like prayer books or even Torahs, can be shaken to the bone in the presence of something that bears witness both to the pain of our ancestors and, so powerfully, to the power of the faith we share with them.

Here’s our Rabbi’s story of the history of this Torah (I’ve included links to clarify a couple words):

The Torah is a Tree of Life The Last Day of Pesach, 5768
Shmuel Herzfeld, Ohev Sholom, the National Synagogue, Washington DC

This past Sunday, as we prepared to recite Yizkor*, we first gave honor to a
special Torah that was visiting with our congregation.

Here is the story of the Torah and how we came to have it with us on this
one occasion.

Two days before Pesach I stopped in the Silver Spring Jewish Book Store to
buy some gifts for Pesach, when I saw this Torah which said on the mantle,
“Rescued from Auschwitz.”

The owner of the store is a sofer and a rabbi and a very good friend by the
name of Menachem Youlis. Rabbi Youlis told me that the Torah was being given to
the Central Synagogue in New York City on Wednesday April 30. The Torah was
being donated to them by Alice and David Rubenstein and had been lovingly
restored by Rabbi Youlis through his Save a Torah Foundation.

I was overwhelmed by being in the presence of this Torah. I couldn’t stop
thinking about it. Here was living proof that our Torah is eternal. The Nazis
tried to destroy us physically but they could not destroy the Torah.

The next week I mentioned the beauty of this Torah to my friends, Secretary
William Cohen and his wife Janet Langhart Cohen and they graciously offered to
ask David Rubenstein to lend us the Torah so that we could read it in our shul
before it went to New York. David Rubenstein generously agreed.

And so we had the honor of reading from the Torah in our synagogue on the
last day of Pesach.

Before Yizkor I told the congregation the story of this Torah.

The Torah was recently found in the city of Oswiecim which is where the
death camp of Auschwitz was located.

I had learned about this city and its Jewish life from my rebbe, Rabbi Avi
Weiss. He knew this town well because his father lived there till he was 16.
It is likely that Rabbi Weiss’ father had actually heard this Torah being
read.

There was a tradition amongst the survivors of Oswiecim that two days
before the Nazis came to burn down the synagogue of Oswiecim the Torahs of the
synagogue were taken and buried in separate metal boxes in the Jewish cemetery.
The Nazis took a perverse pleasure in destroying Sifrei Torah in terrible ways
that purposefully desecrated the Torah.

Many had tried to find these Torahs and indeed, the spot where the
synagogue stood was excavated but no Sifrei Torah were ever found.

So Rabbi Menachem Youlis thought that perhaps the tradition told over the
years was correct. Maybe there really was a Torah buried in the cemetery.

He traveled to Oswiecim to check the cemetery but he did not find even one
Torah.

When he returned home he was despondent. But then his son told him, “Maybe
the cemetery was bigger back then…” Lo and behold the original cemetery was
built over and today it is just twenty-five percent of the size that it once
was.

So Rabbi Youlis took his metal detector and started searching the original
cemetery by looking under the homes where the cemetery originally was.

Lo and behold, he found a metal box. He opened up the metal box and found
a Torah scroll.

There was only one problem…the Torah scroll was missing four panels.
Without these four panels, the Torah scroll could not be kosher…. Where could
these panels be?

He took out an ad in the local paper and asked if anyone had panels of a
Torah from before the war.

The next day he received a call from a Priest who said he had four panels.

The panels were an exact match in pagination, style and content. Obviously
they were originally from the Torah he had found buried in the cemetery.

Rabbi Youlis learned that the Priest was born a Jew—named Zeev—and was sent
to Auschwitz. Before the Torah had been buried in the Oswiecim cemetery these
four panels had been removed and smuggled through Auscwitz by four different
people.

As each person who had a panel was about to die they passed along the
panels. Eventually the four panels made it into the hands of Zeev who guarded
them as a Priest for over 60 years.

Rabbi Youlis lovingly restored the Torah and made it kosher once again. He
added these four panels to the entire Torah. The four panels were all selected
for a good reason:

The first panel contained the Ten Commandments from the book of Exodus.
The Ten Commandments contain with it the word Zachor—the obligation to always
remember.

The second panel spoke about the curses that will befall the Jewish people
on the day the God hides His face from us. These curses came true during the
dark days of the Holocaust. But we know that since these curses came true, the
blessings that Hashem promises us will also come true.

The third panel contained the section from Parshat Pinchas that spoke about
korbanot—sacrifices, burnt offerings—that were offered to God.

The last panel contained the Shema from Deuteronomy. In that same panel
was also found the Ten Commandments from Deuteronomy.

The Ten Commandments from Exodus say, Zakhor et hashabbat, remember
the Shabbat.

Explain the rabbis, Zakhor ve-shamor bedibbur echad neemru, at the
same time that remember was said, so was the word shamor, to guard.

At the same time that we have an obligation to remember the past we also
have an obligation to guard the memory of the korbanot of the shoah—the
victims of the Holocaust.

When Rabbi Youlis looked at this Torah he noticed that the word
shamor (in Deuteronomy) was missing the letter, vav. The Torah
had been originally written without this letter included in it. The vav,
has a numerical value of 6, but it also represents the six million. Rabbi
Youlis added the vav to the Torah and thereby made it kosher. By adding
the vav to this Torah he also symbolically made an eternal memorial to
the memory of all those who perished from the town of Oswiecim and in
Auschwitz.

Now that the Torah is kosher it will be guarded and watched by the Central
Synagogue, where it will be read from every Yom Kippur. And every other year it
will be taken by 10,000 students as they march through Auschwitz on March of the
Living. And every time it is used the six million will be guarded (shamor) and
remembered (zachor).

*That’s a memorial prayer for loved ones recited on several holidays each year.

TOO SAD, TOO TRUE

As usual, Ms. Sweetney is onto whatever a person should be onto in the morning. This is a remarkable editorial — maybe a it too long but worth watching. I started to write a long essay to go with it and decided I sounded like a parody, SO I’m not going to say any more. Except that I totally would have missed it without Tracey – I NEVER watch that show. Maybe I should start…..