The Belief that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust is common to Jewish Orthodoxy

‘Lib Dem Cowardice over Jenny Tonge and Jewish Racism

Some of you will recall how Jenny Tonge was forced to resign from the Liberal Democrats because at a meeting she chaired, an Orthodox Rabbi from the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect blamed Reform Rabbi Stephen Wise in America in 1933 for declaring a Boycott of Nazi Germany. Liberal Democrats Suspend British Peer for Supporting Palestinian Rights

In fact the Rabbi was not only stupid but historically wrong.  Wise did his best to stop the Jewish Boycott of Nazi Germany, alongside the Zionists who reached a trade agreement with the Nazis (Ha'avara) in August 1933.  The pressure for a Boycott came from the Jewish working class in America and elsewhere, alongside the international labour movement.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira - he co-wrote 'Torat HaMelech' (the King's Torah) which is a guide book to how you can legally kill a non-Jew, including non-Jewish children and infants 

It was both the Zionist movement and the Jewish bourgeoisie who vehemently opposed the Boycott.  Wise in 1933 went along with a Boycott only to sabotage its implementation when the time arose.  The real leader of the Boycott Samuel Untermeyer in the United States spoke of Wise as ‘the kingpin of mischief-makers whose support for Boycott depended on the audience he was addressing.’  But on August 14^th 1933, Wise was sufficiently stung by Untermeyer’s criticism to declare his support for the Boycott when addressing the Prague Jewish community. [Edwin Black,  The Transfer Agreement, pp. 276-7]

Ovadia Yosef surrounded by Eli Yishai, an out and out racist and Aryeh Deri, the leader of Shas who has already served time in Israeli prisons for corruption

As Untermeyer said of Wise ‘You cannot put out a fire… by just looking on.’ He called on the AJC’s members to ‘instruct these false leaders in no uncertain terms as to the stand they must take… or resign their offices.’

In any event the Boycott had nothing to do with the Holocaust and everything to do with the war on Russia in June 1941. 

One particularly stupid MP, David Davies said "May we have a debate on the use to which these premises may be put following reports that outrageously a member of the House of Lords presided over an event at which Israel was compared to Islamic State, and the Jews were even blamed for their own genocide?"

Shapira was briefly arrested after Torat HaMelech became controversial - however he was soon released.  A Palestinian who had written a book on how to kill Jews would be looking a a prison sentence of years.

If Davies or the other hypocrites and ignoramuses had knew anything about the Holocaust or Jewish religious orthodoxy  then they would have realised that the idea that the Jews who died in the Holocaust were being punished for their own sins is a common one amongst the religious Orthodoxy – both Zionist and anti-Zionist.  No less than the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef said in a sermon that:

 “The six million Holocaust victims were reincarnations of the souls of sinners, people who transgressed and did all sorts of things which should not be done. They had been reincarnated in order to atone.”

Banned from Britain Rabbi Elitzur co-wrote Torat HaMelech - briefly arrested in Israel he was released without charge.

Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000

Pastor John Hagee, President of Christians United for Israel said something very similar.   Quoting Jeremiah 16 he intoned:  

‘Behold I will send for many fishers and after will I send for many hunters. And they the hunters shall hunt them" — that will be the Jews — "from every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks." If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the Holocaust — you can't see that.’ 

In other words Hitler was sent by god as a hunter to drive the Jews to Israel.  Yet Zionist groups rushed to support him.  Why?  Because he was, in addition to being an anti-Semite a strong supporter of Israel.  

Abe Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the main Zionist groups in the USA from saying of Hagee, after he had ‘clarified’ his comments that

‘Pastor Hagee has devoted his life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel.  We are grateful for his efforts to eradicate anti-Semitism and to rally so many in the Christian community to stand with Israel.’

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef didn’t only confine his comments to the Holocaust though. In 5 of Ovadia Yosef’s most controversial quotations Rabbi Yosef also explained the real reasons for Hurricane Katrina.  It was a divine punishment for godlessness and American support for the disengagement from Gaza:

Other pearls of wisdom include:

3) The purpose of Gentiles — to serve Jews:

Ovadia Yosef had very fixed views about non-Jews (Goyim) like the idiot David Davies MP. 

 “Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel.”

Warming to his theme, the good rabbi explained of non-Jews that:

“In Israel, death has no dominion over them… With gentiles, it will be like any person – they need to die, but [God] will give them longevity. Why? Imagine that one’s donkey would die, they’d lose their money.

“This is his servant… That’s why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew.”

“Why are gentiles needed? They will work, they will plow, they will reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat… That is why gentiles were created.”

— Weekly Saturday night sermon in October 2010

4) On making peace with Arabs:

“How can you make peace with a snake?”

“Those evildoers, the Arabs — it says in the Gemara [Talmud] that God is sorry he ever created those sons of Ishmael.”

— Weekly Saturday night sermon in August 2000

So the attack on Jenny Tonge was particularly hypocritical as the Zionists certainly are aware that there is a large strand in Orthodox Jewry which holds that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves because of their sinfulness.

You may think that Ovadia Yosef was just one made Jewish Rabbi but you'd be wrong.  Yosef was a man who could and did break government coalitions in Israel, because he was the spiritual head of Shas, the main Sephardic party in the Knesset.  Today they have 7 seats and are represented in the governing coalition of Netanyahu.  If they were to pull out the coalition would fall.  It is bigots such as this on whom Israel's governing coalition rests.

Tories Propose to Prevent Councils Boycotting Repressive Regimes

Boycott of Israel and Saudi Arabia outlawed as local authorities must follow Tory foreign policy

Jewish Communities throughout the world boycotted Nazi Ger many - only the Zionists traded with them

Under pressure from Zionist and similar right-wing bodies in this country, the Tories are intending to introduce regulations which prevent them from boycotting Israeli goods or firms that operate in Israel or the Occupied Territories.

The Tories Opposed the Boycott of Apartheid South Africa and supported 'constructive engagement' with Apartheid

Matthew Hancock - Tory Scumbag Who Supports Israel's Occupation and Repression in Palestine

Of course from the Zionist point of view this is quite logical or consistent.  Whereas 99% of Jewry in the 1930’s supported an economic and cultural boycott of Nazi Germany, the Zionists negotiated a trade agreement, Ha'avara, with the Nazis which resulted in 60% of capital investment in the Jewish economy in Palestine between 1933 and 1939 coming from Nazi Germany! [David Rosenthall, Jewish Frontier, Vol. LXV, No. 3 (632) MAY/JUNE 1998] Israel literally owes its foundation to Hitler. Even the bourgeois Jewish Chronicle condemned Ha'avara as an ‘unclean thing’.

The Sodastream Shop in Brighton Succumbed to the Boycott - We were helped in our campaign by local Zionist campaigners who created more disruption than us!

Boycott has been the traditional weapon of the oppressed – from the boycott of slave grown sugar in the West Indies to the Boycott of Nazi Germany and the boycott of Apartheid in South Africa.

All of these expressions of solidarity with the oppressed have been opposed by the Conservatives in their time.  It is no wonder that they oppose a boycott of Israeli goods today alongside their Zionist friends.

The Response of the Jewish Community in the 1930's was to  Boycott Nazi Germany - only the Zionists and the Jewish bourgeoisie objected

We should demand that Councils ignore these regulations as they are in breach of international law and provide aid and succour  some of the world’s foulest and most repressive regimes, Israel and Saudia Arabia included.

The first known Boycott was the boycott of slave-grown sugar - naturally the Tories opposed this too as the plantation owners were Tories!  The Zionists weren't yet in existence

Yesterday South Africa, today Israel

Perhaps Albert Einstein summed it up best in comments directed against Wilhelm Furtwangler, the world famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.  Einstein stated that 'If the organisation of German musical life may be compared to military organisation, Furtwangler plays the part of a commander-in-chief...'

The Jewish Chronicle advocating the Cultural Boycott - in the 1930's!  Under Editor Stephen Pollard, the JC opposes all anti-racist boycotts

The Daily Express is owned today by Zionist pornographer Richard Desmond - in the 1930's it supported Hitler and twisting truth on its head portrayed the Boycott of Nazi Germany, not as a defensive weapon, but as a declaration of war against Hitler!  Today the Express opposes the Boycott of Apartheid Israel

US actors call for the boycott of Nazi Germany-1938

See also A History of the Boycott – The Weapon of the Oppressed

Tony Greenstein

'Militant leftwing' councils to be blocked from boycotting products

The Guardian 3.10.15.

Government plans to prevent procurement campaigns that conflict with national policy – such as those against Israel and UK arms companies.

Jewish Chronicle article on the world famous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Dr Furtwangler and Einstein's comments on  his role

There was a time when the Jewish Chronicle supported a Boycott against racist states

Councils and local authorities are to be blocked from boycotting Israeli products or pursuing other foreign policy goals that conflict with the government.

Massive Jewish Boycott Meeting in Madison Square Gardens, New York

Conservative aides said the measure was a response to growing concern about the “militant actions of leftwing councils” that they claimed was spurred on by the Labour leadership.

The Jewish Chronicle condemned the Zionist collaborators for making a trade agreement with the Nazis when everyone else was boycotting them - it called Haa'vara an 'unclean thing'

The Successful Boycott of Sodastream in Brighton, Sussex

The Jewish Chronicle's attitude to the Boycott of Sodastream was the same as that of the Daily Mail towards the Boycott of Nazi Germany 

The new rules will stop politically motivated boycott and divestment campaigns by town halls against UK defence companies and against Israel.

Even the Women's Shopping League supported the Boycott of Nazi Germany

The Cabinet Office minister, Matthew Hancock, said the action was intended to prevent “playground politics” from councils.

The Boycott of Slave Grown Sugar

Even in Latvia there was a large Boycott campaign

The government will amend pension legislation to make clear that using pensions and procurement policies to pursue boycotts, divestments and sanctions campaigns against other countries and the UK defence industry are inappropriate, unless they are in line with action on a national level.

When Jews Supported a Boycott Campaign

Comparisons between the Boycott of Israel and the Boycott of Nazi Germany

In 1933 the Zionist Movement's Trade Agreement (Haavarah) Betrayed German Jews

In 2005 dozens of Palestinian organisations called for the implementation of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.  A year later the Boycott  took off in Britain when the Association of University Teachers, now the University College Union, passed a Boycott policy by a small majority at their national conference.

All sorts of mainstream bourgeois politicians protested.  All in the name of ‘academic freedom’ of course.  The fact that Israel’s universities were complicit in supporting Israel’s military machine, to the extent that Ben-Gurion university in the Negev withdrew an invitation to an anti-Zionist Jewish academic, Yigal Arens, at the instigation of the military, passed them by.

Today nearly all trade unions in Britain support the Palestinians.  One of the main planks of the Zionist campaign has been to compare the Boycott of Israel with the Nazi ‘boycott’ of Jewish shops and businesses on 1^st April 1933.  In fact the Nazi ‘boycott’ was not so much a boycott as an SA siege of Jewish shops.  As such it bears more than a passing resemblance to that other boycott -  the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which these self same politicians are completely unconcerned about.  Boycotting Palestinians and starving them out is perfectly acceptable.  Boycott Israel is of course illegitimate, ‘anti-Semitic’, etc.

This is but one example of the hypocrisy of the politics of imperialism.

I thought it would be useful to do a little research in the Jewish Chronicle so that people could get some idea as to the massive support that Boycott of Nazi Germany had amongst the vast majority of Jews.  I say the vast majority of Jews because there were opponents of a Boycott of Nazi Germany.  In Britain and the United States there were two opponents.  The first was the bourgeois Jews – the American Jewish Committee and Bnai Brith and in Britain the Board of Deputies which turned its face against any effective anti-fascist activity.  In 1936 it called for Jews to keep their heads down and stay indoors when Moseley announced his intention in October 1936 to march through the East End.  The Jewish workers ignored the Board and 100,000 people, Jewish and non-Jewish workers, in particular the Catholic Irish dockers of the East End, turned out to oppose Moseley in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street. 

The second Jewish group that opposed Boycott and there was of course an overlap with the first group was the Zionist movement.  The Zionists fought tooth and nail against Boycott.  The reason?  Because they entered into a trade agreement with Nazi Germany in August 1933.  It was called Ha’avara.  It’s purpose was to ‘save the wealth’ of the German Jewish community.  It enabled German Jews to liquidate their wealth in Germany and put it into a special account controlled by the Zionist Paltreu in Germany, they were called ‘frozen marks’ and Ha’avara Ltd. in Palestine was then able to put in orders for German machinery and goods which were paid for with these marks.  It enabled German production to keep up and more importantly it was an essential indeed vital element in the defeat of the Boycott campaign.

You had to be rich to take advantage of Ha’avara as you need to be able to take, after taxes, the equivalent of £1,000 out of Germany.  This was the sum needed to get into Palestine without an immigration certificate, and the Zionists lobbied furiously to ensure that German Jews could only go to Palestine.

The Zionists acted, as Baruch Vladeck, editor of the Jewish paper Forward, as scab agents of the Nazi regime.  The articles from the Jewish Chronicle illustrate the depth of opposition in the Jewish community to Ha’avara. Even the Jewish Chronicle opposed it!

I am therefore posting a selection of  articles from the Jewish Chronicle so that people may gauge for themselves the support of Jews for a Boycott.  Ignoring Zionist hasbara and their usual attempt to smear anti-Zionists, the  Boycott has always been a weapon of the oppressed.  From the Boycott of slave grown sugar in the West Indies, to the boycott of Captain Boycott by his Irish tenants in Ireland to the Boycott of South Africa, Boycott has always been a peaceful method of combatting the violence of the racist and the oppressor.  

It's also interesting to see how a Cultural Boycott of Nazi Germany was also vigorously supported.  In Paris Jewish teenagers disrupted the showing of German films.  Arturo Toscanini, the world famous Italian conductor personally led the boycot of Nazi Germany.  How things change and also how they remain the same.

Tony Greenstein