JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Holocaust archive lacking sources

By JTA Mailman · February 6, 2012

To the Editor:

Two million entries online is commendable, however the apparent complete lack of source listings for the archive material is to be lamented. A document without a source is rendered trivial, and the Holocaust hardly seems to be a topic to be treated with such disregard for standard minimums of historical methodology.

If there is some technical difficulty with adding a category for the source -- having a fair idea about the construction of databases, I find hard it to imagine -- then HEART at bare minimum could post a page with a general listing of their source material.

Perhaps the goal of HEART is not so much to "never forget" the Holocaust in the historical sense as to "never forget" that there are still assets to be restituted, and that they intend to be the central mediators in that process. No other Holocaust-related site that I am aware of so completely fails to qualify its source material.

Hopefully this shortcoming will be remedied at some point in the near future, but until that point the HEART archive is helpful for restitution heirs and attorneys but practically useless for historical research. No source means no verification of authenticity.

Roderick Miller
Berlin, Germany

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Clarification of a remark on Russian Jewish power

By JTA Mailman · February 3, 2012

To the Editor:

I would like to clarify my words that were misinterpreted in the JTA article of Jan. 30, “Alexander Levin’s got a name (and cash), but does he have a plan?” by Uriel Heilman.

I was taken out of context regarding the political power of Russian Jewry. I would like to firmly emphasize that what I meant was that a million Russian-speaking Jews in America, when united as one, can have a political impact on who might be the next president of the United States, and that that this can only be carried out through democratic elections -- one of the United States’ most prized commodities. All activities and programs of the newly created World Forum of Russian Jewry will be conducted only in deep cooperation with the elected governments and directed solely to bring peace and stability to the world.

In regards to the working plan for the new World Forum of Russian Jewry, I want to reiterate that the Forum was just announced last week and is currently in the process of compiling a thorough working plan, which will be presented to its International Governing Board in the upcoming weeks. After that, I would be happy to present it to the JTA and to the public.

Alexander L. Levin

Kiev, Ukraine

World Forum of Russian Jewry

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On Slovakia’s wartime past

By JTA Mailman · January 23, 2012

To the Editor:

Thank you for Hillel Kuttler's article, "Seeking Kin: Man hidden as baby hopes to honor father-rescuer." It is especially timely given that March 24, 2012 marks the 70th anniversary of the first deportations of Jews to Auschwitz, which began in Poprad, Slovakia, just a few miles from Kezmarok, where Peter Nürnberger grew up.  As Slovak-American Jews and descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims from Slovakia, we owe our lives to brave non-Jewish Slovaks, clergy and laypeople who protected our grandparents and parents (Shawn's mother is a child survivor from Bratislava).

However, we are troubled by the claims attributed to USHMM senior historian Peter Black and concerned that his comments may have been misinterpreted. We are certain that Dr. Black would agree that it is inaccurate to say that "it only became dangerous in Slovakia [beginning] in August 1944," when most Slovak Jews had been murdered by then. Zuzana's great-aunt was deported on that first March 24 Poprad transport and was murdered in Auschwitz; Zuzana's grandparents were interned in Sered and Novaky.  Shawn's grandfather was forced to flee by the Hlinka Guard in 1939, and his mother and grandmother followed in 1940. His great-grandmother and great-uncles were deported and murdered in October 1942.

So Slovakia was a very dangerous place for Jews beginning in 1939. Although deportations were suspended between October 1942 and August 1944, it was not because, as the reporter paraphrased Dr. Black, "the Slovakian government of Jozef Tiso cooperated with the Nazis’ deportation orders, but ceased doing so after learning that the trains were traveling to death camps, not labor camps." As Dr. Black surely knows, the truth is otherwise.

Objections to the deportations were raised to the Tiso government by members of the Slovak parliament concerned about their negative effect on the Slovak economy, by certain Vatican representatives, and by Jewish leaders themselves. Although the official reason given for the halt in October 1942 was the economic disruption caused by the deportations, the real reason appears to be a combination of bribes paid by the Working Group (led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl) to Slovak officials and to Dieter Wisliceny, the Nazi SS representative in Bratislava. An excellent account of the story is available in the three-part documentary series "Among Blind Fools" (Petr Bok and Martin Smok, 1998).

The post-socialist Slovak Republic has made great strides in coming to terms with its wartime past, although there are those who continue to try to whitewash the Tiso regime. Today there is an official Slovak Jewish Heritage Route (www.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/) and, more joyously, our own Facebook walls are filled with ever more photographs from Bratislava, Kosice, Banska Bystrica and beyond chronicling the lives of our friends and their many young children who are building a small but vibrant Jewish community there.

Shawn Landres
Zuzana Riemer Landres
Santa Monica, Calif.

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Condemning harassment in Beit Shemesh

By JTA Mailman · January 18, 2012

To the Editor:

As a Torah Jew, I am deeply distressed by the harassment and violence in Beit Shemesh -- all of which is diametrically opposed to the teachings of our Holy Torah. Lest our silence be misconstrued as passive acceptance of this behavior, we condemn it in the strongest terms, as does the overwhelming majority of Torah Jews worldwide.

Josh Haber
Monsey, N.Y.

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Hadassah late payments minimal

By Jta · January 13, 2012

To the Editor:

I write in response to your story on a report implying that Hadassah Medical Center, owned by Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of American (HWZOA), was late on payments to some of its suppliers.

There is actually less to this story than has been alleged.  Without context, these allegations are meaningless.  It is a basic reality of operating a business that when one entity that owes another fails to fulfill its financial obligations, the second entity struggles in consequence to pay its own bills on time.

Unfortunately, Hadassah Medical Organization is still waiting on substantial end-of-the-year payments due from numerous insurance companies.  The hospital understands that at this time of year, many businesses – large and small – routinely struggle to make the many payments they have due, and we hoped the vendors that work with us would extend to us the same courtesy we have been forced to extend to these various HMOs.

The reality is that the remainder Hadassah Medical Organization still owes to a very few large vendors is but a tiny fraction of its overall budget, and it is essential to understand that the hospital is a mere couple of weeks behind in these few payments. The NIS 8 million due is less than half of one percent of its overall budget of NIS 2 billion.

Furthermore, the hospital’s funding structure is independent from HWZOA’s, and its routine end-of-the-year cash flow changes are completely unrelated.  HWZOA raises money to support Hadassah Medical Organization’s research and building projects, but the hospital is responsible for its own operating budget, under which daily expenses, employee salaries and supplier payments fall.  Despite economic challenges in the United States and Europe, HWZOA has raised more than $260 million toward the Sarah Wetsman Davidson Tower, a crowning achievement in advancing health care, which will be dedicated in October at HWZOA’s centennial anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.

When the hospital’s board realized the cash flow it depends upon was not going to be paid in full by insurance companies, the board was certain to first pay small business owners who are affected the most by changes in cash flow, and to briefly delay payment to larger vendors who do not depend on the hospital’s payments to pay their employees.  All open accounts will have been resolved and all suppliers paid in full within only a few weeks’ time.

Marcie Natan

National President, Hadassah, New York, N.Y.

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On banning Holocaust-associated terms

By JTA Mailman · January 11, 2012

To the Editor:

It is sad to see Kadima Party members of the Knesset trying to pass a bill forbidding the use of Shoah-associated words in discourse in Israel. This kind of intended suppression of speech is reminiscent of the Nazi-like laws that forbade criticism of the Hitlerite regime and, more recently, of Turkish laws that forbid speech about the Turkish murder of the Armenians.

The haredi Orthodox behavior is despicable, whether throwing rocks at Shabbos violators or dressing in camp costumes and calling Israeli police "Nazis" in front of the international press. Regrettably, successive Israeli governments have practiced a policy of appeasement of haredi extremists.

For the Knesset to outlaw Nazi metaphors and similes while turning a blind eye to the BDS rantings of Ben-Gurion University political science professors and Israeli employees of anti-Israel NGOs funded by Europeans Quislings, and even Israeli-Arab Knesset members whose anti-Israel words often cross into treasonous incitement, makes no sense. Once you start down the path of suppressing annoying or even strident, nonviolent speech, it's not long before you start censoring what people read on their iPads, watch on TV, hear on their iPhones or speak to their friends in the cafe.

Serious Nazi murder didn't start with the Einsatzgruppen in 1941; it started with the Nuremburg Laws in 1935, which suppressed Jewish behavior and, broadly speaking, Jewish speech.

Ken Price
Dallas, Texas

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These people are no better than Islamics; perhaps they would be happier being in an orthodox Muslim state. They don't serve in the Israel Defense Forces, they take welfare from the state and they attack 8-year-old girls who don't cover up. To do what they did by mocking the Holocaust is a foul and despicible deed.

Sam S. Snyder
Los Angeles, Calif.

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Friedman must moderate positions

By JTA Mailman · January 8, 2012

To the Editor:

Thomas Friedman has an obsession that bashing the Israeli government will make it change and listen to what he says or writes. Wake up Friedman: Netanyahu will never be listening to your left-wing suggestions. Why don't you listen and learn and come more toward the center? You might garner some respect.

Stanley Treitel
Los Angeles, Calif.

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Terrific Taos

By JTA Mailman · January 8, 2012

To the Editor:

The article "In a remote New Mexico valley, a Jewish skiing legacy at Taos" was great. I had the article forwarded to me just after I finished booking airfare for a family trip to Taos. My wife is from Taos and knows the Blake family and the mountain very well. Great place to visit and an amazing place to ski.

We are looking forward to our trip and some great skiing. This will be our boys first ski trip there, I have skied it many times and obviously this is where my wife has skied her entire life.

David Feldman
Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.

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Shabbat in Samoa

By JTA Mailman · January 8, 2012

To the Editor:

As a Seventh-day Adventist we have in common with the Jews the keeping of the seventh day for the Shabbat. I understand that in Samoa the change to west of the International Date Line will cause a jump from Thursday to Saturday, so there will be no loss of a Shabbat in the change.

Shabbat will fall on a different day than what it was before. However, there will be millions of people on the new side of the date line who will be keeping Shabbat with them. In this situation I see no problem: Simply keep the new "Seventh-day" with all the others on the western side of the date line. People who travel across the date line do this all the time.

Hubert F. Sturges
Grand Junction, Colo.

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Rabbi doesn’t perform interfaith ceremonies for CJP

By JTA Mailman · December 28, 2011

To the Editor:

In a recent article, the JTA inaccurately stated that “Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston has hired a gay rabbi as its first interfaith ambassador, a role in which he runs interfaith parenting workshops and presides at interfaith marriages”. He does not preside over interfaith marriages or any other religious ceremonies as part of his role at CJP.

Gil Preuss
Executive Vice President, Combined Jewish Philanthropies

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