A Reinforced Belief: I was reading my thoughts about my anathema of Pope Benedict's decision to reinstate a Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson. It was incomplete. In addition to what I said is the actual liturgy of New Testament texts which has sealed the fate of the Jews. Christians simply cannot get around its tradition. The current Pope Benedict is a traditionalist. I believe, more than that, he really has one part of his heart in history when the church was a vicious advocate of its literal text. That is why those three bishops, members of a fanatical Latin oriented Catholic sect and the one who denied the gas chambers of the Holocaust existed, Benedict "rehabilitates" and reverses their excommunication. Other popes, while most all traditionalists, had an element of reform like John Paul II and especially Paul VI in 1965 who promulgated nostra aetate which changed the culpability of the Jews for the death of Jesus.


They tried to bridge the gap between Christian and Jew. John Paul II very much tried to reach out to everyone. Benedict, though, talks a good game but then does things or says things that reverse it such as his indictment of Muslims. He KNOWS perfectly well what he is saying. He says these things and then comes out with an apology and says oh no I'm sorry I didn't mean that. Meanwhile people died because of those words. One cannot put the genie back in the bottle, though, and the words he says he KNOWS mean something. Former Cardinal Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict DID mean what he said about Muslims just as he means to reinstate the Holocaust denier. I think he agrees or wants to put forth that thought by his actions but then says oh no he doesn't believe it. John Paul II was Polish and saw his friends who were Jews just vanish. Benedict is a German and a former Nazi youth but dismisses that fact by saying he was forced into it. I maintain, this is still part of him even to this day. I always knew, if the church picked him as John Paul's successor, what he would be like.

What does it all mean and does the Vatican really have power? Catholics, and there ARE a lot of them, are followers NOT debaters and usually adhere to whatever the pope says no matter who he is. What he says means something to those Catholic billions. Personally, I think he is fraudulently deceitful. He says things and then takes them back and thinks it ameliorates everything. Well it does not ameliorate it with me. I have sent letters to many including Cardinal O'Malley of Boston in fierce opposition to reinstating the Holocaust denier Bishop Williamson. I will and ALL Jews should NOT forget this episode. It should not die with time.

Although many in Christianity have repudiated the indictment of the Jews for Jesus' death it exists in the New Testament, it is in there whether you deny it or not. Others such as Muslims who have NOTHING to do with New Testament text use it, too, as proof that the Jews are INTRINSICALLY bad. Indeed, they are not just bad for their policies but that their very ESSENCE is bad as Europeans said for two thousand years. The baton of anti-Semitic thought passed on to new hands but the old hands still carry its stain. False texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an old Russian and European anti-Semitic fabrication, are now number one best sellers besides the Koran in, for example, Egypt, Syria and I'm sure elsewhere in the Arab world.

In my opinion, the etiology of anti-Semitism rests with that original document which indicts all Jews everywhere for the killing of the Christian god and not just then but FOR ALL TIME. That is a very heavy indictment to shake off and the behaviors it induced over two thousand years leads us to our current problematic disastrous situation in which Jews, especially in Israel but elsewhere too, exist. In my opinion, the existence of Israel and all of its dimensions IS because the Holocaust WAS. The etiology of the Jewish state is really, I think, basically that simple. I fear the controversy is with us until the end of time OR may be responsible for homo sapiens end of time on this earth.

I CANNOT forgive and I CANNOT forget and I cannot turn the other cheek. I am cognizant of ALL hypocrisy and ALL espousal and behaviors of inhumanity no matter who does them, Arab or Israeli alike, but to the end of my time on this sad earth, I will ALWAYS remember the bodies ... six million of them ... a number that cannot be conceived and cannot be erased. There has been NOTHING like it ever in the history of man's violent stay on earth. The history of anti-Semitism is unique. Its unique in its length of time on earth, its spread over vast geography and its cross cultural transmission over time. It is about a people who are less than one percent of the world's population (0.2% to be exact). The six million are NEVER, not for one day, out of my mind and Benedict, by his reinstatement of a Holocaust denier, reinforces all that I believe.

"From Hitler to Hollywood": I highly recommend seeing on PBS "From Hitler to Hollywood." Link below. It TRULY is an amazing work yet again that PBS, the station of incredible excellence, does. This is such a masterpiece documentary of an interesting, and, perhaps, little known time in Hollywood.

It is amazing HOW MANY actors, screenwriters, directors, producers musicians, score writers and the list goes on and on and on who were Jews who fled Europe those terrible years and came here. One by one from around 1936 to 39 when they COULD get out some did. This documentary is about those people...those brilliant and talented people who were swept up in the tsunami of the destruction of Europe of that era.

In a way, Hitler did the US a favor because they came here and contributed to our culture in unparalled ways. People like Peter Lorre, Fred Zinneman (Directed Julia) and a ton of others, Billy Wilder, Ditriech, Heddy Lamar, Paul Heinreid, and a thousand more who contributed so much to the arts especially film. Films like Casablanca, Double Indemnity, The Killers, The Sweet Smell of Success, Citizen Kane, Some Like it Hot, and THAT list goes on and on. I did not realize and have just RECENTLY become interested in film noir that it was almost entirely influenced by the German, Austrian, French, Polish and other Jews and some others of conscience who fled when they saw the handwriting on the wall. Noir is their experience in that they saw the dark side of life, man at his worst and film noir comes out of that.

Some who fled never saw their family again, mother, fathers, etc. Some could never quite adapt well to America but some did. The whole thing is fascinating and I guess
it is an example of why the Holocaust utterly CONSUMES me despite being born after it. It is the intellect of these people makes the depth and the breadth of the Holocaust which is dumbfounding and the people ... these people who were NOT
orthodox Jews but SECULAR Jews but it didn't matter. None of it. It mattered not that they were secular, patriotic, unpolitical ... it just mattered if someone somewhere knew you were a Jew. It becomes SO personal and it wasn't like these people were uncultured, did not like learning, dragged a culture down or were so different from the masses. To the contrary they lifted a culture up, loved their countries and were brilliant men and women like Einstein ... imagine EINSTEIN was forced to flee Europe to the US.

The profound character of those years in every domain whether, arts, literature, science, religion, philosophy, had an impact. It shaped MY own personal politics my entire adult life. After first learning about the Holocaust at age 8 in a movie theater newsreel which they had in the 50's, I became so literally nauseated as an 10 year old after seeing those pictures of bodies heaped on a pile I nearly threw up
not figuratively but literally. So I knew when I was older and became political I would NEVER be a part of the right wing. I knew the right no matter in what form I would be the opposite of what I was. I knew then Nuremberg must apply everywhere OR it applies nowhere.

This web site of PBS if you are interested is:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/cinemasexiles/