The Charlotte Jewish News - November 2000 - Page 3

The Media and LanguageBy Kenneth W. Stein

After I was interviewed by CNN on October 17, an analyst from London immediately gave her opinion. In the middle of that exchange, the CNN anchor referred to the Sharm elSheikh agreement as a “peace agreement.” When we were off the air, I sug­gested that more care be given to the choice of language. “This was not a peace agreement, but an agreement to cease the hostilities,” I said. He graciously acknowl­edged the distinction. I left the anchor desk, mumbling to myself, “Don’t they understand that lan­guage choice shapes attitudes and deepens emotions?”

Prior to the end of the July Camp David summit, the stated goal of the Palestinian leadership remained full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and east Jerusalem, the establishment of a Palestinian state, return of as many refugees who wish to return, removal of all the settlements, and Arab sovereignty over east Jerusalem and the Moslem Holy Sites. After Arafat traveled to Arab, Asian, and European capitals, he was urged to postpone a unilateral declaration of an independent Palestinian state.

The promised declaration of a state for September 13, 2000, came and went, Palestinian discontent­

ment increased; by mid-September, many were fed-up with waiting for their state. The Palestinian Arab press was dispirited by Arafat's leadership for compromising with the Israelis, disdainful ofWashington’s cuddling of Israel, and uniformly angry thatWashington was pressuring Arafat to reach a compromise agreement. Lack of Interest in the Arab World

At the same time, Palestinian Arabs lamented Israel’s unequaled military power, their own political powerlessness, and lack of interest by the Arab world. In August, Basl Aql, a PLO member, said, “Arab backing, which is vital for that [Palestinian] state, would be purely verbal and rhetorical.” Writing from London, an Arab commenta­tor noted, “Arab governments have been treating Jerusalem as though it is just another scrap of territory. What had always been burning

concerns have, in this age of American hegemony, been turned into private parochial matters.” Another wrote, of the imbalance of power, “Israel... decides what to offer and what to withhold. It is also free of any meaningful Arab or international pressure.” One con­cluded that the Palestinian predica­ment was due to the “long accumu­lation of gross mfstakes by the Palestinian leadership.” While the

new school year started with Palestinian textbooks not making mention of Israel, there was little, if any, notice of anti-Jewish or anti- Semitic sentiment from Palestinian Arab sources.

Once the state’s declaration was postponed a foreboding environ­ment became darker. Fear increased that Arafat might be forced to accept historic compro­mises on Jerusalem, refugees, set­tlements, and Palestinian preroga­tives. An imperfect agreement was at hand. And then two other addi­tives: Palestinian television aired programs which roused memories and fired passions about the 1948 conflict and the national conflict was injected with religious pas­sions. And yet, in the days just before the outbreak of violence Palestinian and Israeli negotiators were engaged in diplomacy, Arafat and Barak met cordially, and Barak even suggested east Jerusalem could be the capital of the Palestinian state.

On September 29, the day after Sharon visited the Temple Mount, the prayer leader in Jerusalem’s al- Aqsa mosque is reportedly to have said, “We did not hear one ruler for Muslims declaring that he wants to eradicate the Jews from Palestine. Instead, they declare that Sharon’s visit is the cause because they are defending Barak and the Labor party.” It got-worse.Religion as a Platform for Political Cohesion

In the Friday, October 13, ser-

“Once There was One Deborah... Now There is Another...”Deborah Lipstadt Speaks at Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecture at University of South CarolinaBy Amy Krakovitz

She has been called a hero, a warrior, a woman of bravery. But until she was called upon to defend herself, nothing prepared Deborah Lipstadt for the assault she experienced. “I laughed at first,” she says. “When I saw the legal notice telling me that I was being sued for libel by David Irving, I laughed.”

In 1994, Lipstadt published a book. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, in which she attempts to discredit the so-called scholarly deniers of the Holocaust. One of the many references she makes is to British historian David Irving. She in fact mentions him about a half-dozen times in the book, call­ing him a denier and an anti- Semite.

Irving sued the British publish­er of Lipstadt’s book and by exten­sion, Lipstadt herself. When Penguin, her publisher, notified her of the suit, she laughed. Being familiar only with US libel law, she thought that the suit would go away of it own accord. But British libel law is different. In Great Britain, when one is sued for libel, it becomes the defendant’s respon­sibility to prove that he or she was telling the truth. Lipstadt, her pub­lisher and her British attorneys began a five-year battle that ended only a few months ago.

In September 2000, Deborah Lipstadt told her story to an audi­ence at the University of South Carolina as this year’s Solomon-

Tenenbaum Lecturer. She spoke with humor that belied the seri­ousness of her ordeal, and ad- libbed often from her prepared speech to season her presentation with both Hebrew and Yiddish fla­vorings.

Deborah Lipstadt speaking at Gambrell Hall on the University of South Carolina at Columbia campus.

Irving was most dangerous, she explained, because outside of Holocaust denial, he is considered a legitimate historian. It would take a serious and committed defense to bring his true senti­ments to the courtroom.

And, indeed, that is just what Lipstadt’s lawyers, headed by Anthony Julius, managed to do. As part of discovery, they subpoe­naed Irving’s personal diaries, which he has b ^ n keeping since the 1950s. They also ordered copies of all of Irving’s video­tapes, tapes he made of himself giving speeches to private groups all over the world. Within those diaries and tapes, Lipstadt’s defense team found the evidence they needed to prove her inno­cence.

Irving has been known to claim at various times that there were no gas chambers, there was no plan for extinction, that Hitler did not know what was going on, that the survivors are all lying, that there is a giant conspiracy of Jews con­cocting this story. He has been known to radically inflate num­bers of Germans who died, and just as radically deflate the num­ber of Jews killed in concentration camps. His explanation time and again in court was that he made mistakes, blaming the incorrect figures on poor memory, or old research. But the diaries which the defense had possession of showed Irving’s accurate research and true feelings.

In fact, he used the word “fuehrer” in open court on several occasions.

One thing Lipstadt determined to do was not to legitimize any of Irving’s claims. She refused to speak to the press, even when Irving spoke in an inflammatory way to the media. But her silence eventually caused the story to die, so he was unable to try his case in the newspapers, magazines and broadcast news in England.

Lipstadt, too, refused to allow any survivors to speak as witness­es as her trial. She herself was the “witness for the witnesses.” And many survivors are grateful that she put herself through this ordeal.

On April 11, 2000, the judg­ment came down. Lipstadt wasn’t sure even then if they had been

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mon in the Zayed bin Sultan A1 Nahyan Mosque, in Gaza, the fol­lowing is reportedly to have been said, “The Jews are Jews, whether Labor or Likud, ...do not have any moderates or any advocates of peace. They are all liars. O’ brother believers, the criminals, the terror­ists are the Jews, who have butchered our children, orphaned them, widowed our women and desecrated our holy places and sacred sites.” It apparently ended with, “We shall not forget Haifa, and Acre, and the Galilee, and Jaffa, and the Triangle and the Negev, and the rest of our cities and villages. It is only a matter of time. ...Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any coun­try. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them. Wherever you are, kill those Jews and those Americans who are like them!”

Arafat used militancy along with diplomacy; in his estimation, they were not incompatible options. Violence could postpone signing an agreement, enlist the interna­tional community to pressure Israel into additional concessions, and portray Israel in the media as the bad guy. It relieved pent-up frustra­tion, catalyzed Arab leadership attention, and galvanized signifi­cant support in the Arab street. The, negative dynamism of August was history. Violence shifted the sense of lament and powerlessness to resurgent Palestinian pride and coherent action. Arafat did not position himself for assassination; he refused to sign an agreement imposed upon him by Israeli demands and Washington’s pres­sure. Spilling blood in the name of religion surfaced.

In retrospect, complaining to the CNN anchor about the difference between agreement and treaty pales in comparison: the use of reli­gion as a platform for political cohesion and mobilization is incen­diary; it contains explosive conse­quences. 0

Dr. Kenneth W. Stein is the William E. Schatten Professor o f Contemporary Middle Eastern History and Israeli Studies at Emory' University in Atlanta, Georgia. His most recent book is “Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat,Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest fo r Arah-Israeli Peace, ” (Routledge), 1999.

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The Charlotte Jewish News - November 2000 - Page 9

Hadassah HappeningsMark Your Calendar for Zany Brainy Gift Days

It’s never too early to start thinking Chanukah, and this year Hadassah is helping you get an early start while you do a mitzvah.

For two days "in November, pur­chase your holiday gifts at Zany Brainy, the creative/educational toy store at the Arboretum, and they will donate 10% of your pur­chases to Hadassah. The days:

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New Initiative Aims to Advance MoreWomen to Top Jewish PostsBy Julie Wiener

' NEW YORK (JTA) — When word got out last week that Janet Engelhart had been named execu­tive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island — making her the only woman pro­fessional at the helm of one of the 40 largest federations — she received a flood of phone calls.

Most were colleagues and friends offering congratulations. But more than five — and the ones that Engelhart found most touch­ing — were from young women professionals at Jewish organiza­tions asking her to be their mentor.

As Engelhart’s sudden popular­ity illustrates, female role models are in short supply, both in the Jewish federation world and at the highest tiers of other Jewish orga­nizations.

But a new initiative — the first effort launched by a new federa­tion system offshoot, the Trust for Jewish Philanthropy — is seeking to change that.

With a $1 million seed grant from Barbara and Eric Dobkin, New York philanthropists known for their support of Jewish femi­nist causes, the project aims to help the organized Jewish commu­nity “identify, attract, recruit.

advance and retain women in management and executive posi­tions.”

The initiative — called Advancing Women Professionals and the Jewish Community — capitalizes on another concern that has seized the attention of leaders throughout the Jewish world: the growing shortage of qualified Jewish communal professionals.

By more aggressively recruit­ing women, the reasoning goes, the pool of candidates will effec­tively double.

Jewish organizations, say the initiative’s proponents, have trailed the business world and other nonprofits in advancing women and have created a climate in which mid-level women profes­sionals believe they must leave the field in order to advance.

“Virtually every profession and industry has moved more quickly and more effectively on opening opportunities to women at top lev­els than the Jewish communal world,” said Louise Stoll, chief operating officer of the federation system’s national umbrella, the United Jewish Communities.

Hired in 1999, Stoll is the first woman to hold so high a position in the Federation world.

Lipstadt(Continued from page 3)

able to make the judge see just how distorted Irving’s views were. “But he got it,” she exclaimed. “Even more than we’d hoped.” The judgment went against Irving. In his reading of the decision, the judge castigated Irving and even denied his request for an appeal (another difference in British tort law from US law).

Her five-year long hardship now over, Lipstadt tried to return to a normal life as a college pro­fessor. Not long after the decision, she attended a Yom Ha’Shoah observance in the Washington, DC, at the Capitol building. There was confronted by the wife of a well-known cantor in Atlanta. Betty Goodfriend approached Lipstadt, took Lipstadt’s face in her hands, and crooned to her in Yiddish, “Mamale, mamale, once there was one Deborah, now there is another.”

And like the warrior of the Bible, Deborah Lipstadt says, “When you confront pure evil, you’ve got to fight it.” When asked if she would have done the same thing ovei again, starting with including David Irving in her book, Lipstadt responded, “No.” After she let the shock of her response die down, she explained, “I would have been far worse to David Irving. ... I now know that the man is a liar.

‘Truth and memory are frag­ile,” she went on to say. It is up to us to defend it. This was the per­fect introduction to the second part

Shifra Bronznick, a consultant who helps facilitate change at not- for-profit organizations and is widely credited with designing the new initiative, points out that women hold 51 % of all CEO posts at foundations and are growing more visible in the corporate world.

In contrast, only two of 40 major national Jewish organiza­tions, excluding women’s organi­zations, are run by women, according to Bronznick.

Before Engelhart’s hire in Rhode Island, only one other woman had held a top position at a federation of that size, and it is believed that a woman has never been the top executive at any of the 19 largest federations in North America.

The new initiative seeks to per­suade leaders of national, regional and local Jewish organizations to make hiring women a greater pri­ority.

Specifically, it will create a tal­ent bank to identify potential women candidates from within and outside the Jewish communi­ty, assist organizations seeking to recruit women, track which orga­nizations are more successful than others at hiring and retaining

(Continued on page 20)

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of her presentation, “New Perspectives on Holocaust Denial.”

Holocaust denial, says Lipstadt, is “pernicious but not extensive.... It is not a clear and present danger, it is a clear and future danger.” Why? Because the living witness­es will all soon be gone. It is up to us to do as she has done, to be “witnesses for the witnesses.”

Deniers make common cause with racist groups and cloak them­selves in the guise of academics. Using paid ads in college newspa­pers, they attempt to indoctrinate those who are not educated about the truth regarding the Holocaust. Colleges and universities accept these ads under the false impres­sion that they are required to by the Constitution.

However, the Constitution states only that Congress shall make no laws abridging the free­dom of speech or press. Newspapers (including the one you are reading now) have no obligation to accept any ads that they deem inappropriate.

What was most disconcerting, Lipstadt says, is that the student board of the newspapers didn’t consider the Holocaust denial ads to be anti-Semitic. They actually thought that this was another legit­imate opinion.

We have an enormous task ahead of us. The legacy has been passed on to our generations and the generations that come after us. We cannot let the world forget. We cannot let false information be confiised with the truth. Truth is fragile. Keep the truth of the hor­rors of the Holocaust unbroken. O

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