HISTORY SHAPED BY MYTHS

by Eric D. Butler

What man believes governs what he does. Irrespective of whether a myth or legend is literally true of not, if people believe it to be true, this will play a part in shaping their activities. Belief in some myths is relatively harmless. A new book on Australia's most famous bushranger, Ned Kelly, seeks to present a more favourable image of the cold blooded murderer. Whether literally true or not, the myth concerning Kelly - "as game as Ned Kelly" - is relatively harmless. So is the legend concerning Robin Hood who, according legend, robbed the rich to give to the poor, although it might be argued that type of myth encourages the concept of the Welfare State. Realists will object to this view, pointing out that every individual suffers in some way at the hands of the Modern State.

The harmless, or often beneficial myths of history, generally speaking, do not need to be sustained by constant propaganda. But the money myth, one which promotes the concept of money as a commodity, makes it possible to attempt to enslave the individual. Salvation requires that sufficient people reject this myth, and demand the implementation of policies which reflect reality. Writing in his Programme For The Third World War, C.H. Douglas, in referring to the importance of myths, said, "I have no doubt whatever that the Chosen Race Myth, with its corollary of Messianism, is the key myth of history, and that in it, we can find an almost a complete explanation of the world's insanity, (e.g. divorce from reality) and an almost complete indication of the path to recovery."

Douglas's comment was made while the Second World War was still raging. Events since that conflict ended fifty years ago, have confirmed Douglas's view. In another view of his Second World War works, The Big Idea, Douglas wrote that "institutionalized Judeo-Christianity" had prevented the application of practical Christianity. In recent years there has been a relentless campaign to further dilute traditional Christianity. Representatives of the Christian Church now collaborate openly with representatives of Judaism who want the four synoptic Christian gospels to be rewritten, eliminating what are described as "offensive" comments concerning Christ's most bitter opponents, the Pharisees.

Anyone who attempts to examine, however objectively, the far-reaching implications of the Jewish Chosen Race myth on history, is subjected to the "anti-semitic"smear. But it is some courageous Jews who have provided the deepest insights into this subject. It was the distinguished Sephardic Jewish writer and philosopher, Dr. Oscar Levy, who wrote of thousands of years of "madness associated with the Chosen Race Myth." Dr. Levy said that "The question of the Jews and their influence in the world, past and present, cuts to the core of all things and should be discussed by every honest thinker."

A more recent contribution to the subject is by Israel Shahak, a retired Professor of Chemistry, and lifelong human rights activist. migrated to Israel in 1945. His work, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, with a Foreword by Gore Vidal, is packed with explosive statements such as, "Judaism is imbued with a very deep hatred towards Christianity, combined with ignorance about it." Reference is made to "malicious slanders against Jesus," concerning the subject of the Crucifixion.

Shahak writes, "According to the Talmud, Jesus was executed by a proper rabbinical court for idolatry, inciting other Jews to idolatry, and contempt for rabbinical authority. All classical Jewish sources which mention his execution are quite happy to take responsibility for it; in the Talmudic account the Romans are not even mentioned".

"The more popular accounts . . . such as the notorious Taldot Yesbu are even worse, for in addition to the above crimes they accuse him of witchcraft. The very name Jesus was for Jews a symbol of all that is abominable, and this popular tradition still persists. The Gospels are equally detested, and they are not allowed to be quoted (let alone taught) in modern Jewish schools."

We are told that compared with the harsh attitude towards Christianity, that concerning Islam is "relatively mild", and that Judaism "is totalitarian in nature." Shahak concludes his study stating that both Israel and Jews worldwide must face the test of facing an honest criticism of their past. "The most important part of such a critique must be detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish attitude to non-Jews ... In last forty years the umber of non-Jews killed by Jews is by greater than the number of Jews killed by non-Jews."

The future of Christianity depends upon a sufficient number of Christians facing the reality of the Judaic campaign to dilute Christianity to the point where, in the words of one Jewish activist, "it is completely Judaised." The subject is being confused by what has become one of the major Myths of the twentieth century, that concerning "the Holocaust". What might be termed as "The Holocaust Dogma" has been elevated to the point where any criticism, however objective, of the dogmas is classed as "blasphemous." In two major Western European nations, France and Germany, critics of the dogma can result in imprisonment. Although an American citizen, Fred Leuchter, the man who demonstrated that no homicidal gas chambers could ever have operated in Poland, was arrested on a visit to Germany and later hounded so viciously that he apparently went into hiding when he managed to return to the USA.

Now comes the chilling news that another American citizen, Hans Schmidt, of German background, has now been arrested during a visit to Germany. Schmidt's "crime" is that in a publication he issues in the U.S.A. he had questioned "The Holocaust." Presumably it is not safe for any critics of "the Holocaust" to make a visit to Germany, or France, without risking arrest. British historian David Irving is prohibited from continuing to visit Germany since he started expressing his doubts about "The Holocaust", the German ruling being used to prevent Irving from visiting Canada and Australia. Both the Canadian and Australian governments leave no doubt that they are not prepared to defy the Zionist Jewish propaganda machine.

In his Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Israel Shahak lists Canada as one of the English speaking countries in which Jewish influence is particularly strong, a view confirmed by journalist Doug Collins during his recent visit to Australia.

The future of Western Civilization is dependent on "The Chosen Race" Myth, now strongly buttressed by "The Holocaust" Dogma, being exposed and opposed. (Eric D. Butler)

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"JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION"

by Israel Shahak

The famous Jewish linguist Noam Chomsky writes, "Shahak is an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value."


YOUNG AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST TOUCHES A VERBOTEN

by Eric D. Butler

When young Australian novelist Helen Darville, presenting herself as Ukrainian Helen Demidenko, wrote her novel, The Hand That Signed the Paper, which won the prestigious $25,000 Miles Franklin Literary Award, she set off alarm bells in certain quarters which have still not stopped ringing. Probably no one is more surprised by what has happened than Helen Darville herself.

What is the explanation of a campaign of vilification unparalleled in Australian literary history? Why has every pro-Zionist writer in Australia sprung into action to condemn The Hand That Signed the Paper? American celebrity lawyer Dershowitz, visiting Australia to lecture to Australian Zionists, accused Helen Darville of trying to smuggle under the guise of fiction, "classic Ukranian anti-Semitism".

The self-opinionated Literary Editor of Murdoch's Herald-Sun, David Greason, the alleged "expert" on the League of Rights, advised the publishers of Helen Darville's novel that they should pulp any existing supplies and not re-publish, making the snide comment that the young author was emotionally unstable. Replying to Greason's arrogant suggestion, one letter writer charged that Greason had taken it upon himself to engage in "literary cleansing", and that some of the greatest artists in history have been emotionally unstable. Like all creative writers, Helen Darville certainly has displayed a most vivid imagination.

Well-known pro-Zionist hit man, Gerard Henderson, who has a regular column in Conrad Black's Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, Melbourne, charged that Helen Darville was falsifying history by claiming that there was a strong Jewish influence in the Bolshevik revolution. In a national ABC TV programme, The 7.30 Report, Henderson charged that the young writer was echoing the views of the Australian League of Rights. In a desperate attempt to ward off the Henderson criticism, Helen Darville was unwise to try to defend herself by claiming that as she had received death threats from Eric Butler, this could not be true. Helen Darville's lawyer has agreed that Helen Darville will apologise in writing to Eric Butler for what she knows to be a completely false statement.

PROPOSAL THAT AWARD BE WITHDRAWN

The Zionist-inspired campaign against Helen Darville even reached the stage where it was suggested that she should be stripped of her award and that those who awarded the top literary prize should be sacked. The writer offers no opinion concerning the literary quality of The Hand That Signed the Paper. Many of the critics seized upon the fact that in keeping with the central theme of her novel, Helen Darville, of English parents, called herself Helen Demidenko, allegedly of Ukrainian background. But her real crime was that she had touched upon an aspect of modern history which some want dropped down George Orwell's memory hole. In The Hand That Signed the Paper the daughter of a Ukrainian migrant in Australia discovers that her father had been one of those Ukrainians who had joined with the Nazi invaders of the Ukraine to take part in the murder of Jews, this in vengeance because the Ukrainians blamed the 'Jewish Bolsheviks' for the forced collectivization of the 30's with the death of millions of Ukrainians.

The most influential of the army of anti-Darville critics, the majority of these being Jewish, is the Jewish intellectual Robert Manne, editor of Australia's most prestigious literary journal, Quadrant. Of Hungarian Jewish background, Manne was originally a Marxist, but later moved to adopt a more conservative attitude concerning politics and economics. He often has a column in the strongly pro-Jewish Melbourne Age, which published extracts from his September, 1995 issue of Quadrant, "The Strange Case of Helen Demidenko". As pointed out by Melbourne literary figure, Nigel Jackson, in The Case for David Irving, a meticulously documented work which the Jewish opponents of the British historian have decided can only be countered by giving it the silent treatment, Manne seriously undermined his reputation as a genuine intellectual with his treatment of Irving and the type of language used. In an article in the Age of July 7th 1993, Manne, commenting on Irving's video tape, The Search for Truth in History, disgraces himself with his blatant misrepresentation of what Irving said. The misrepresentation is so outrageous that it is not surprising that it was felt that silent treatment was preferable to attempting to deal with Nigel Jackson's serious charges.

While Manne originally had written critically of Irving's works on the Second World War, his style was at least reasonable. But it was when David Irving publicly said that he could no longer believe in "The Holocaust", in the sense that millions of Jews and others had been gassed to death, that an internationally orchestrated campaign against Irving swung into action. Manne has joined in that campaign. Originally he presented himself as the civil libetarian who was in favour of allowing Irving to visit Australia. But later he found it convenient to reverse himself, as he did on the Constitutional Monarchy issue. Originally he argued that as the Constitutional Monarchy had worked reasonably well there was no need to change it. Manne later developed a typically sophisticated case in favour of abolition, one of his more shallow arguments being that one of factors which changed his thinking was the personal behaviour of members of the Royal Family, this including that of Prince Charles. The Manne change of heart was a plus for the Republican cause.

What Robert Manne writes in his Quadrant article on the Darville/Demidenko novel is not only a clear indication of why the novel is seen as a threat to the Zionist Jewish version of Communist history, but also reveals how far the Robert Mannes are prepared to go in an attempt to falsify an episode in modern history which if more widely known would provide people with a much deeper understanding of world politics. The central thrust of Manne's Quadrant article is to play down the Jewish influence in the Bolshevik movement which seized control of Russia in 1917.

Manne makes much of the historical inaccuracies in the Demidenko novel, of which there are many. These will be found in all historical novels. If the novel is to be subjected to the "rigorous historical scrutiny" which Manne demands, then may not such a scrutiny be applied to those aspects of "the Holocaust" which presumably the novelist accepts as being true? The rigorous historical scrutiny recommended by Manne has in fact been applied to an examination of the allegation that there were mass gassings of Jews in Soviet concentration camps, and demonstrated that no gassing could possibly have taken place in what were admittedly brutal slave camps. The conventional picture of "the Holocaust" does not save her from the biting criticism of Robert Manne and others her real crime is not that she has allegedly, for example, tried to "humanize" Ivan the Terrible of the Treblinka camp. or dealt with moral depravity in an unsatisfactory manner, but that she referred, although indirectly, to an aspect of history which apologists like Robert Manne and others insist is verboten.

LIFTING A CURTAIN ON HISTORICAL BLACKOUTS

What the Demidenko novel has done is to lift the curtain on an historical blackout and shed a light, however small, which could lead to many people requesting that the blind be lifted a little higher. Thus the panic in Zionist-Jewish circles. Such a lifting of the blind could bring into the full light of day the fact that the imposition of Bolshevism on the unfortunate Russian and other peoples was financed by powerful Jewish international Wall Street Banking Groups like Kuhn, Loeb and Co., The remarkable story of how Leon Trotsky, living in New York for years, traveled with a bunch of fellow revolutionaries, most of these Jews, financed by Schiff and associates, back to Russia by ship could become more widely known. The role of International Finance in sending Lenin into Russia from Switzerland in a sealed train could be assessed in a realistic examination of a Bolshevik Revolution which dramatically changed the course of history.

Equally important, the role of international Finance in sustaining the Soviet Empire could be brought into the full light of day. When the British born Dr. Anthony Sutton of Stanford University carefully documented how the Soviet had been economically sustained by the West, little attention was paid to this staggering revelation. When Sutton gave evidence in 1972 before a Republican Party subcommittee he thoroughly documented the horrendous truth that the war waged by the Communists in Vietnam was only being made possible with military equipment manufactured in the Soviet with American technology, and transported to North Vietnam in ships built with American technology, the American news services refused to carry Sutton's testimony. The mass media in the USA is predominantly Jewish controlled. In discussing the Sutton evidence with a Republican who had been present at the 1972 Miami Beach conference, I was told that the general reaction to the Sutton testimony was that if publicized it could lose Richard Nixon the coming Presidential election!

I well recall the Wall Street Journalist who, having stumbled upon Sutton's original documentation of the West's economic sustenance of the Soviet, came to see a friend of mine in Ottawa asking for more confirmation of the Sutton material. This journalist was convinced that he was on to "the scoop of the century." He was astonished when told that his story would never appear. It never did.

In attempting to avoid the "anti-Semitic" smear, when Dr. Sutton wrote his work Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, he deliberately avoided any reference to the dominant Jewish influence in the Wall Street financial groups which had financed the Bolsheviks to power. But this book ended Sutton's academic career. In his own words, he instantly became a "non-person." Like Helen Demidenko, he had strayed into forbidden historical territory.

However slowly but surely, the truth about the Jewish involvement in world revolutionary forces is coming out. The Demidenko affair might best be described as one of those unrehearsed events which make some contribution to shifting the course of history. The violent reaction to The Hand That Signed the Paper provides striking confirmation of the fact that it is perceived as a serious threat to the historical blackout of this century. Robert Manne wants to pull down the blind which Helen Darville has lifted, even if indirectly.

Manne writes, "It seems to me undeniable that the overall effect of Demidenko is to suggest that the Bolshevik regime was inspired by Jews, that the nastiest parts of the communist apparatus were Jewish, and that under the Bolsheviks, the Jews together with the Russians, were the oppressors of Ukraine."

Manne makes the revealing statement that "Until the publication of the Demidenko novel I had assumed that as a consequence of the Holocaust, the standard inferior fascist proposition?that Bolshevism is an expression of Jewish political power?was no longer a topic of discussion in civilized company. Since the publication of the Demidenko novel this is no longer the case." Manne adds his voice to those who have sought to elevate "the Holocaust" into a type of religious dogma which it is heretical even to question. He also appears to revert to his Marxist past by suggesting that Bolshevism as an expression of Jewish politics was a "fascist" invention, one which originated with Hitler. But long before Hitler had emerged on the world stage, Winston Churchill had written as follows in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, London, of February 8, 1920: "There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews. It is certainly a very great one. It probably outweighs all others. With the possible exception of Lenin, the leading figures are Jews. Moreover the principal inspiration and driving power comes Jewish leaders. Thus Tchitcherine, is eclipsed by his nominal subordinate Litvinoff, and the influence of Russians like Bukharin or Lunachasski cannot be compared with the power (Petrograd) or of Krassin or Radek?all Jews. In the Soviet institutions the predominance of Jews is even more outstanding. And the foremost, if not indeed the principal part in the system of terrorism applied by the Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution has been taken by Jews, and in some notable cases, by Jewesses."

Churchill wrote of a "world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization." Even though Churchill's Illustrated Sunday Herald article sought to present Political Zionism as a movement of "good" Jews as opposed to the "bad" Jews of Communism, it did not prevent an outbreak of Jewish fury against Churchill. Churchill had drawn attention to a "world-wide conspiracy" which upset both Communist and Zionist Jews. In his autobiographical work. Trial and Error, Chaim Weizmann, who played a major role in gaining Western politician's support for the establishment of the Zionist State of Israel, provides a fascinating outline of the struggle for power between the Zionists and Communists among Russian Jewish communities last century. Both were united in their desire to destroy Russia. Weizmann Quotes his own mother as saying that if a Communist revolutionary son was proved right she would be content to live in Communist Russia, but that if the Zionist revolution triumphed she would be happy in Palestine. Weizmann's mother spent some years in Bolshevik Russia, before ending her days in Zionist Israel, where her son Chaim was the first President.

DEFYING RECORDED HISTORY

Anyone attempting to deny the enormous Jewish influence in the Bolshevik Revolution is defying recorded history, as summarized by Winston Churchill. Lenin's successor Stalin, himself married to a Jewess, the sister of Kaganovich, was well aware of Lenin's Jewish background but prevented publication of this fact. Chaim Weizman knew of Lenin's Jewish background, being quoted in the London Jewish Chronicle of December 1932 as having said that Lenin had participated in Jewish student meetings while in exile in Switzerland. Lenin's mother, Maria Blank, was Jewish. The Communist deification of Lenin had from the beginning presented a misleading picture of his background. From the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution the large number of Jews sought to mask their origins by many assumed names. Victor Marsden, the London Morning Post correspondent at the time of the Bolshevik seizing power in 1917, compiled a list of the early Bolshevik officials. Out of a total of 545, 454 were Jews.

Equally significant with events inside Bolshevik dominated Russia were the massive upsurge of Jewish support for the Bolsheviks internationally. The London Jewish Chronicle of April 4, 1919, wrote, "There was much in the fact that so many Jews are Bolsheviks. the ideals of Bolshevism are constant with the highest ideals of Judaism." Typical of many statements by Jews was that of Reinbold Neibur in a speech before the Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, October 3, 1934: "Marxism is the modern form of Jewish prophecy." A more recent Jewish contribution to the subject is provided by Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent American Jewish political scientist. In his book, the Fatal Embrace, Jews and the State (University of Chicago Press, 1993) Ginsburg says, "In (Communist Russia) Jews commanded powerful instruments of terror and regression."

In their attempts to minimize the Jewish influence in the Bolshevik movement, apologists like Robert Manne make much of the fact that Stalin liquidated a number of the original Bolsheviks of Jewish background. As with Stalin's campaign to destroy Trotsky, the former Red Army leader being assassinated in Mexico by a Stalin agent, his liquidation was primarily concerned with maintaining his own power structure.

None of those liquidated, including Troksky, had ever repudiated Marxism. One of the few of Stalin's intimate tourage to survive was his brother-in-law, the Jew Lazar Kaganovich, mentioned in Helen Darville's novel as one of those Jews whom the unfortunate Ukrainians vividly recalled as having been responsible for their dreadful fate under forced collectivization of farms. But Stalin's liquidation of a few of his fellow Bolsheviks of Jewish background had little or no effect on the dominant Jews inside the Soviet bureaucracy. Jews like Beria dominated the dreaded secret police and the KGB.

Malcolm Muggeridge, Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, who bravely tried to report on the enormity of the Ukrainian tragedy, mentioned the enormous Jewish influence in Starlin's Russia, in his forgotten novel, Winter in Moscow. The treatment of this novel is a classic example of Orwell's famous reference to the pouring of history down the memory hole. When London Times foreign correspondent Douglas Reed accompanied British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden to Moscow in 1935, he was puzzled to discover the censorship department "was entirely stalled by Jews."

THE "ANTI-SEMITIC SMEAR"

Anyone who dares to suggest, even indirectly, that Jewish influence continued to exert itself under the Stalin regime, is given the standard treatment of being described as "anti-Semitic." Even the great Alexander Solzhenitsyn could not escape the smear when he published photographs of six of the most prominent of those running the notorious concentration camps, all of these being Jews. Solzhenitsyn responded to the smear by stating that the term "anti-semitism" had been so drained of any realistic meaning that it should be dropped from the vocabulary of educated people.

STALIN AWARE OF JEWISH INFLUENCE

Stalin and his colleagues were so well aware of Jewish international influence that the overwhelming majority of their Foreign Ambassadors were Jews, such as Maisky in the United Kingdom. The Star of the Soviet diplomatic corps was Maxim Litvinoff. Headed by Litvinoff, the Soviet delegation to the League of Nations was over 90 percent Jewish. When Stalin panicked in the early stages of the Hitler assault against the Soviet, he turned to the Jew Ilia Ehrenburg, Soviet propaganda chief and Pravda editorial writer, to prepare his famous speech in which he rallied the Russians in defence, not of Communism, but "Mother Russia". A master of dialectics, Ehrenburg had Stalin appealing to the deepest religious and patriotic instincts of the Russian people.

Any suggestion that the Second World War seriously weakened the dominant Jewish influence inside the Soviet Union completely ignores the fact that as the Soviet advance into Europe took place, Jews dominated in the puppet governments established in Eastern Europe. As documented by David Irving in his work, Uprising, a major factor in the Hungarian revolt in 1956 was the deep Hungarian resentment of the overwhelming Jewish influence in the Hungarian government.

A dramatic confirmation of the Zionist-Communist nexus took place with the establishment of Zionist Israel in 1948. The Soviet had paved the way by supporting the organized European Jews into Palestine. The terrorist tactics used against the British as well as the Palestinians led to the creation of one of the biggest refugee problems in history, a problem which continues to poison the Middle East. The Soviet lost no time in recognizing the Zionist seizure of control of Palestine and the announcement of the establishment of the new State of Israel.

Announcement of the establishment of the new State of Israel. At a critical moment it provided, through Czechoslovakia, the vital military equipment which the Zionists needed to survive. The eventual breakdown of diplomatic relations between Soviet and Israel did not prevent a continuing uneasy relationship, with a Zionist promoted campaign being directed against the Soviet in an attempt to force it to permit Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel.

One embarrassing sidelight concerning the relaxing of the Soviet's restrictions on the emigration of Jews with Vienna, Austria, being used as a staging post, was having got out of Russia, some Jews refused to go to Israel, preferring to go to the USA or to other Western countries. Even more embarrassing was the fact that a number of Jews who went to Israel then insisted on returning to the Soviet Union, where they said they felt more at home. Stalin's own daughter, who was temporarily the source of some headlines when she decided to live in the West, eventually returned to Russia.

SOVIET "ANTI-SEMITISM"

The continuing Zionist campaign against the Soviet Union was primarily concerned with advancing a Zionist strategy. While agreeing that the Soviet was a totalitarian state with few, if any, individual rights, the main thrust of Zionist propaganda was to argue that the Soviet Jews were the target of special victimization. Prominent in this campaign was Australian Zionist leader Mr. Isi Leibler, aided by former Australian Labor Socialist Prime Minister, Bob Hawke. But there was little evidence to support this propaganda campaign. Distinguished American Jewish authority on the Middle East, Dr. Alfred Lilienthal, discussed the subject in his classic work, The Zionist Connection, and concluded that there was no evidence to support the allegation that Soviet Jews were being persecuted any more than other sections of Soviet society. Lilienthal pointed out that there was a "deafening silence" concerning the transporting of hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonians to Siberia.

Lilienthal drew attention to the fact that during the period of alleged Soviet persecution of Jews was taking place, the Jew, Benjamin Dymshytz was serving as Vice President of the Soviet, while "a number of assistant secretaries and various ministries have been Jewish." The percentage of Jews receiving one of the highest Soviet honours, the Lenin Peace Prize, have been "fantastic", from 15 to 25 percent. Lilienthal refers to 8000 Jewish deputies in the Supreme and local Soviets.

The distinguished Canadian journalist, Mr. Peter Worthington, served for many years in Moscow as correspondent for the Toronto Telegram. His wife is Russian. In an article in the anti-Zionist Jewish magazine, "Issues", (no longer being published), entitled "Jews in the Soviet Union," Worthington bluntly refuted charges of any Soviet terror campaign against the Soviet Jews. He pointed out that the Soviet had attempted to liquidate all non-Soviet cultures, adding, "Jews who were neither excessively religious nor ardently pro-Zionist had a better chance statistically of leading a physically more comfortable life than the average Soviet citizen." Even the former Zionist leader Dr. Nahum Goldmann was critical of the Zionist's propaganda, making the lot of Soviet Jews more difficult, stating that "the overwhelming majority wish to stay in the Soviet."

Zionist strategy to move large numbers of Jews out of Russia received a tremendous fillip with the advent of Gorbachev, hailed as a great leader by Zionist leaders around the world. The break up of the Soviet Union and a greater freedom of expression and research has led to open discussion on the subject of Jewish influence in the Communist movement. The world's media has carried increasing reports of the fear of outbreaks of what is termed "classical anti-Semitism". One result of this development is that large numbers of Jews of the former Soviet Union are taking advantage of the opportunity to leave either for Israel or for other parts of the world. As many of these held relatively comfortable positions under Communism, it is legitimate to ask what philosophical contribution they will make in their new homes. They cannot be xpected to promote the traditional Christian view of the freedom of the individual.

THE ESSENCE OF THE JEWISH TRAGEDY

As pointed out by a number of distinguished Jewish writers, the large numbers of Jews who moved to the West to escape the alleged "anti-Semitism" of Czarist Russia, produced a disproportionate number of leaders of the Marxist movement. Typical of these were the Rosenbergs who felt it to be their duty to pass American atomic information to the Soviet. The essence of the Jewish tragedy is that Jewish leaders have over two thousand years treated the rank and file of the Jewish people as a collectivity which can be used without reference to the individual. It is a travesty of fact to claim that it was the Czarist authorities who forced the Jews into the ghetto system, this associated with the "anti-semitism" of which Robert Manne charges there are signs in Helen Demidenko's novel. It was the Talmudic Rabbis who were primarily responsible for the isolation and legalistic totalitarianism imposed on the Jews in Russia, the Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe. Mr. Isi Leibler and other Zionist leaders have stressed that their greatest fear is that the Jewish people should be assimilated into societies in which they live.

In his classic study of Anti-semitism, Bernard Lazare writes that "the general causes of antisemitism have always resided in Israel itself...". "The Jew was "unsociable... because he was exclusive, and his exclusiveness was both political and religious..." In his lengthy Preface to The World Significance of the Russian Revolution (1920), Dr. Oscar Levy agrees completely with the theme of the author, George Pitt-Rivers, that the revolution was predominantly a Jewish revolution, pinpointing the nature of a Jewish Problem, caused by what he described as "two thousand years of madness." Anyone who touches on any aspect of this agelong problem must expect to be subjected to the most savage and ruthless criticism.

The Helen Demidenko affair is an example of the dangers of touching on any aspect of the problem, even in a novel. Manne's charge that the young novelist has assumed for herself "a psychological bond with war criminals" is outrageous. Whether a young girl of twenty-four can cope with the Zionist-Jewish attack remains to be seen.

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