Zionizing Jewish Culture and History

Hasbarah Doesn't Stop with Movies

by Joachim Martillo (ThorsProvoni@aol.com)

 

Obsession is probably unique for its blatancy. The Boston junior high school world civilization text book contains more typical Zionist propaganda.

 

While the effect of such material directed at the general American public is important for Zionist goals, maintaining a Zionized mentality among American Jews is probably the most important project of the Israel Lobby because it makes potentially all Jews Zionist agents even when they are neither Zionist intelligentsia nor Zionist political-economic oligarchs nor employees of Israel advocacy or Jewish communal organizations.

 

The popular English-language religious author Aryeh Kaplan (approved by the National Council of Synagogue Youth and the Orthodox Union) engages in subliminal Zionization when he writes on p. 4 in Maimonides's Principles, The Fundamentals of Jewish Faith (published 1975):

The Moslem persecutions finally caught up with Maimonides' family in Fez, and they left for Israel in 1165, where they lived briefly in Jerusalem and Hebron. finding life in the Holy Land very difficult, they then moved to Egypt and settled in Fostat. Supporting himself as a jewelry merchant in partnership with his brother David, he spent every spare moment working on his commentary to the Mishnah. It was finally completed in 1168, and was published under the Arabic title Kitab as-Siraj, meaning "Book of Illumination."

Not only does the passage fail to mention

• that the Almohade Muslim persecutions were sectarian in nature and affected Muslims at least as much as Jews,
• that Maimonides' failed attempt to settle in Palestine took place during the second crusade when European Christians ruled in Palestine, and
• that Egypt was then as now a Muslim country,

but it also describes the Holy Land as Israel as if the State of Israel existed already in the twelfth century. In the 50s and 60s a similar text might have used the phrase Land of Israel, but generally Jewish religious texts before 1967 would probably have recorded that Maimondes departed to Palestine because religious Jews preferred to maintain a strong distinction between the Land of Israel as a spiritual concept and Palestine as the physical reality.

 

On September 28, I received an email that linked to the latest edition of The Mendele Review, which is an ejournal covering topics in Yiddish studies. It used to be hosted at Yale, but nowadays the University of Haifa seems to provide web hosting. Below is an interesting passage that evinces Zionist reinterpretation of Yiddish culture. I reddened the critical text. Kremer means shopkeeper.

The song featured in this issue of TMR is "Der kremer," a song that both sounds the age-old Zionist hope and paints the storekeeper's pathetic existence. The song condenses Avrom Lyesin's (Abraham Walt's) 25-stanza poem (composed in Minsk in 1896) of the same title. In his reveries, Lyesin's storekeeper cries out:

Oy, volt ikh gehat nor di oytsres! Ikh volt shoyn gevust fun a tolk, Ikh volt fun di yidn gemakht shoyn A rekhtn, a laytishn folk!

אױ, װאָלט איך געהאַט נאָר די אוצרות! איך װאָלט שױן געװוּסט פֿון אַ טאָלק, איך װאָלט פֿון די ייִדן געמאַכט שױן אַ רעכטן, אַ לײַטישן פֿאָלק!

[from Lider un poemen, New York: Forverts, 1938, vol.1, p. 228].

Nothing in the lyrics (see Der Kremer | Jewish Folksong or the image below for a translation) connects with Zionism unless "a kingdom of our people" means a Zionist state. The song defines it as "a kingdom of geniuses, a kingdom of kings." For the most part the words seem to express frustration at being poor, and I could probably stretch an interpretation to argue that the storekeeper was angry as a member of A Disenfranchised Elite, but I would probably be overinterpreting just as the Mendele Review editor does. 

Because the Freedman catalogue mentions that the song was a favorite of  Israeli Prime Minister Golde Meir (usually written Golda Meir), there is a sort of link with Zionism in that Zionism and Zionists can connect with the bitterness of the petty bourgeoisie. If we follow the interpretation of the Mendele Editor, do the words "O, if only I had the power! My enemies would eat dirt" presage the treatment of Palestinians by Jewish Zionists?

While "Der Kremer" is not a Zionist song as Zionist propagandists would reinterpret it, the lyrics probably do give some insight into the Roots of Zionist Jewish Aggression.

(1) Sidor Belarsky, (2) Leibele Jinich and (3) Menakhem Bernstein each sing "Der kremer"

(1) Sidor Belarsky. About the artist see bio and tribute by daughter.  Click on the gramophone to hear Belarsky sing, as recorded in The Jewish Music Archive.
(2) Cantor Leibele Jinich.  Click on the gramophone to hear Jinich sing, as recorded in The Jewish Music Archive.
(3) Menakhem Bernshteyn [Menachem Bernstein]. About the artist, see TMR 12.014. Accompanist: Haggai Spokoiny;  Recording Technician: Tal Israel;  Click on the gramophone to hear Bernstein sing, as recorded in Di velt fun yidish.

 

(left click to enlarge)

 

 

from Eleanor & Joseph Mlotek, eds. Songs of Generations: New Pearls of Yiddish Song. New York: Workmens's Circle, n.d

 

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