General

A Dangerous Method

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David Cronenberg’s latest movie gives us his view of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his pupil, Carl Jung, and even more centrally it tells the story of the affair between Jung and his patient, Sabina Spielrein.  It is set in Vienna in the early years of the 20th century.

The battle between Freud and Jung is fairly well known.  Jung was the heir apparent of the psychoanalytic dynasty founded by Freud.  But he began to go astray because Freud demanded a strictly sexual explanation for all neurosis.  Jung wanted to incorporate more; he rejected the orthodoxy.

For Freud everything boiled down to sex.  All conflicts in the psyche were rooted in early sexual experiences.  Jung challenged this core concept, telling Sabina that there must be “another hinge to the universe.”  In the words of Sabina, Jung did not want his patients to simply understand why they were the way they were but to become whom they might have been.

Jung is an idealist but Freud sees him as a threat to psychoanalysis because of what he considers his mysticism and mumbo-jumbo.   He dismisses Jung’s approach as simply replacing one delusion with another.  You then have to ask yourself why he chose Jung to carry on his work.  The usual explanation is because he needed a non-Jew to cross the bridge to the European society in which he lived, as the world of psychoanalysis was understood at the time to be Jewish.  Read more

The war crimes of NATO in Libya

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Translated by Michael Colhaze.

This article appeared on Feb. 06, 2012 in the Swiss online journal Alles Schall und Rauch and was written by Freeman.

Like all illegal wars exclusively pulled off by NATO, the one against Libya has triggered mass murder. Reports from human rights organizations show that the United States, NATO and their vassal “rebels” committed the worst possible war crimes, culminating in the cold-blooded murder of Muammar Qaddafi. Interviews conducted with victims and witnesses in Tripoli, Zawiya, Sibrata, Khoms, Zliten, Misrata and Sirte Tawergha give ample proof that NATO deliberately bombed civilian targets, causing numerous deaths and injuries. This included schools, hospitals, government buildings, food stores and homes. The rebels meanwhile indulged in systematic torture, abuse and revenge killings among Gaddafi sympathizers, while “Black” immigrants were literally butchered. Read more

Atlanta Jewish paper says Israel should consider assassinating Obama

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Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, wrote an editorial saying Israel should consider assassinating Barack Obama. He wasn’t necessarily saying that they should assassinate Obama. Only that it should be one option on the table.

Here’s how Adler laid out “option three” in his list of scenarios facing Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu (the column, which was forwarded to us by a tipster, isn’t online, but you can read a copy here):

Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

Another way of putting “three” in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives…Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?

You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.

Notice how confident he is that our “strategic ally” has already discussed assassinating Obama. And, no, he hasn’t been arrested, in case you’re wondering. But the FBI is investigating. Read more

Menachem Mendel Schneerson: The Expedient Messiah, Part 4

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CONTROVERSIES

Criticism of Schneerson, limited among non-Jews mainly to his supremacist views, has been more varied among Jews. Some have questioned his mental competency and his veracity, criticized his professional manners and condemned his theology. Perhaps because they did not believe in the authenticity of Schneerson’s mid-life born again experience, many senior non-Lubavitch Chassidim opposed or took a neutral stance toward him throughout his reign. In an interview conducted on Israeli television shortly before Schneerson suffered a debilitating stroke, two years before his death, an important Orthodox Israeli philosopher, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, was asked what he thought of the Rebbe’s messianism. Leibowitz’s response was characteristically sarcastic: “There is only one thing that I cannot figure out about this man[Schneerson], and that is whether he is a psychopath or a charlatan. This is the only thing I just cannot decide—this kind of degeneracy, of phony prophets and false messiahs, is as ancient as Israel itself.”

A tenet in the shared code of professional behavior among Reform and Conservative rabbis and congregations includes the principle that one does not solicit members of each other’s congregations, regardless of synagogues or affiliation. Chabad, however, ignored this tenet. Indignant that Chabad was apparently proselytizing members of their congregations, the associated clergy of Pittsburgh congregations stated in a righteously indignant declaration:

We believe that people have a right to belong to the religious institutions that they desire without being called, visited or solicited to leave and support other places of worship and learning. Sadly, it has been the experience of several Reform congregations in the Pittsburgh area that the connections between congregants and rabbi are not always honored by those who speak on Chabad’s behalf. This has led to disruptions in congregational life, to ill feeling and needless strife. (See here)

The general Jewish community has been amused or indifferent to the proclamation by Lubavitch that Jewish belief requires belief in the messiahship or even the divinity of the Rebbe. Soon after his death members of Chabad-Lubavitch in fact were divided into two categories: the “Elokists” who believe that Schneerson is God and the “Mishichists” who hold that he is the messiah. Needless to say, some Jewish professors of theology interpreted this belief to be heretical and idolatrous and were thus in a quandary. They admitted that Schneerson’s success could not be denied: after all, he established a worldwide empire of followers, spread Orthodoxy to places where it had never been known, and established a most effective fund raising organization. To criticize him would be interpreted as an attack on his achievements.

Many Jews who are not Orthodox and maybe not even very observant praise Chabad and continue to fund its activities. They admire Chabad’s institution building, the devotion and selflessness of its emissaries, and its bold representation of Judaism in the public square. In addition, they carry with them nostalgia for their east European past and a sense that Lubavitch is the most authentic version of historical Judaism still extant. Finally, though perhaps not devout themselves, they hold the conviction that Orthodoxy is the firmest guarantor of a Jewish future.[33]

Though finding fault with Schneerson might be construed as an assault on his reputation and accomplishments, many non-Orthodox Jewish theologians, nevertheless, have been concerned about the similarities of Chabad messianic theology to Christology which they fear causes it to be heretical and even apostatical. To claim the messiahship of the Rebbe undermines the first line of defense against Christian missionizing, which has been that Judaism cannot accept a messiah who dies in the midst of his redemptive mission. Lubavitch texts after Schneerson’s death contain references to essence, omniscience, and omnipotence—all Christian concepts. With the decline of a pervasive Christian threat, familiarity with messianic texts and sensitivity to messianic deviationism has waned to the vanishing point even among learned Jews. Read more

2012 TOO Fundraising Appeal

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It’s time for our annual fundraising appeal. I’d like to first thank those who have contributed during 2012.  Much appreciated . With your generous support, we have been able to put out over 300 articles and blogs in the past year.

We are doing pretty well financially—we are definitely not going away, but we could certainly do better. Several of our stalwarts are providing material gratis, and others are underpaid in terms of their situation in life and need for income.

Donations to TOO are tax deductible for Americans through the Charles Martel Society, the same organization that sponsors The Occidental Quarterly. TOO and TOQ remain separate entities (even though I am editor of both). However, money donated to TOO is now routed into a separate account at the CMS.

The links for tax deductible donations are here. This page also provides instructions for donors who wish to remain anonymous or prefer to send checks. And foreign donors and others unconcerned about US taxes may use the link on the main donations page or go here directly.

My comments in the last fundraiser are still apt:

The reasons for contributing to TOO have never been more obvious. TOO occupies a unique space on the Internet. Quite simply, we are the only site where Jewish issues are consistently discussed openly and honestly, with intellectual depth and without resorting to name calling and propaganda. As everyone knows by now, the mainstream media routinely avoids discussions of Jewish issues in a way that might offend Jewish sensibilities. Just in the last few months, it has been stunning to behold how quickly Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas were fired because they dared to depart from the media mantra of Jews as oppressed and morally above reproach. The message is clear: Don’t mess with the Jews. Truth and reasonableness are not defenses. As Joe Sobran said, a hypocritical etiquette forces most commentators to portray Jews as powerless and oppressed victims—and if you depart from this line these “victims” will destroy you.

This is a very exciting time. There is very encouraging progress in Europe where concern about Muslim immigration has led to an upsurge of mainstream political parties that reflect disenchantment with the multicultural future envisioned by the elites. There is enormous anger among lower- and middle-class Whites in the United States, but there is a crying need for intellectual leadership that will direct this anger into explicit opposition to multiculturalism and massive non-White immigration and an explicit awareness of all of the forces that oppose our interests.

One of the exciting things about the present state of the Internet is that there are quite a few outlets now for White advocacy as well as sites that are critical of Jews and Israel. In fact, one has the feeling that Jewish organizations are on the defensive, particularly about Israel. Israel is increasingly showing its Jewish character as a hostile, aggressive, ethnonationalist state with all of the characteristics that make organized Jewish Diaspora communities in the West such formidable foes. This year’s list by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of the year’s “Top Ten Anti-Israel/Anti-Semitic Slurs” shows an increasing awareness around the world of Jewish power and of the brutal nature of Israel.

Please help make us stronger. Again, the links for tax deductible donations are here. This page also provides instructions for donors who wish to remain anonymous or prefer to send checks. And foreign donors and others unconcerned about US taxes may use the link on the main donations page or go here directly.

Thanks for thinking of TOO.

On Traitors and Victims: The Ans van Dijk Story

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On a cold winter morning in January 1948 a Jewish woman, Ans van Dijk, was executed in Fort Bijlmer near Amsterdam after being sentenced to death for collaboration with the German occupiers during World War II. The pivotal questions are why a Jewish woman was executed after the liberation and how she became involved in collaboration with the Germans during the war. Consulting the literature and sources on this topic reveal some astonishing facts which shed a different light on the fate of Dutch Jews in Holland in World War II.

Ans van Dijk

Anna (called “Ans”) van Dijk was born in 1905 to a Jewish family in Amsterdam. In 1927 she married to Bram Querido, and in 1940 her life took a dramatic turn when her father died in a mental hospital and she divorced her husband. Meanwhile the Germans had occupied Holland and she embarked on a lesbian relationship with the Miep Stodel. Stodel left her to flee to Switzerland and Van Dijk decided to go into hiding to evade deportation to Poland.

In 1943 Ans van Dijk was arrested by the German Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service—SD) and after she promised to work for the SD she was released. She posed as a member of the resistance who could provide hiding places and fake identity passes, but in reality she would report Jews in hiding to the SD. Van Dijk would not only evade deportation by her co-operation but was endowed with bounty money for everyone she turned in. She was the perfect agent because her Jewish appearance made her look trustworthy in the eyes of the resistance.

Read more

Jews and the Occupy Wall St. Protests: Bill Handel says “My Tribe Controls Wall St.”

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The Occupy Wall St. movement and its many offshoots have clearly become creatures of the left. Although it’s hard to say what it was originally, it is becoming the left’s answer to the Tea Party’s angry middle-aged and middle-class White people: angry young, mainly White people worried about their prospects and expressing themselves in left-speak. Locally, the campus liberals at CSULB are promoting Occupy Long Beach, and nationally one hears the likes of Michael Moore on MSNBC touting it. On the other hand, from conservatives there is a reflexive disdain and accusations that OWS movement is funded and organized by activists associated with leftist organizations like the SEIU and ACORN.

There are certainly a lot of reasons to complain about Wall St. The financial meltdown is the greatest elite malfeasance/fraud in memory, and to date none of the high-level perpetrators have been prosecuted–those who made the markets for bundled mortgages given to people who could not possibly repay. The financial meltdown of 2008 continues to reverberate in world economies, resulting in enormously increased debt loads at all levels of government, politically volatile levels of unemployment, and an as yet uncertain outcome.

It’s ironic perhaps that there has been a very visible Jewish presence to the OWS movement. (See “Occupy Wall St. protests taking on a Jewish flavor, ” JTA, Oct. 11, 2011.)

From progressive activists who seek to conflate the protesters’ aspirations with Jewish values to Chabadniks looking for opportunities to have Jews to perform mitzvahs such as sitting in a sukkah, the Occupy Wall Street protests are becoming a fulcrum of Jewish ferment. In Boston and Philadelphia, too, Jewish activists held Yom Kippur services at the site of the demonstrations.

“For many of us, social justice is where we find our Judaism,” said Regina Weiss, the communications director for the Progressive Jewish Alliance & Jewish Funds for Justice. “For many there is no more important way to stand up and express Judaism on the holiest night of the year [Yom Kippur] than to stand with people who are hurting and to stand up for greater equality in the country.” Read more