When is a Jew a Nazi?

And indeed, can one be both?

bs’d

Every few years, the State of Israel gets a bug in its eye, and considers legislation to outlaw from the public discourse terms like ‘Nazi’ and ‘kapo’, because some higher-up claims it cheapens those words’ meaning.

And it makes sense, given the fact that the State of Israel is a Holocaust-worshipping entity, so the very thought of trivializing its gawd — in any way — is met with knee-jerk, partisan-like resistance, if you will.

That said, after coming across the following rather snarky meme making the rounds on Whatsapp, we began to wonder…

[By the by, it’s Interior Security Minister Omer Bar Lev juxtaposed with Erwin Rommel, and the caption reads: “Separated at birth?”]

Is it funny?

We dunno.

But the message is clear.

The man’s a Nazi.

But is it fair?

Can an Israeli Government Minister properly be accused of being a Nazi? or behaving like a Nazi? or just looking like one?

Well, in order to answer that question, we decided to make a short historical detour using a few, bite-size bullet points —

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And we start here —

Did you know that there’s a long and celebrated list of Nazis who later became Jews?

Didn’t think it could happen?

Check it out:

• HERE’s a story from the BBC of Theo Heser, a loyal member of the Hitler Youth, who converted to Judaism in the 1960’s.

• And HERE you can read about Lutz Langer, neo-Nazi extraordinaire, who dumped the swastika and moved to Israel to take up, of all things… Judaism!

• Read HERE about a Chabadnik — Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger — whose father was a renowned Nazi officer. The good doctor drifted far from his papa’s path, served in the IDF and ultimately converted to Judaism.

• And one more, if you please, from a piece in the Guardian that catalogues a number of Jews who are children of Nazis (and even a relative of Hitler himself, yimach shemo v’zichro) who now live in Israel and are practising Jews!

All of which just goes to show, of course, that one can, indeed, be a Nazi and then become a Jew.

But can it work the other way?

Did Hashem make the Nazi-Jew thoroughfare a one way street?

Hmm…

We’ll get there momentarily, friends, but first this —

PURITY OF ARMS: The Zionist State once made it a practice to employ Nazi war criminals to further its military/security goals.

Oh my!

And would that make the State of Israel a Nazi state?

Or just those who did the hiring?

Or maybe just those who worked alongside the Jew-hating murderers themselves?

It’s all so confusing.

But certainly there’s an ‘official’ Zionist answer for it all.

You know, ‘pragmatics’.

Power politics.

Survival.

Tiny, besieged nation in need of any help it can get.

The “greater good.”

All of that.

No time for splitting moral hairs, you know, when you’re at war for your survival — especially after the Shoah!

Anyway, here are the bullets —

• THIS HA’ARETZ piece tells the story of the evil Otto Skorzeny, who earned a salary from the Mossad after his tour as a lieutenant colonel in the Waffen-SS.

• And HERE you can read in more detail about Ben Gurion (a Nazi? not a Nazi?) who employed former Nazi officers in the 1960’s to help him in the State of Israel’s struggle against Egypt’s nascent rocket program.

So, wait…

Senior members of the Israeli Knesset and security establishment work hand-in-glove with Nazi war criminals, benefit from their ‘expertise’ and connections, pay them handsomely for it all, and maybe share the odd beer and knockwurst down at the Gewissenlos on Dizengoff, but G-d forbid you should impugn their good names with a Nazi slur? — and if you do, Whoa-ho! get ready for a jail term or a 100,000 shekel fine, or both!

Seems a stretch, doesn’t it?

And now for the kicker.

Can anyone explain the following —

• Bryan Rigg, a Cambridge Ph.D. writes about HUNDREDS of Jews who fought for Hitler’s Third Reich, despite first-hand knowledge of the Final Solution, and despite their own families being exterminated by the Nazi killing machine. His Book is called Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers.

• Or still others, who volunteered to help the Gestapo identify and locate countless Jews then in hiding, both in Germany and elsewhere in Europe — a group that includes the notoriously evil couple, Isaaksohn and Goldschlag, whose Jew-hatred led them to brag about the number of cattle cars they could pack full of their co-religionists.

We’re not going to comment here on the very difficult circumstances these people faced, or what we might have done in their place. We’ve been through those discussions aplenty, and the truth is, they’re not relevant. There’s halacha on the matter, and it has to be followed, regardless the outcome.

We just want to know if we’re talking about JEWS here?

Or Jewish Nazis?

Or just Nazis?

And of those who were given “honorary Aryan” status (lo aleinu), or who conferred upon dyed-in-the-wool Nazis “honorary Israeli” status…?

Should they be considered Jews?

Or Nazis?

Or Jewish Nazis?

Is it fair to use the N-word in such cases?

Of course it is.

Because Nazi is as Nazi does.

So when washout former Prime Minister Nifty Naftali Bennett says “we must never compare our brethren to the worst of our oppressors,” we say quite the opposite.

We say we must.

When it’s fitting.

Always.

Because if the Shabak and the Israel Police behave like Nazis…

As they so often do.

And if policymakers and bureaucrats single out for harassment good Jews simply because they’re Jews…

As they regularly do.

And if the State of Israel now stands ready to ghettoize its entire population, moving them en masse into large city-centers and camps, the better to “attend to their security needs,” and “their health and nutrition requirements” — because we’re now on the brink of a devastating global food shortage and rationing is in everyone’s best interest — then, be sure, fellow Jews, we’re just one short step away from the rail cars.

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So don’t be shy.

Pin it where it belongs.

Nazi is as Nazi does.

And may the evil ones get their just desert —

Dean Maughvet