Dimon.t
Urges: 'Real Jewish History Step Torwarct Please.
BY MAX I. DIMONT
Jews dared challenge Rome twice
Editor's Note: Max I. Dimont, the more-almost
winning, too.
author of this thought-provoking
The pagans in the Roman Em-
article, is scheduled to speak at pire watched with incredulity as-
Cong. Shaarey Zedek on "The In- the Jews single-handedly fought
destructible Jew," March .14. His Roman Goliath. The Jews came
topic bears the title of his latest so close to winning this-and the
book which was reviewed critically two subsequent-wars, that the-
in. The Jewish News on Nov. 26. Romans were forced to use their
He is also the author of the best full military weight to insure final
victory. The Romans" knew that
seller "Jews, God and Histah."
o
if they were to falter, if the Jewi
suits when complicated historical
events are explained only in terms
of anti-Semitism. If a Chinese
were to read about the Crusades
in Christian histories, he would
never realize that Jews existed
during that - period. If that same
Chinese were to read a Jewish
history book 'of that period, he
would - get the idea that -the Cru-
the land of safety They way e a peasants. and laborers. They ha
finger of accusation at those le ad- not fought back.
ers who stayed in Germany, thus
do not know why the Russians
exonerating their own flight by nn- or I Americans
or Germans did
puting Quislingism to others.
. fight back. I can, however, specu-
Let us dig a little deeper into late about the Jews. Because th
the spurious question, ,"Why, didn't Jews could not conceive of them-
the Jews fight back?" According selves muidering defenseless wont
to Alexander Werth in his book en and children with poison gas,
"Russia at War," over 3,000,000 they couldn't attribute suck ideas
Russian prisoners of war were to others. What the Jews had n .
starved to death by the Germans. learned as yet was that when deal-
:Nobody asks _"Why didn't -these ing with the Nazis they were deal-
3,000,000 Bussian ;prisoners - fight ing with irrational- blinds.
leek?" They were soldiers:trai
ned rational, moral; humanistic mind
For all too long Jewish history were to win,- the entire Roman
has been buried under an accumu- world would be aflame with, the-
spirit of revolt.
, lation of schmaltz and
that is, platitudes and lamenta-
The Romans were quite right in
tions. Christians have distorted this estimate of the situation. The
to; fight.. Yet they- did not fight of the Jew simply could not under,
the Jewish past with so many pious frontiers of -Rome; which-had been
back. They died of hfinger in their stand_the-irrational, immoral, anti-
Asa- frauds, and Jews have smothered continually expanding' until their
prison compounds.
humanistic mind of the- Nazi.
it with so much pious mythology, war with the Jews, began -con-
At , Bataan, 70,000 American sol- But the amazing thing is, that
tracting
after
the
fall
of
Jeru-
that it has become difficult today
diers surrendered-to the Japanese; in spite; of it all, it was seemingly
for laymen as well as scholars to salem.
after- which the notorious . . Bataan Only the Jew who did fight back.
perceive its real grandeur.
What have we Jews done with
death :mrch-began.' , Only -a :`few The 'facts 'do - not support the
During the Middle Ages, it be- this most heroic episodc in our
hundred . Japanese :soldiers guarded Arendt theory`of Jewiih non-resist-
came fashionable in Church cir- history? We have buried it in
;these- '70;000 . American soldiers ance..Of all the, peOple imprisoned
cles to downgrade Jewish history a meaningless footnote. . The
!Why.. didn't _the . 70,000 American by the Nazis In concentration
in order to ennoble the Christian Jews blandly slough .off the 'fall
soldiers
kill 'their . -few hundred camps; -it- •seems only - the Jews
view of Things. Thus, Jewish his- of Jerusalem as ' a punishment
guards. and escape? 'I don't know. fought back. . • . -
tory was reduced by the Christians for imagined sins. The Christians
But
:they.
did !not, fight back. They The .JewaJought, not only in.
to a minor, meaningless footnote. portray the fall of Jerusalem as
marched, and fell and died by the the Warsaw ghetto, but in_ ghettos
In ghetto circles it became fash- an event come true according to -
'MAX 'L•DIBIONT.
wayside. Not civilians, not old men, throughout Eastern Europe and- in
ionable to count dead Jews in Gospel prophecy, as a punish-
pregnant "women, not sm all. Russia. Many 'fought their way out
order to enhance Jewish suffer- ment for not- recognizing .Jesus. sades were organized by Christians - not
Children.
Soldiers all.. Yet nobody of concentration - carops;-and joined
ing. Thus Jewish history was re- - Instead of indulging in Jewish for the sole purpose of killing asks, • "Why "didn't they fight
underground movements"; -But- the
duced by the Jews to a meaning- lamentations or perpetuating Chris . - lews.
back?".
_ 1 -
moment they-AoinedTthe -under-
tian post-mortem prophesies; why
less, boring dirge.
Which is the true - version? I must
-ground--
When
.
the
Russiens
-
their_Jewish identity was
assess what happened in his- say the Christian version is closer
drove:- the
With the period of the German not
Nazi armies back - and crossed the lost in Christian statistics: They
tory with the aid of modern his- to
the facts than the Jewish one,
enlightenment, in the 19th Cen- torcal
were
classified
as Poles, Greeks,
frontier
into
Germany,
the
question
insigpts:.
JeWish
nationalism
-
tury, so-called scientific. Judaism' challenged Rome's totalitarianism. because the killing of. Jews played arises - why didn't• the:: Germans Russ/ant:Ratans, Belgians . ; -Yugo-
a minor role in the history of. the fight back? There were ,70,000,000 slays, French: Never Jewish.
was born. A more apt phrase would A new Jewish
creed-Christianity Crusades..
be "public relations" Judaism. In
. •• . .
_
Jewish -"historians concede that German- civilians and only a feW
their eagerness to portray the -assaulted ItoMe's pagan mind.
As Rome petered out, Jewish in : not more than 200,000 Jewish lives ' million Russian soldiers: *To use
These three _myths, and many
„Jews. - to thezzehristians:
1
re -ibit -durhietne - 206 'yea'r's ttf the Ite nna_h-4-rfnelt-.Wle. al-61=ot others, created _..tyWenganti
foe,
tolerant, taxpaying citizens, most -spired- ideologie took -root: -Thie Ys
are-
if
derinana
.not
cooperated
the
impact
of
Jerusalem's
war
with
Swig -exposed -for -what they
of these reform Jewish scholars
the - This amounts to
Rome, which-;. I think, historians about- 1,600 casualties a year, which with the Russianlsoldiers-in-getting. are by thenew Jewish scholar-
began to suppress anything they should
assess, not with pioui hind-: is an, _infinitesimal' percentage of themselves raped - .and killed, if ship. -
thought was unfavorable to the
But, as Jewish historians are be-
Jews. In their hands, the Jew sights of cassocked monks or with the - general, killing .during ,those only one German had' killed one
pious "61-oi-oi" of earlocked two centuries. --- Russian before he. or she . died, ginning to speak up, citing 'chan-
emerged as a nice shnook, pushed the
rabbis.
there
would
be
no
Russian-
ter and verse from Greek, Latin,
In one of the:Crusades, for
by naughty Christians to the
left. Yet,- they 'did not fight. soldiers
• *
back. Arabic, Spanish, German, Hebrew
slaughterbench of history. Some
stance, over a million 'Greek Cath-
Instead, the Germans-to use the documents, many -11011-Jewish his-
Our second myth concerns the olics were slaughtdred by the- Cru-
Jewish historians went even fur-
ther. Retroactively, they conferred prevalence of "anti-Semitism" in saders when Constantinople fell language of , the new sociology-- torians; seeing the writing of su-
the crown of martyrdom on Jew- the Medieval world. All too many into their hands. - In another Cru- cooperated with the Russians. in perior scholarship on the wall, are
€4,
ish history all the way hack to Jewish historians portray the Jews sade, 1,000,000 French ,Catholics getting. 'themselves rap ed and beginning to amend their past
judgments.
Abraham.
during this age as suffering lambs suspected of heresy-99 per cent of killed. .
Jewish history is arising from
It is only in the 20th Century prey to anti-Semitic wolves. What a group known as the Albigensians -. We usually .hear of the 5,000,000
that Jewish scholars have begun these injustice-seeking. Jewish his- -were exterminated in less than Jews murdered- by the Nazis, but the dust. It is singing anew song -
to discard the stereotypes of torians forget in their concentrated 20 years. Only a few thousand- sur- seldom of the 7,000,000 Christian of grandeur. This new Jewish his:
church fathers,. ghetto scholars search for .Jewish calamities__ vived. This - holocaust was more civilians- also exterminated by the- tory, no longer intimidated by the
and German-Jewish historians. what they forget is that this was devastating to the Albigensians Germans.: -We know that these past, reveals the Jew not as a
Modern scholars--both Jews and an age with plenty of injustice than the Nazi holocaust is to the ,000,000 -Christian slave laborers shnook of history but as a finiver 7
Christians--are re-examining Jew- and calamity for all. Until they Jews-on a percentage .basis. •
and concentration camp prisoners sal man, who throughout four mil-
ish history with new, objective, themselves were Christianized, the
The grandeur of Jewish historY -Poles, Greeks, Russians, Yugo- lennia of_ history, in six civilize-
invading
Huns
and
Vandals,
Franks
critical eyes. Jewish scholars espe-
does not lie in suffering but in its slays, Dutch, Freneh-never fought tions,-and on foOr continents helped
cially are arming themselves with and Vikings never inquired into the transcendence of suffering. It is back. There is no record of such establish new concepts of religion,
religious
beliefs of those they not -the _Crusades or .
general world history, reli gi ous
its calamities resistance by them. As -an exam- law, morality and ethics which
become.-the. cornerstone for
and secular. Today these Jewish killed. If the Jews expected the that are important to - Christian and ple:. During - World.War
. I was have
all civilizations.
scholars are shedding apologetics, invading barbarians to ask them Jewish Medieval history. but what with the XVIIIth Airborne Corps,
letting facts fall where they may. "You Jewish?" and then set them followed. In the wake of the Cru- which liberated the concentration
Today- we no_longer live in
As the mythseof Jewish history free if the answer was "Yes," he sadei, Jews, Christians and Mo- camp in Higenow, Germany, north- ghetto milieu. Our Jewish heritage
are cleared away, the real Jewish was expecting a little too much. hammedans mingled in the West west of Berlin. It was a concentra- no longer needs- its ghetto wrap-
The invading gentlemen from the European- market places of 'ideas. tion camp for Christians-tor Pol- pings. - Let - us free Jewish history
history is revealed in a new light.
Our first myth concerns the fall East slaughtered Jew and Chris-
its prison of shinnies and
This mingling gave birth to the ish and Yugoslav slave laborers. from
ol oi oi. Let us set Jewish history
of Jerusalem in the war with tian with equal impartiality.
Renaissance,. to a new humanism,
There
had
been
only
a
few
dozen
free' to claim its rightful place
Everybody asks why the Chris- to a new reign of ideas. It is the
Rome in 70 C.E. Here is a battle
guards. But there were 8,000 male
that cries out for a Jewish Herod°. tians persecuted' the Jews in the Jewish
participation in -these por- corpses stacked 'in the courtyard, among the civilization creators of
the world. It will float to the top-
tus or a Jewish .Churchill. Com- Middle Ages but nobody -asks the tentous events that _should be as- not counting
survivors. All by the force of its -own achieve-
pared to this Jerusalem-Rome real question, Why did the Jews sessed by historians, not bow many were finales, all the
were former husky ments.
War, the much heralded battle survive in the Middle Ages? It Jews were killed.
took
the
Church
- 1,000 years-from
of Marathon was a puny affair-
-
* *
11,000 Greeks against 22,000 Per- 300 • to 1300-to establish Christian-
Myths are - not Only_ products of
sians. Alexander the Great needed ity on the European continent with the
past. They can also be fabri-
only 32,000 men to carve out his Bible and.svvord-,mostly by .sword.
The Church gave two choices: cations of the present. Such a re-
vast empire. Caesar had fewer
cent
- fabrication is our third myth
than 25,000 legionnaires with which conversion or death. The resulting -so beloved
by ,our super-intellec-
to conquer all of Gaul and Britain. slaughter in the name of Christ iu tuals the -"Hannah
Arendt syn-
But Titus had to use 80,000 legion- that thousand years is unbeliev- drome."
naires and 10,000 cavalry to van- able. tveryone on the European
quish besieged Jerusalem, which continent was either dead or Chris- s In her book "Eichmann in Jeru-
was defended by no more than tianized except one people - the s alem," Hannah Arendt makes es-
23,000 Jewish soldiers-a four-to- Jews. They were alive and non- s entially two points. First, she
one handicap. It took the Romans Christian. a tates that if _Jewish leaders. had
four years 'to defeat the Jews. '
Why were the Jews not extermi- 11 fled, the -way she did, leaving
Churchill's ringing rhetoric has nated in the same way non-Jewish I the Jews leaderless and in the
Europe's Jews would have
immortalized the stand of England people were exterminated when b arch,
against Germany.. Yet, when we they refused conversion to - Chris- th een better off. Secondly, she avers
at
if
Jews had fought back-in-
peek under his Victorian prose cur- tianity? After all, the Jews, were
tain, we find that after six years the most vulnerable people in b lying that the Jews did - not fight
would have escaped
of war there were no more Than Europe. They had no arms and no th ack-more
e Nazi death trap.
,
50,000 deaths in all of England armies. ObviousIY, the Christians
from all enemy aircraft, incendiary did not want to. exterminate them. m The , first part_ of this theory is
to those, who, like
bombs, explosive bombs, buzz-
Obviously, the Jews were protect- H ost Comforting
Arendt, -fled Germany .in
bccnbs,V-1 and V-2 rockets. Jew- ed. By whom? Equally obvious- th aimah
e
early
Nazi
years.
Instead of
ish casualties in its four-year war by the Church. This is another - area re
with Rome, according to Tacitus, that calls for more light and less h garding -themselves as / lucky for
aving
escaped;
and
showing
_coin-
exceeded 600,000. Yet, in spite heat from both Jewish and Chris- p
assion for those trapped in the
of these losses, to the amazement tian historians. •
nd
Of
la
murder, a segment of These
of the other nations and the great
The Crusades offer us a good in
tellectualized refugees feel coal--
discomfiture of the Romans, the example of the nonsense that re- pe
lled to justify their flight . Fro
Fro m 411-- Friday, Mar* 3, 1972
,
.
t •
-
-
It's a Fact...
Di d tpu Know
mini
attivin9 in Israel at -
of -1,o_oo a weeK?
•
nit DEntort
repass Ims