Metro
JUDGE
HADASSA
BEN-ITT
Harry Kirsbaum
Staff Writer
F
or the past century,
a forgery written by
the Russian secret
police called the Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion
has warned the world of a con-
spiracy by Jewish bankers and
communists to take over the
world. Although disproved time
and time again, the document
has been linked to Henry Ford
and Adolf Hitler and now is
distributed and studied widely
throughout the Muslim world.
(Henry Ford's descendants and
Ford Motor Co. steadfastly repu-
diated his anti-Semitism and
today have strong bonds with the
Jewish community.)
Since 1997, retired Israeli
judge Hadassa Ben-Itto, a Polish-
born immigrant to Palestine
who served as an officer in the
1948 war of liberation and twice
was part of the Israeli delegation
to the United Nations General
Assembly, has been distribut-
ing her book, The Lie That
Wouldn't Die: The Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, a compre-
hensive study of the origins and
ramifications of the conspiracy
throughout the 20th century
and beyond. It's been published
in nine languages, but only last
year was it printed in English
(Mitchell Vallentine & Company,
April 2005).
During a whirlwind book tour,
and hours before speaking to
a crowd of 100 people May 11
J4dge Hadassa
Ben-Itto
Debunking
The
May 18 • 2006
Why did you feel so strongly
about this?
"Throughout my career as a
judge, I was sometimes alone
to do hasbarah (information)
— like the first time I went with
Golda Meir to the United Nations
in 1965.
"We were drafting the conven-
tion against all forms of racial
discrimination, and Golda was
the minister of foreign affairs;
and that's when I had my rude
awakening — terrible anti-
Semitism in the United Nations,
the Protocols thrown in my face
— bloodlines, whatever. I'd never
read them. I didn't know any-
thing about them, just the name.
We made jokes about the Elders
of Zion.
"After reading them, I decided
to write a book.
"What I did had never been
done before. Every existing book
that tells the truth about the
Protocols was done in academia
with some pages all footnotes.
They are all lying there in librar-
ies.
"Telling the truth about the
Is there a certain irony in
speaking in Henry Ford's
hometown?
"The Henry Ford. story intrigued
me very much. He was one of
the biggest distributors of the
Protocols in the world. It went so
well because of the name Henry
Ford. People in Switzerland
said that since Henry Ford was
such an important man in the
world, if he talks about 'The
International Jew, then it must
be true.
"Some say that his photograph
was on the desk of Adolf Hitler. I
found a lot of material about the
Henry Ford story in the Library
of Congress.
"In the end, Henry Ford apolo-
gized to the Jews to settle the
case. He wrote to all his contacts
around the world to take it back,
but the Germans didn't believe
him, they ignored it completely.
"The trials never ended in a
• decision because they were libel
trials — they always ended in
a settlement — the defendant
made an apology and paid court
expenses. " El
Protocols'
at Temple Shir Shalom in West
Bloomfield at an event co-spon-
sored by B'nai B'rith Great Lakes
Region, Ben-Itto sat with the
Jewish News to talk about her
book.
How long did your book take
to write?
"It's been six years research and
writing the book. I finished writ-
ing in 1997 and went all around
the world — no secretary, no
academic backing, just me and a
laptop.
"The only assistant I had
was a Russian, because I don't
speak Russian, so he went to
the archives, the palaces and the
monasteries. We found an actual
hectograph, one of the first
prints of the Protocols."
Why did it take so long to be
printed in English?
"We couldn't get an English
publisher, not in England nor in
America. They complimented the
writing, wonderful compliments,
but they said,`The Protocols is
not such an attractive subject; it
won't sell many books!
"A German publisher wanted
worldwide rights, but I had a gut
feeling that I didn't want to be
represented around the world by
Israeli judge
writes in-depth
book on the
"worldwide
Jewish
conspiracy."
Germans. I lost my family to the
Holocaust. Selling to Germans is
fine, but not for the whole world.
They settled for the rights to the
German edition. A Hebrew pub-
lisher had me write the book in
Hebrew, and the book came out
the same week in German and
Hebrew in May 1998.
"The book started to make
the rounds, and now it's in nine
languages. Only two years ago, I
found an English publisher who
was ready, because suddenly
the Protocols have become so
important in the world."
Why?
"The Protocols are still around.
They are being exported not only
to all Muslim countries around
the world, but to all Muslim com-
munities in the West.
"Every year, there's a new
edition — one by Syria, one by
Egypt — but every edition goes
to the Muslim world. Blaming
the Jews for everything — the
French revolution, everything
that's happened in the last 100
years is because of the Jews. The
books are written with terrible
cartoons, sold in every Arabic
book fair and now a television
series. It's a very big political
weapon. They prepare suicide
bombers with the Protocols;
sometimes they are found with
a copy of the Protocols in their
pocket?'
And why did you retire early to
14
write the book?
"I was deputy president of the
District Court in Tel Aviv, which
is the largest court in the country.
We have a system where a judge
from District Court is invited as
an acting justice in the Supreme
Court for a year, and then he
goes back to original court and
is in line for permanency in the
Supreme Court.
"So, I was an acting justice in
the Supreme Court but didn't
wait around for my perma-
nency. I retired early to write
about the Protocols because
that's when it started burning
in me. Everybody thought I was
crazy — my federal judges,
the prime minister of justice;
everybody tried to dissuade me,
but I became so involved in the
subject that I decided that this
comes first?"
Protocols was usually done from
some kind of angle, either his-
torical or political or sociological.
I tried to write everything about
the Protocols from beginning
to end; the trials, where all the
truth came out, especially the
Berne trial, is mentioned in most
books, but never fully described.
"I found all the transcripts,
sometimes in private archives,
and I describe the trial from
both sides, all the witnesses and
everything that happened.
"A lot of people were involved
on both sides: princes and prin-
cesses, queens and kings, ladies
in waiting, journalists and law-
yers. I was very curious about
who these people were. I inves-
tigated every one of them, and
I write about them and bring
them alive.
"Millions of copies of the
Protocols are still being sold
around the world. People are
being brainwashed for a whole
century, and there was no access
to the facts. That's why I decided
to retire and write a popular
book that compares in a sense,
to the DaVinci Code it's a
thriller."
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