Tanya Gold on the Nazi-descended Jews living in Israel
An article by Tanya Gold that I read today:
Two years ago I read a strange little story in an obscure American magazine for Orthodox Jews, claiming that a descendant of Adolf Hitler had converted to Judaism and was living in Israel. I had heard rumours in Jewish circles for years about “the penitents” – children of Nazis who become Jews to try to expiate the sins of their fathers. Could it be true? I dug further and discovered that a man with a family connection to Hitler does indeed live in Israel as an Orthodox Jew. Virtually unnoticed in the English-speaking world, he was exposed seven years ago in an Israeli tabloid. Then he sank from sight. I went to Israel to meet him – and on the way I was plunged into the strange subculture of the Nazi-descended Jews.
More here.
I am always astonished at distortions of the media and generalizations, but this one really makes me mad. Tanya Gold seems to have decided she is Psychologist, sociologist and historian all in one… and of course researcher. too bad her research is based on assumptions, feelings of things unsaid, guesses and hunches… is it enough to ask one psychologist on the phone for you to presume you can psychologically analyze a whole group of individual separate people, with separate life stories and families, who have gone through a great deal of personal soul searching and many ordeals and life changes because they believe in a certain religion? it seems that according to Ms Gold it all boils down to them being Germans. Nothing else matters but their families who may have a connection to this Nazi or another. I am jewish too, living in Israel, my grandparents holocaust survivors, many family members of mine were murdered. And yet if there is one thing i learn from it for sure it is that GENERALIZING is dangerous. distorting truths to make a point is also wrong, and surely deceiving people is wrong. I know for a fact that people in this article were not told the whole truth about what the article was about, their words were used out of context to prove the writers preconceived conviction of their relation to there past and their reasons to convert. I have met many converts in my life. Swedish, Dutch, American, South American you name it. Many of them speak of theology, of disagreeing with Christianity, of not feeling in the right place from a young age- does this mean that is not their reason to convert, and their real reason is merely psychological issues? No, i’m sorry, they’re not Germans therefor they are entitled to have a “real” reason to convert. Ms Gold speaks of theological issues as though they mean nothing, with complete disregard to believing people of all different religions, who have a right to feel this is important to them. A non-blood relation to Hitler interests her much more. As a practicing Jew i am aware of what it means to convert. Of how difficult it is and how much religious studies and doubts you must go through for years. Are there many Germans who convert? yes. Do some of them have historical and psychological issues with judaism? i am sure they do. But does that give us the right to come to a generalizing conclusion that any German who converts does it because of his families past, that all Germans ignore their past when there are better ways to psychologically deal with it (which Ms Gold seems to have figured out perfectly), and all Germans, or converting Germans, by definition are descendants of Nazi’s? What if i decided to get up and say that all british who became hindu feel guilty for their colonizing past? All American whites who vote for Obama are feeling guilty for their slavery past? Perhaps all those who convert to Islam do so because of some kind of guilt or another, also? Isn’t it easy for us to generalize. So much harder to see the complexities in life. To REALLY listen to what a person is saying and not just think all the time ‘i know the answer, i can figure out everything behind this person’. It is so much easier to write a good piece by directing everything in one direction and putting in only half quotes and sentences that will lead to one conclusion. How about deceiving by bluntly lying about the interviewed refusing to identify themselves in the article so it will be easier to distort their words and partially quote them? is that ok now? How would you feel if you had a complicated past, if your grandparents never agreed to speak to you about their past- and someone came around deciding they are entitled, although they aren’t researchers or psychologists, to completely analyze you and tell you what you are doing wrong in the way you are dealing with an in-comprehendible history of genocide, that happened before you were born? & completely disregard your personal religious beliefs?
Wow, that was a long comment, but thank you for it. I had problems with Ms. Gold’s psychologising too, and the way she went about her interviews and came to her conclusions. I agree, it is much harder to see the complexities and much easier to come to a general conclusion.