Outright denial of the Holo-caust is a phenomenon almost exclusively in therealm of utterly discredited

figures who deserve condemnation.One of those figures is David Irving,who lost his libel suit against DeborahLipstadt, an American professor and author, who correctly characterized himas a Holocaust denier in her bookDenying the Holocaust. A new film,called Denial, about the trial, opens today in Vancouver and the Indepen-dent interviewed Lipstadt earlier thisweek. (See cover story.)

It only takes a quick Google searchto find that there are certainly people inthe world today who, for various rea-sons, make it their business to allege thatthe Holocaust did not happen or, in aninsidious manner presumably intendedto lend a hint of credibility to their po-sition, acknowledge that it happenedbut quibble about details – as if the num-ber of millions murdered can be con-sidered “details.”

There is, however, a different kind ofHolocaust denial that also deserves at-tention and is potentially more danger-ous. This form of denial does not rest onthe supposition that the Holocaust didnot happen. Rather, it is more often anexpressed view that it doesn’t matter. Ofcourse, these ideas are rarely expressedso crudely. Yet, this is the subtext of acommonly expressed position, even inso-called polite company, that the Holo-caust has had its run, that we have spo-ken enough about it, that it happened70 years ago, that it is time for peopleother than the Jews to have their his-torical grievances addressed.

The idea that we talk about the Holo-caust too much has both particular anduniversal consequences. The Holocaustwas particular in its intention to eradi-cate the Jewish people from the earth.However, as most individuals and or-ganizations devoted to Holocaust edu-cation, commemoration and awareness

understand, work about the particularexperience of Jewish genocide is foun-dational to the prevention of futuregenocides affecting other groups, as wellas violence and discrimination that doesnot meet the level of genocide.

This should not diminish the Jewishparticularity of the Holocaust, and itneed not. However, while the Holocaustwas a particular product of Nazism andof Germany, we will fail the future if wedo not recognize the Holocaust as a key-stone to understanding the human capacity for genocide, as well as less cat-aclysmic group targeting, isolation anddiscrimination. Ultimately, the Holocaustwas perpetrated on human beings byother human beings.

The word genocide was invented tofind language for the Shoah. Tragically,we have been able to apply it to manyterrible incidents since – and before,such as the Armenian genocide. To cre-ate a better future, we need to devotemore resources to understanding theseevents and their antecedents. These arenot pleasant topics to discuss, to put itmildly. There can be nothing in humanexperience more distressing to confrontthan genocide. Yet we must.

There are many truths around theHolocaust that cannot be denied. Oneof them is that, because human moti-vations are not an exact science, partic-ularly when extrapolated into themadness of crowds, we really do notunderstand why the Holocaust or oth-er genocides have happened. The proofof this statement is that, we hope, if wedid understand genocide in a completeway, we would have eradicated it fromthe world.

In the context of how much it mat-ters and how much we have left tolearn, we are certainly not talking toomuch about the Holocaust, devoting toomany resources to it or moving farenough away from it in time to startdeemphasizing it. No. We have barelybegun to discuss and understand it. !

Opinion

Much more yet to learnThis is Part 1 of a two-part series. The second arti-cle will examine the student-as-customer approachat universities and its relation to identity politicson campus.

N ew York Times columnist Frank Bruniwrote in a June article that “OberlinCollege would certainly be in the run-ning” if he picked one campus “that

has been roiled the most by struggles over political correctness.”

While university president Marvin Krislov has acknowledged upheaval, he wrote – in the sameTimes section – that Oberlin’s “faculty and staff …maintain high academic standards and rigor.”

Since I attended the 50th reunion of my class,I realize I do care about the calamity that Ober-lin College now exemplifies.

Every town in northern Ohio has history builtaround either its bar or its liberal arts college. Ober-lin was a “dry” town, founded in 1833, the sameyear as Oberlin College. Then, in 1893, Oberlin be-came the birthplace of the Anti-Saloon League, thepolitical movement behind the U.S. Constitution’s18th amendment: prohibition, which took effect in1920. That social experiment was a disaster, andthe 21st amendment repealed the 18th in 1933.Oberlin College finally eased its ban on beerdecades later, yet zealotry still haunts the campus.

Bruni scorns “the demand for a so-called trig-ger warning to students who might be upset read-ing Antigone,” and he seems bemused by“complaints about the ethnic integrity of the sushiin a campus dining hall.” But it was not funnywhen, in September 2013, a Latina Jewish studenthelped plan a Shabbat dinner where Latin Amer-ican food would be served – and another Ober-lin Latina student denounced the event’s “culturalappropriation.” As one Jewish student recalledin a Tablet article this past May, posters for a pre-vious Asian Fusion Shabbat were “defaced withgraffiti about appropriation and orientalism. Com-fort food Shabbat was also ill received, with com-ments about appropriating black cooking.

“There is a common belief at Oberlin that allJews are white and rich” – so a Jew cannot be LatinAmerican, cannot be a “person of color,” etc. –and, therefore, all Jews on campus should eat“white” food. Of course, such dogma defies bothfact and logic, harms individuals and underminesthe college’s stated “diversity” goals.

In the same Tablet article, it was noted that, in2013, the Oberlin Student Cooperative Associa-tion revoked affiliation of one dining hall, “theKosher-Halal Coop (used predominantly by Jews).”

Timothy Elgren became Oberlin’s dean of artsand sciences in July 2014. In February 2016, Ober-lin’s online news site posted the transcript of con-versation in which Elgren told Krislov that “changesto the way we run our faculty searches have beenvery important.”

One such search for an assistant professor ledto the appointment of Joy Karega. By March, Kare-ga had received worldwide attention for her so-cial media postings of anti-Jewish hatred andconspiracy theories. Karega has neither deniednor disavowed her connection to these items.

In November 2015, for example, Karega wrote

that “ISIS is not a jihadist, Islamic terrorist organi-zation. It’s a CIA and Mossad operation….” In oth-er online postings, Karega asserted that Israeland/or Jews also were responsible for bringingdown the Twin Towers of New York’s WorldTrade Centre on Sept. 11, 2001; for murders at theCharlie Hebdo office in Paris in January 2015; forthe massacres of 130 people in Paris in Novem-ber 2015; for shooting down a Malaysian passen-ger jet over Ukraine; and for “weaponizing theweather” to inflict the damage of Hurricane Sandyin New York City.

Karega’s illustrated postings also have claimedthat the Rothschild family is “worth 500 trillion dol-lars,” owns “nearly every central bank in the world”and owns “the media, your oil, and your govern-ment.” Abraham Socher, an Oberlin associate pro-fessor of religion, noted in the student newspaper,the Oberlin Review, that such notions harked backto the infamous antisemitic fabrication The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He reminded hisreaders that a U.S. government definition of anti-semitism specifically includes: “Making menda-cious, dehumanizing, demonizing or stereotypicalallegations about Jews as such or the power ofJews as a collective – especially but not exclusively,the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or ofJews controlling the media, economy, governmentor other societal institutions.”

While Karega posted anti-Jewish bigotry and con-spiracy theories online, she also taught “social jus-tice writing” to Oberlin students. When I spoke withKrislov on April 6, he could not identify any actu-al research or publication by Karega at Oberlin. Yet,Karega retained her professorial position there.

Starting in March, publicity about Karega andOberlin spread among online news sites and printnewspapers in the United States, then to papersin England and Israel. Articles about controversyat Oberlin had appeared months earlier in The At-lantic and Vanity Fair, as well as a New Yorkerfeature that followed in May.

As I learned about Karega, I found that broadanti-Jewish manifestations at Oberlin predated her– and that other campuses in the United States andCanada may have similar cultures, in which it isacceptable to denounce, mock, bully or intimidateany student who is perceived to be Jewish. Per-haps only “fringe” individuals on campus indulgein bigoted behavior, but the community as a wholemay ignore or appease the fringe – as part of “freespeech” and “academic freedom” or to avoid per-sonal reprisals?

Some of the fringers, however, restrict freespeech. They disrupt presentations that they dis-dain and they have invaded Hillel meetings or oth-er Jewish activities, according to one unnamed“longtime Oberlin professor,” quoted in the sameTablet article as the student cited previously.

Hadas Binyamini, a 2014 Oberlin graduate andco-founder of the college’s J Street U chapter, wrotein the Forward in March this year: “I was uncom-fortable publicly identifying as a Zionist” but, evenmore importantly, “What I didn’t find at Oberlinwere spaces to engage with prevalent forms of an-tisemitism that have nothing to do with Israel. Notools were offered for students to critically exam-ine American Jewish identity and to deconstruct an-tisemitic motifs….” And, Binyamini continued, “theMulticultural Resource Centre … remains silent onantisemitism. Similarly, the department of compar-ative American studies, which trains students to ‘investigate power, inequality and agency throughthe analysis of … race … class … and citizenship,’[seems] unable to engage students with these sameissues when it comes to American Jews.”

Marc Blecher, an Oberlin professor of politics

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Correction

In last week’s cover story “Serving healthy,tasty food,” the wrong author description ranwith the article. It should have been that ofLauren Kramer.