When I first read that French President Sarkozy wanted every French fifth-grader to learn about a French child-victim of the Holocaust (to which someone I know said, "like, Secret Santa?"), I immediately thought, oh no, this is fercockt. A potentially great idea for a powerful history lesson, devised by the wrong person, perhaps for the wrong reasons, seemingly without due diligence or much concern for the child's age, that will immediately descend into a miasma of French political theater, Israel-flogging, and a free-for-all over whose tragedy is most worthy of history's attention.
It saddens me to think that the Holocaust has become so enmeshed for so many in the Israeli-Palestinian death-match that it can no longer be addressed without an endless tit-for-tat over what came after World War II. In this case, the proposal is also freighted by the weight of accusations that Sarkozy, who infamously called young French rioters, many of them black and Muslim, "scum," is trying to ram Judeo-Christian religiosity into the classroom and beyond. And so when I began reading the HuffPo comments on the story, here's what I expected, and got: why aren't French children learning about suffering Palestinian children? Is Sarkozy injecting his own personal sentiments into a morbid French school lesson? What about learning about Holocaust victims other than Jews? Is Sarkozy just another Bush league neo-con sucking up to Israel, and demeaning French Muslims? All fodder for some rip-roaring discourse, I believe.
But I got something else too: the rantings of a half-dozen armchair Ahmadinejads who only expose the amazing durability of anti-Semitism, and serve as evidence that maybe they could benefit from getting schooled, Sarkozy-style, as much as any French fifth-grader. I grouped the commenter-calumny into 5 categories.
1. Sarkozy the ZOGlodyte.
I thought I coined the term ZOGlodyte, but after googling it, I see the kway-zee white-power folks already beat me to it. Those wily hate-mongerers! A handful of HuffPo commenters seem to view France as a Zionist Occupation Government, and Sarkozy, as Israel's craven tool and spy, a ZOGlodyte. And why? Because, first and foremost, he's a Jew, natch. Well, he's a Catholic, actually, but there is that Jewish grandfather, and a bit of that heady Jewish blood is apparently enough to explain it all.
Here's one: "Sarkozy is a virulent Zionist, he's Frances' Chertoff or Wolfowitz or Pearleman." My translation: He's not a Frenchman first, but a Jew, Jew, Jew-ity, Jew, like those other Jews.
Another: "I think French kids will be a lot more interested in {his} past as a **MOSSAD AGENT." Wait, aren't all Western leaders Israeli spies?Oh, and he's gay too! Gay, and an Israeli spy. That foxy new wife must be a beard, at least to this commenter: "This guy'll do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to change the 2 foci on his being an agent for the Jewish state and that he's gay...had a gay, israeli lover for years."
2. The Slippery Slope to Jewifying France.
To one reader, this is Sarkozy's real goal. As you can see, this commenter is a little more focused on the "Judeo" part of Sarkozy's Judeo-Christian agenda for France."You know this will only lead to Matzah in the school lunches, which leads to forced circumcisions." To be fair, I went back and read all the comments on other stories this person has made, and they seem very reasonable to me. Thus, I hope perhaps he was just being sarcastic.
3. "Halocaust ™", See Also, Jews, Get Over it, Already!There were a few readers who blame the "Holocaust industry" for the Sarkozy plan, including one who has branded Shoah remembrance as the "Halocaust ™".
Another says: "stop whining about a war that ended 60 years ago to justify the evil you and your fellow Israelis and Zionists are committing." And this one: "...without the perpetuation of the victim myth, the holocaust industry can't extort the money it does.....a sad irony."
4. And speaking of irony, how about that Hitler? A Jew, he is? Of course!
Comment: "BTW, ironically Hitler believed the same about his ethnic group...it's very likely that Hitler had Jewish blood...That could be one of the reasons for his hatred..."
Also: "concentrate on Jewish Nazis, hundreds of them". OK, gotcha. The Holocaust was really just about Jews killing other Jews.
5. Don't forget the Jew-Backed Soviet Gulags. See Also, The Holocaust, Really, It Wasn't So Bad for the Jews.
This comment was from the same clever little dickie who describes the Holocaust as brand "Halocaust ™".
"Why not teach about the Jew NY banker who funded the Bolshevik revolution?? Schiff {NY} Jewish banker...and hundreds of his NY brethren (also Jewish) went to Moscow. How many dead from the Bolshevik (Jewish from NY orchestrated and carried out) Revolution? Near 60 million? That's a full 54 million more than world war ii's halocaust (TM) tragedy. And the Ukraine, also under Jewish domination, with 7 million."
More on the commie-Jew bankers from another commenter:
"Why not teach about the Jew NY banker who funded the Bolshevik revolution?? Why not teach about the majority of .. Bolshevik{s} being Jews?? Just the facts!"
The only fact I see here is that it is no surprise that Jews often wonder where the criticism of Israel ends, and creeping or outright anti-Semitism begins. I believe myself to be a tough critic of Israeli policy and think the Palestinians have indeed been overlooked, abused, cursed with piss-poor leadership, and deserve a land of their own. I don't think Jews have forever cornered the market on victimhood. But I also think Israel has a right to exist, free of Palestinian terror. And separately, I believe there is plenty to be learned from any tale of the Holocaust, especially one tale, because as columnists often say, one vividly-told story elicits more emotion and connection from readers than any statistic ever could.
But I guess for a few of you out there, I must feel this way because I have a Jew brother-in-law. My husband might have a dab of Jew blood from 500 years ago on his Portuguese side. I'm not really Linda Erin Keenan, I must be Linda Aaron Kohanim. Just another poisonous ZOGlodyte.