The Forward's Past

Does biblical literature get any better than Koheleth (Ecclesiastes)? Well, maybe for action the books of Samuel can’t be beat and for pick-up lines there’s none better than Song of Songs (especially if the love of your life deeply appreciates being compared to one of Pharaoh’s horses. I tried this once but it got me nowhere.) As to Ecclesiastes (a Jewish form of Stoic Greek philosophy) I particularly enjoy the message of Chapter 1 verse 9 which reads in the original, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose (Only that shall happen which has happened, only that occur which has occurred; there is nothing new beneath the sun.)

I was reminded of the truth of this piece of eternal wisdom while perusing the Forward, my second favorite Jewish newspaper. Not only does one find news about Jews unavailable elsewhere, editorials that cheer the soul or boil the blood, a personals column that smokes, but there’s that section which picks and summarizes a story from 100, 75, and 50 years ago.

One hundred years ago this was a story in the Forward: The workers’ strike of the 200 ladies shirtwaist makers at the Rosen Brothers factory in New York turned into an all-out war, with “professional brawlers and rented bums” attacking the striking workers on a daily basis. Numerous workers with bandaged heads and limbs were plainly visible. The piece goes on to tell grizzly details. And today? Well, being by trade an historian I first see things in the past. I’m reminded of events of 20 years ago, when Nicolae Ceausescu, the last remaining Communist leader outside of the Soviet Union was being challenged by democracy advocates. As a last ditch effort he brought in coal miners from the provinces, high on whiskey and propaganda to beat up those who wanted to change the outlandish system which had governed the country since the end of the Second World War. So that’s 100 years ago and 20. Today there are those in the minority who do not want to change the way medical care is administered, who gin up the folk with outlandish stupidities that the president and Congress intend to see the euthanasia of America’s elderly, that people won’t be able to choose their own physicians. Some in the mob are lobbyists; others are dupes of the insurance companies who stand to lose while citizens gain. This calling out the troops drugged on hyperbole is the last toss in a lost game, but sometimes it works. But let’s not pretend that this disruption of town meetings is democracy.

Seventy-five years ago there was a man named Benno Karpeles who drew the attention of the Forward. His story in sum: He started out as an Orthodox Viennese Jew, became a Socialist, then a Communist, then a Jesuit priest and finally, by 1934 a fascist. And of whom does this remind? Well, if there’s a better example than the rabbis caught up in the New Jersey corruption sting, I can’t think of one off hand. Raised pious they abandoned the teachings of Judaism and reached deeply into the slime of greed, participating without apparent scruples in money laundering, organ selling, smuggling and God knows what else. Rabbis indeed! In the next world may they meet Benno Karpeles and share his quarters. (Walter O’Malley is probably in the next room.)

Fifty years ago a stormy debate took place in Lebanon’s parliament, during which it was alleged that the country’s 7,000 Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Lebanon. It was also claimed that Israel plans to take over all Arab countries by military force or by other means. Jewish assertions of loyalty were ignored. And today? Well, today there are no Jews in Arab countries, none to speak of anyway, because they’ve been expelled or killed or seeing the writing on the wall they’ve chosen to emigrate. Yet still the calumnies persist, a classic example of anti-Semitism without Jews. Israel is a war-mongering nation; it intends to control the Middle East from the Nile to the Euphrates; the settlements are the problem; the Jews are the problem.

Ah, Kohleth had it right. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.