Equating Judaism with Fascism

 On March 21, 2022, the online Tablet Magazine sent an email with a link to its item entitled “Putin’s fascism.” To me, despite my agreeing with what Putin’s ideology is, the piece sounded like political hackery. I wrote a letter to the editor, which has not been published—and I don't hold my breath it will be. Here it is.

Equating Judaism with Fascism

Dear Editor:

I  received today the Tablet email and could not believe my eyes reading its very first words: “Putin’s Favored Brand of Judaism.” From the standpoint of the article’s authors, Putin, the Kremlin ghoul, is associated with a particular brand of Judaism. And this is because he is a “traditionalist,” and his supposed “brain,” Dugin, an ideologue of  Russian nationalism, allegedly quotes the Vilna Gaon as prophesying that in the end of days the main enemies will be Jews who “underwent modernization”—whatever that may mean, considering that the Gaon lived in the 18th century. Not only do we have to rely on Dugin’s quote and perception of what Judaism is (even though that is what he just “imagines”), but we must also agree that “traditionalism” has one meaning only: it is a synonym for fascism.  That’s the article’s title, “Putin’s fascism.” That is because, you see, Putin, just like those “traditionalist” Orthodox Jews, disapproves of LGBT, and “enjoyed the support of Russia’s  chief rabbi.” Moreover, Dugin’s “comrades” are “right-wing Israel Zionists.” How much wider can a dirty smearing brush be? Similarly, in judging who is a Jew (because that is what we are always focused on), we are supposed to rely on Hitler, cited on the same breath as “the rabbis” and “the State of Israel” that apparently agree with Hitler.

Unsurprisingly, this kind of twisted logic inevitably leads to Trump, another threat to democracy and “modernized Jews”— like Soros. Once we get to that point, the goal of the article becomes clear. It is not to denounce Putin’s fascism and the ongoing slaughter of Ukrainians by the Russian murderous army, nor is it to call for Jewish unity, which the Gaon actually called for. No, it is to associate Orthodox Judaism with fascism—and, most importantly, associate Trump with Putin the fascist.

The method employed in the article is the one that was used by the Soviet Union in its ideological war, called “rotten herring.” An adversary is accused of a dirty disgusting thing, no matter how implausible. Then, irrespective of whether the person is further accused or defended, the name gets associated with the rot, and every time the association mentioned, a little bit of it gets rubbed into the name. That’s what Putin uses accusing Ukrainians of Nazism and developing biological weapons, that’s what was done to Trump with the obscene “Russian dossier.” I am no rabbi, but I am pretty sure that there is no brand of Judaism that encourages this Soviet-kind deceptive anti-religious partisan propaganda. 

Солдату России

Разуй глаза, —скажу, любя,—

солдат России.

Тебе солгали, что тебя

сюда просили.

Тебе солгали, что «хохлы»

тебя приветят.

Но почему поверил ты

мерзавцам этим—

убийцам за стеной Кремля—

и стал убийцей?

Не видел ты, какая тля

там век ютится—

с повадкой ката и ворья

упырь всевластный?

Или тебя учили зря,

и все не ясно,

что не спаситель ты, а враг

и гадок людям,

и в голове твоей дыра—

коль нет, то будет—

от пули брата твоего,

в кого ты метил?

Ведь это ты открыл огонь,

и ты—в ответе.

Putin

      Fragment of the fresco of Vitale de Bologna of the Benedictine Monastery of Pomposa (Italy), 1350

That’s, I’m sure, a vampire
Gnaws on bones, bloody-lipped.
—A. S. Pushkin. “Vurdalak,” Songs of Western Slavs
(Это, верно, кости гложет
Красногубый вурдалак.
—А. С.  Пушкин. “Вурдалак”, Песни западных славян)

What’s in the mirror that you see?

No bloody fangs, which would be fitting:

you feed on corpses of your victims.

You make them as you drink your tea.

You are no ghoul from fairy tales:

there’s been no one that’s been as horrid.

This is your time. But see, before it,

there were some others, and they failed.

One placed a bullet in his brain.

The other choked on his vomit.

The end is near. You postpone it:

you'll murder more - but that’s in vain.

You should have grown fangs, a horn,

a snout that you've almost grown,

while sitting on your trashy throne.

When you are dead, no one will mourn.

"Diversity Forum" and Communism

I have been pleasantly surprised by the University Times' publishing my letter that protests against the race-baiting institutionalized by the university's "Diversity" structures. Those seem to multiply like rot - in the body long crippled by the progressive ideology adopted by the majority. I was surprised not only because the letter was clearly outside of the ideological mainstream, but also because my prior letter had been ignored - both by its original addressees, all the university's top machers, and by the UT editor. Understandably, it had no impact. Here it is.

Dear Editor,

Like all Pitt [University of Pittsburgh] faculty, I have received an email signed by Dr. Kathy Humphrey, Senior Vice Chancellor for Engagement, inviting participation  in “the 2020 Diversity Forum, Advancing Social Justice: A Call to Action.” The upcoming event was introduced as featuring “Dr. Angela Davis, who has dedicated her life and work to the fight for social justice and human rights.” I am sharing my reply, to which I have received response from neither Dr. Humphrey, nor from Chancellor Gallagher and Associate Vice Chancellor Pope, to whom I forwarded it.

“I am gravely concerned that Angela Davis is featured in any forum outside of her ideological circle. Angela Davis was well familiar to everybody in the Soviet Union as a devoted member of CPUSA, a wholly owned subsidiary of the KGB that never deviated from its directives. She was the face of the anti-US Soviet propaganda and earned the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet government that murdered and imprisoned true fighters for human rights, about whom she could not care less. A celebrity cherished by the Soviet authorities, she refused requests to speak to them for imprisoned Soviet dissidents, but she has embraced convicted terrorist murderers Rasmea Odeh and Marwan Barghouti. For the enslaved Soviet population, she was a despised symbol of foreign support of the Soviet activities directed at the destruction of freedom.

She is an unrepentant communist who still laments the Soviet Union and is admired by the communists in today’s Russia—for the kind of “social justice” she stands for. She is a supporter of the antisemitic BDS movement. It is no accident that she has floated up these days, when the imperfections of this society, aggravated by extraordinary circumstances, are used as a pretext for attacking its foundations and cutting it at the seams. I doubt she could contribute any perspective of value to Pitt audience. Nobody would ever think about any “conversation” with Nazis, but communists, whose ideology has caused no less death and suffering around the world and still suffocates billions, are still viewed as deserving attention and time.

As a refugee from the Soviet Union, I hope communism is not part of “diversity” that is sought by this society. I respectfully request that Angela Davis be disinvited from participating in the forum.”

I hope there is still time for removing Angela Davis from the program scheduled to start on July 28. Her participation is certain to discredit the forum and negate anything positive that it is planned to accomplish. Communism is not “a more just society” that an American academic forum is supposed to help creating.

None of the Pitt leaders I addressed has replied. Angela Davis’s participation in the event is now a fait accompli. The “forum,” which entertained no discussion, let alone a critical one, with expressions of admiration for Davis’s activities from both Drs. Humphrey and Cudd, has been discredited. Communism is not “a more just community” that an American academic forum is supposed to help creating. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said about Davis’s cruel refusal to help dissidents in the Gulag, “That is the face of Communism. That is the heart of Communism for you." I never thought, when I left the now extinct Soviet Union, that I would be made to remember that face 30 years later, plastered on my American university’s computer screens.

I watched, nauseated, the old Communist witch spewing her wisdom into the current racialist swill. The "Diversity Forum" was neither forum nor was there any diversity (see also Maher's Pandemic and Mayakovsky's Throat).