*1.5

I feel strongly about reading books you know you might not like: I want my options challenged. I decided then to read this highly rated book for some counter-perspective on Israel through the lens of the Holocaust industry, as someone who engages in pre-Holocaust history and literature as much as possible. I spent the last year in college studying this stuff, I’ve written way too many papers, and I have so, so many opinions on post-Holocaust/Holocaust memorial-ism that I could go on about it for hours.

Anyways, If it’s not apparent, I believe in a Jewish homeland. Generally speaking, I like Israel. Despite this, I am not without criticism, but at the end of the day I am an American with no skin in the game, and the country is not going anywhere anytime soon. As my Israeli coworkers (and chosen family) like to complain about, “These Americans have no idea what our country is like” (and to make it clear, they said this to both our protestors AND the overeager American Jews supporting our business).

To begin with, the political nature of American Jewry beginning in the first chapter is not dealt with well at all. The author makes very strong, very broad condemnations of their power simply because Finkelstein believes them to be in the wrong. There is no moral framework he supplies to us, and we are supposed to agree. Why? I wanted him to convince me! But he refuses to engage! While there are many valid criticisms of the identity of diasporic American Jewry I can think of (mostly surface-level critiques of its shtetl-philia), Finkelstein’s insistence that its alignment with Israel is the lynchpin of its banality is frankly a gross overstatement. I think at its core, and I’m figuring this out the more I read the various theories, is that Finkelstein views world politics through such a contrarian lens that it ultimately horseshoes into extremism. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say Finkelstein’s writing enables extremism and antisemitism on both the left and right.

I was almost not shocked then when I learned the author recently supported noted anti-Holocaust author David Irving and even writes about him in this small book. Finkelstein clearly uses his family’s Holocaust tragedy and his parent’s survivor status as a shield to any countercriticism, in the exact way that he is accusing American Jewry of doing when they do not engage with criticisms of Israel.

The only chapter saving this from a straight 1-star rating is chapter 3. In it, Finkelstein finally lays out the crummy underworld of the Holocaust reparations world, and it is indeed, arguably, bad. Despite this genuine critique, the author continues to couch any moral answer to this to the horrible United States government. I want to shake him because I agree, that the US government can definitely suck, but it still is not enough of a reason for Israel to not exist. Finkelstein delights in whataboutism; I felt like I was reading a Fox News teleprompter as he deflected instead onto American ignorance of Native and African American reparations, the murdered non-Jewish groups during the Holocaust, and of course (Finkelstein’s favorite punching bag) the lies of Ellie Wiesel. All of these suck Mr. Finkelstein, this is not a “gotcha!” moment. I will gladly die on the hill of the need to remember the murder of Polish peasants, not only because they are human but because I believe they offer a key to fighting Eastern European anti-semitism. But none of these negate Jewish suffering. And hey, Mr. Finkelstein, guess what? My entire Polish family was murdered by the Soviets. Eat shit.

Ultimately, this book is polemic without giving me a good reason to change any of my opinions. You should have complicated feelings about Israel—but the book does not offer the nuance the subject needs. Finkelstein is a master of laying down a claim with evidence and construing it to the most inane, dangerous conclusions. These conclusions, when extended with the most forgiving evidence, are weak. There are very valid ways to critique the state of Israel without slipping into vague Holocaust denialism. This book does not offer them. ( )

A classic! ( )

According to Finkelstein, whose mother survived a Nazi labor camp, elite U.S. Zionist organizations fill their political war chests with money extorted in the name of surviving Holocaust victims. That's the most sensational of his claims, but no less remarkable is his case that these same organizations neither commemorated the Holocaust nor spoke for its victims until the U.S. government formed a strategic alliance with the State of Israel in 1967. The Holocaust, he concludes, has been exploited in the service of the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Finkelstein has been denounced as a controversialist, but I found that in this book he deals efficiently with his critics. His well-spoken indignation is both engaging and justifiable, given the moral depth of his subject. However the book is sure to anger readers whose only moral compass is the query, "Is it good for Israel?"

ספר מרגיז, כתוב רע, מייגע. עם זאת אני חושד שיש אמת בטענה הבסיסית שלו - הארגונים היהודיים מנצלים את שם השואה לרעה ומשתמשים בה כמכשיר סחטנות לצרכים שלהם. ( )

This is the portuguese translation of the polemical book of Finkelstein about the present day abuses of the holocaust by a number of U.S. jewish organizations. Centering its attention in the connections between the holocaust in one hand, and support for Israel and the extortion of huge financial compensations that rarely reach the actual survivors, in the other hand, this very angry and uncompromizing book, written by a descendent of survivors of Maidanek and Auschwitz, offers a much more radical critique than Novick's, and, unfortunately, is probably not very far from the truth. ( )