Kristillnact, 1938

Folks, everyone knows about Munich, September 1938. What happened? Britain and France generously donated a big slice of Czechoslovakia to Hitler, in exchange for "peace with honor," "peace in our time".

What followed? Kristillnacht - in November of 1938. What caused Kristillnact besides the irrational hatred of Jews?

Appeasement.

Appeasement doesn't merely fail to prevent catastrophe, it provokes catastrophe.

King David made the city of Jerusalem his capital. Mohammed had never been to Jerusalem.

In the Jewish Bible, Jerusalem has many names: Salem (Shalem), Moriah, Jebuse (Yevuse), Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), and Zion (Tziyon). The most common term for the city, Yerushalayim, is mentioned 349 times in the Jewish Bible, while Tziyon is mentioned an additional 108 times.

The earliest mention of the site is Genesis 4:18, when Abraham interacts with Malchizedek, King of Shalem. According to Jewish tradition the story of the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19) also takes place in the "land of Moriah" on the site of the present-day Temple Mount. Abraham chooses the site specifically because he sensed how God's presence is strongly connected to this site.

When Jews pray three times a day, they always turn toward Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mentioned numerous times in Jewish daily prayers and in the "Grace After Meals." Jews close the Passover Seder with the words "Next Year in Jerusalem." These same words are invoked to conclude the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur. The Jewish national day of mourning, Tisha B'Av, commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples. During a Jewish wedding ceremony, the groom breaks a glass as a sign of mourning to commemorate the destruction of the two Temples which stood on Mount Moriah. The breaking of the glass is accompanied by the recitation of part of Psalm 137. Some religious Jews often keep a small section of one wall in their house unplastered and unpainted, as a sign of mourning for the destruction of the Temple.

For most of Islam's 1,400-year period, despite its status as the third holiest Islamic city, Jerusalem remained a backwater, run-down town under Islamic control. Exceptions were during both the Umayyid period (7th to mid-8th century) and the Mamluk period (mid-13th to early-16th century), when major Islamic building projects were carried out in the city.

It is worth noting that the inaugural PLO Covenant of 1964 does not mention Jerusalem. Only after the city fell back to Jewish control did the updated PLO Covenant of 1968 mention Jerusalem by name.

For all of these reasons, I refuse to bow down to the mythology of Islam and its canard that Jerusalem is holy to Muslims.

May G-d Forgive the Israeli government for giving Holy Jewish Land away to Muslim apostates, May G-d Forgive Muslims and their appeasers for participating in the spirit of Jihad and forcing the rest of the world to endure the trumped-up concoction of superstitions and deceit which is Islam and May G-d Forgive the world for investing in the pretense that Islam is more than terrorism, rioting, the death of free speech and artistic expression, homophobia, Jew-hatred, female genital mutilation, limb amputation, gang rape, stoning to death for victims of gang rape, hanging underage girls from cranes in public parks, and for killing, killing and killing innocent Jewish babies, women and men.

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest Joy." -- Psalm 137.

In Israeli Ambassador Chaim Herzog's response To 'Zionism Is Racism' Resolution to the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 10, 1975, he said this about Kristillnacht:

"This was the night in 1938 when Hitler's Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the Holy Books and the Scrolls of the Holy Law and Bible. It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man."

One organization called "Synagogue Memorial," is dedicated to memorializing all the houses of prayer that were destroyed on the infamous Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938 in Germany.

The official German position on the nights of rioting and murder, which were orchestrated by Goebbels, was that they were spontaneous outbursts. Goebbels reported "that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either." (Conot, Robert E. Justice At Nuremberg. NY: Harper & Row, 1983:165)

Three days later, on November 12, Hermann Goering called a meeting of the top Nazi leadership to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was to make the Jews responsible for Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy.

An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot, Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):

Goering announced, 'Gentlemen! Today's meeting is of a decisive nature,'announced. 'I have received a letter written on the Fuehrer's orders requesting that the Jewish question be now, once and for all, oordinated and solved one way or another.'

'Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don't harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the German economy. `If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insurance companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us.

'Because it's insane to clean out and burn a Jewish warehouse, then have a German insurance company make good the loss. And the goods which I need desperately, whole bales of clothing and whatnot, are being burned. And I miss them everywhere. I may as well burn the raw materials before they arrive.

'I should not want to leave any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of the Jew from the German economy, and to submit them to me.'

It was decided at the meeting that, since Jews were to blame for these events, they be held legally and financially responsible for the damages incurred by the pogrom. Accordingly, a "fine of 1 billion marks was levied and 6 million marks paid by insurance companies for broken windows was to be given to the state coffers. (Snyder, Louis L. Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, New York: Paragon House, 1989:201).

The night ushered in a new phase in the antisemetic activities of the Nazi state, leading to the deportation and the extermination of most of the Jewish people living in Germany.

This night began the horror of the Holocaust. And I still cry writing about it, 68 years later.