M-T
The Canadian Jewish News, Thursday, September 13, i984-Page 7
World-Nadonal
By
DAVID BIRKAN
The Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honflir, as it was officially called, was passed by the Reichstag on Sept. 13, 1935. A relatively, muted aspect of traditional anti-semitism was given unprecedented prominence by the miyor West European power, as a time when assimilation in that and neighboring countries was at its ■■■peak..;
Rassenschande, race defilement, was a doctrine gaining increasing prominence in the policies of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi hierarchy. It held that sexual relations between Jews and non-Jews were a violation of Nature, and that they caused the physical, moral and spiritual degeneration of the
Aryans who were de:stined to rule the world. The preamble to the Nuremberg Law stressed that "purity of German blood is the essential condition for the continued existence of the Gemian people."
Except for a section prohibiting Jews from flying the Reich flag and colors, the Nuremberg Law concerned itself solely with preventing sexual relations between Germans and Jews- Whether the Jews had lived in Germany for generations or were the many thousands of refugees from Eastern Europe who had come after World War I, was immaterial. Forbidden were:
• Marriages between Germans and Jews, even if concluded abroad.
• Extramarital intercourse between Germans and Jews.
• The employment by Jews of non-Jewish women domestics under 45.
Punishmient for violations stipulated in the lavys included imprisonment, hard labor and fines. In practice, punishment included incarceration in the new concentration camps, with their increasing brutiility. In Buchenwald, for example, a raee-defiling woman; whether Jewish or Gentile, on arrival was given three consecutive floggings on her bare buttocks of 25 lashes each.
Gentile men found guilty of transgressing the law wereconsidered to have become.irreversibly contaminated; the end of their prison terms marked die beginning of a life sentence in a camp
Over the next few years, some 5,000 Jews and Gentiles were tried for violations of the law, receiving sentences ranging from nine months to two years imprisonment.
German lawyers explored the laws to their finest nuances and ramifications, German physicians extolled their correctness. Julius Streicher's Nazi weekly Der Stuermer railed against the "secret racial war" against the pure Aryan woman — whether she be 3 or 63 years of age — demanded of the Jews by their holy books. Der Stuermer supported its "revelations" with fabricated quotes from the Talmud, outrageous language and lurid drawings. All echelons of society were propagating or absorbing what social historians Erich Goldhagen recently termed Nazi sexual demonology.
Less than 50 years earlier, German leader Otto Von Bismarck advocated that to improve their race, Germany's nialearistocrils should marry Jewish women. His dictum was warmly embraced,
In the heady years when jews plaiyed prominent roles in German flnances, science, culture, popular entertainment, art land literature, until Hitler's mstallation as Germany's chancellor in 1933, intermarriage reached unprecedented heights.
In Berlin more than half of all marriages contracted by Jews were with Gentiles.
The rise in intermarriage coincided with a proportional rise in ahti-semitism, It also oversaw the rise of obscure racist creedsin Western Europe and the United states that blamed growing social upheavals on decay caused by the dilution of the superior races by inbreeding with inferior races.
The theory of miscegenation was most popularly articulated in Germany by a bestseller first published in 1921. Arthur Dinter's Die Suende Wider Das Blut (The Sin Against The Blood) accused the Jews of corrupting the Teutonic spirit through intercourse. A touch of Jewish semen, he wrote, was enough to turn a pure Aryan woman into a cornipted vessel lost to her race. Even if she married a blue-eyed Aryan later, she, her children, and her children's children were liable to give birth to Jewish-type children.
Much impressed, Hitler made Dinter's theory an integral part of Mein Kampf.
Hitler called miscegenation *'the original sin of this world" andl^ advocated the severest punishment. Later events. proved that the Nuremberg Law was the beginning of a cam-I o paign to destroy all Jews, not just intermarriage with them.
2-day event in
MONTREAL -
A national conference on the issues of human rights and affirmative action has been organized by the B'nai B'rith League for Human Rights and the Canadian Human Rights Foundation for Sunday and Monday, Sept. 16 and 17.
The 2-day conference, to be held at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, will feature speakers from the federal and provincial governments and women's and minority groups.
The keynote speaker, on Sunday, Sept. 16 at 8 p.m., will be human rights advocate Judge Claire Kirkland Cas-graln, to be Introduced by McGill professor John Humphrey, president of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation.
On Monday morning. Judge Rosalie Abella of Toronto, who has headed a federal inquiry into the equality of employment at Crown corporations, will be moderator for a panel discussion on target groups of affirmative action. Chaviva Hosek, president of the National Action Committee for the Status of Women, will be one of the panelists.
Other speakers at the
I
OTTAWA-
The Bora Laskm National Fellowship in Human Ri^ts Research has been established by the federal government and will be awarded annually by the secretary of state beginning With the 1985-86 academic year. The announcement was made last week by the JPrime Muiister.
Named for the late Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, the award will take the form of a 1-year fellowship on themes and issues relevant to human rights in Canada.'
The objective of the fellowship is to encourage interdisciplinary research and the development of expertise in the field of human rights. This may involve the arts, humanities, and the social sciences, as well as journalism and law.
Candidates should possess a graduate degree in one of the fields which would be addressed by the research and should be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada. The applicants should have fiye to 15 years of proven experience in their field.
The deadline for receipt of applications for the first award for the year 1986-86 is Oct. 31. The fellowship will be administered by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.
Prospective candidates should write: Fellowships Division^ Social Services and Humanities Research Council of Canada, P.O. Box 1610, Ottawa KIP 6G4.
conference will include Francine Fourhier, chairman of the Quebec Human Rights Commission, on legal issues; Jean Bernard, assistant vice-president of personnel at Bell Canada, on economic issues; and Prof. Julius Grey "of McGill University, on problems with affirmative action.
Prof. Michel Kraus, of the University of Sher-brooke law faculty, and Prof. Daniel Proulx of the University of Ottawa law faculty, will discuss the history, philosophy and definition of affirmative action.
Representatives of several minority groups will be present. Prof. Patricia Fal-ta, of the Universite du
Montreal School of Architecture, will speak for the disabled, while Corinne Jelte, a. professor in the Concordia University engineering faculty, will speak for the native peoples, and Fo Niemi, director of the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations, will speak for visible minorities.
An American contingent will include Larry Lavinsky of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, New York; and J. GrifRn Crump, special assistant to the director at the Office of Federal Compliance Program, department of labor, Washington.
Arthur Hiess, executive director of the League for
Human Rights of B'nai B'rith, Eastern Region, feels that the conference is especially timely, in view of the affirmative action decision handed down against Canadian National by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and the television political debate on women's issues organized by the NAC.
"There has not been sufficient debate on the issues between government and interest groups," he said.
According to Hiess, the League has been working on a policy for affirmative action since it presented a brief to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. "The League feels that this falls within its human
rights mandate. During the last year, the League has becomeone of the formal spokesmen on human rights issues in Canada. This conference is an indication of that interest," he added.
The conference, which has been made possible by a grant from the secretary of state, will be bilingual, with simultaneous translation provided. Participants from across Canada are expected to attend.
The conference fee is $50 per person; transcripts of the conference proceedings will be $35.
For more information, or to register for the conference , call the B'nai B'rith League for Human Rights at (514) 731-7396.
Ifs been an honor and a pleasure for generations.
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