Subthemes:

        1) The origins of anti-Semitism in Roman antiquity
2) Roman myth: Jewish expulsion from Egypt rather than liberation in the Exodus narrative
3) Myths of Jewish conspiracies toward world dominion in the “Protocols”
4) Sources and authorship of the “Protocols”
5) “Goal” and content of the “Protocols”
6) Accusations against freemasons in the “Protocols”
7) The treatment of the “Protocols” in British newspapers early in the 20th century
8) The “Protocols” – the plagiarism of Maurice Joly’s fiction
9) Conspiracy theories of the “Protocols” against Jews 
10) Conspiracy theories of Hitler and Stalin
11) Hitler and Stalin’s blaming of the Jews
12) Archetypes of ancient and contemporary anti-Semitism
13) World reactions to the “Protocols”
        

Word macOS Version 10.14.6 (Build 18G9323) Quartz PDFContext Microsoft Word - 2006_09_28 Elie Wiesel_Protocols of Infamy_A Study of Anti-Semitic Forgery & Hatred_Jillian.docx 2006_09_28 Elie Wiesel_ Protocols of Infamy_ A Study of Anti- Semitic Forgery & Hatred _ 92Y Elie Wiesel Archive Elie Wiesel: (applause) At the outset, already a warning must be made; this ridiculous and nefarious pamphlet ought to elicit laughter. But it also provokes fear as much as it brings shame. For it appeals to that which is most ignominious, mean, vulgar, and ugly in the human being. Of course, we are talking about the protocols, so-called “Protocols of the Sages of Zion.” While turning its pages one feels compelled to resist throwing the book into the wastebasket and wash one’s hands. As if having touched an object both impure and disgusting. How could any person who obviously was not illiterate, [00:01:00] someone who has learned to appreciate the value and the magic perhaps of thought and culture, amass so many vile forgeries and nasty theories? Hoping to interest if not persuade readers of his alleged intellectual honesty? Worse, the author of the pamphlet pretends that he speaks as a devout Christian and a defendant of Christianity. 1 Did he really believe that good and intelligent Christians would take him seriously? If ever a piece of writing could produce mass hatred, it is this one. All the archetypes of ancient and contemporary antisemitism are in its pages. An insult to any intelligent reader; this book is about lies and slander. [00:02:00] Its aim was and remains to hurt, offend, and persecute an entire people, its tradition, its faith, its memory. And its right to live in surroundings of dignity and hope. What kind of mind could invent so many unspeakable falsehoods just to increase prejudice towards an ancient people, whose memory of suffering forever moved his children to beware of yielding to the seduction of hatred? Question: This infamous forgery is sickening. It betrays the ignorance and emptiness of its author. Why then has it had such an impact? Why has it been translated in [00:03:00] so many languages? How is one to explain its lasting commercial success? Why has it been in the twentieth century a best-seller? Almost compared to the Bible, and Mao Tse-tung’s red booklet. That evil may possess a certain power of attraction, that one can understand. But stupidity? One reads it with shock and dismay. 2 Again, how could any normal, fairly educated and decent man or woman lend credence to such a mishmash of crazy ideas, images, and nightmarish fairy tales? When you discover that Henry Ford the first, the giant of the automobile industry was so impressed by its content that he published it in his [00:04:00] own paper. Which had a circulation of almost 200,000. And 300,000 printed copies in book form. You no longer know what to think. Maybe his cars weren’t as good either. (laughter) Granted, Henry Ford was not known as a friend of Jews. Hitler admired him so much that he wanted to constantly have his picture before his eyes. Still, from there to become the patron and protector of such an unworthy pamphlet was a distance that no cultured person would cross. Mind you, Ford later apologized, saying he had no idea what was being published in his own paper. The fact remains that the pamphlet was talked about [00:05:00] through wide political and pseudo-religious circles, without too many people realizing that it was a fake. Its poisonous hatred may be found in Hitler’s earliest and latest writings. Whether in Mein Kampf or in his public utterances. Here at home, the infamous Father Coughlin used it in his radio homilies. As for 3 today, fanatic Muslims treat it with a reverence almost accorded the Koran. Official visitors to Saudi Arabia would receive it as a gift from the king. If the visitor was an important figure he would get a deluxe edition. Recently, we know, at least two years ago, the Indonesian President Mahathir [sic] in an official public address accused the Jewish people’s ambition to achieve absolute control of the world’s media, economic, and political structures. [00:06:00] He sounded as if he were quoting the Protocols. And there was no real outcry against his shameful performance, except from Jewish circles, and the same is true today. Today, 60 years after the worst tragedy of the Jewish people and of all people perhaps, a man who is president of a nation, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from Iran dares to be the number one Holocaust denier in the world. And what he says is simple. There was no Holocaust, but there will be one. And he said that he will do it. And a man who threatens the Jewish state with annihilation is the president of a nation which is a member of the United Nations. And I must say, [00:07:00] I have been waging a campaign, please, in recent weeks. Number one: To declare him as persona non grata wherever he goes. And to expel 4 Iran from the United Nations as long as he is president. (applause) His Koran, his political Koran, obviously is influenced by the Protocols. Then another episode which is less serious, but as perplexing was about Mel Gibson. He is not the president of anything, but nevertheless, (laughter) nevertheless. A Jewish proverb maintains that, they say it in Yiddish: “A shiker vos hot a lung iz on a tsung.” [00:08:00] A drunk man, when a person thinks a drunk man says what he really thinks. And this relates I think to Mel Gibson’s grotesque episode. You remember following his arrest for drunken driving during which he uttered outrageous antisemitic slander, about Jews being responsible for all wars. It is from the Protocols, the Protocols say “the Jews are there to provoke one people against another and create wars.” And he also uttered nonsense, such -- he apologized. Not for believing those stupidities, but for saying them. Suppose the story had not been published, would we have asked for atonement? I was asked by a newspaper to comment on his asking Jews to forgive him. And my [00:09:00] answer was he was an anti-Semite when he produced his second crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 5 Which contains shocking antisemitic innuendos. A picture: When he shows the devil, the devil is not among the Roman soldiers, the devil is among the Jews. And the last picture is what? That the fire came out of the devil’s mouth and went to Jerusalem to destroy the Temple. Which means the Temple was destroyed according to Professor Gibson (laughter) the Temple was destroyed because the Jews rejected Jesus. Well, I would like you to know of course, his father is a notorious Holocaust denier. Has Gibson ever tried to reason with him? Telling him to stop denying that the most documented tragedy in history is a falsehood. He apparently wanted [00:10:00] atonement, and why? It’s very simple, let him go on studying before doing anything else. But before doing anything else, before continuing of course what we said, and we want to say about the Protocols, I think we should be more tolerant to those who are late. And open the doors. It is clear that these so-called Protocols became a poison that infected all anti-Semites everywhere. They found new and old reasons to hate Jews, even before they were born. An anti- 6 Semite is someone who hates me not only because I am here, he hated me before I was born. Just as their targets, they came from all ethnic origins, religious affiliations, political horizons and social spheres. One can be well-educated or ignorant, poor or rich, well-traveled, or glued to his or her village, pious or enlightened, [00:11:00] and be devoured by the same hatred for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. Sometimes we feel that they are so, so crazy. They are always, for instance, lately you remember the story the pope quoted, he quoted a medieval theologian against -- against the Koran. And the Muslim world is outraged. And I must tell you, when I read it, I felt good. I said, “At last, this time we have nothing to do with it!” (laughter) No really, can you imagine a big outcry and Jews are not involved? (laughter) And then I heard -- and then I heard somebody say, “Wait, wait they may still say that the speechwriter was Jewish.” (laughter) (applause) Well, what were the origins of the Protocols [00:12:00] as a book? They are as nebulous as their content is delirious. First: The origins of the book are not clear. Where did they come from? Basel in Switzerland, Vienna in Austria, and Paris. 7 The antisemitic writers themselves disagree on the way they reached the outside world. In Germany some spread a theory that in 1897 an envoy of the Elders of Zion brought the text of 24 secret sessions of the Zionist Congress in Basel to a Masonic lodge in Frankfurt am Main. On the way he was bribed by a Russian spy who copied all the pages, and handed them over to Nilus. Nilus himself in his introduction to the 1911 edition of his pamphlet has more fantasy and he writes, quote: “In 1901, a [00:13:00] now- deceased acquaintance court martial Alexei Sukhotin of Chernigov --” in Russia, “-- gave into my possession a handwritten manuscript that detailed completely and clearly the secret Jewish-Freemason conspiracy that will surely lead to the end of our vile world. The person who gave me this manuscript assured me that it was a faithful translation of the original document. It has been stolen by a lady of the highest and most influential leaders of the Freemasons, following a secret meeting somewhere in France, that hotbed of Masonic conspiracy.” But who was the lady? Nilus doesn’t say or doesn’t know. But in his 1917 edition of the pamphlet he does add some information to the story, and he says: “Now for the first time, 8 I have learned from authoritative Jewish [00:14:00] sources that the Protocols is nothing less than the strategic plan of world conquest. Whereby the world will be brought under Israel’s yoke, the enemy of God. The plan worked out, but the leaders of the Jewish people during the many centuries of the Diaspora was finally disclosed to the Elders of Zion by the prince of the exile Theodor Herzl, at the first Zionist Congress in Basel.” But what about the lady? He mentions her, he even says that he knew her name, but he has forgotten it. All he remembers is that she obtained the manuscript in shady, mysterious ways. Now the answer is offered by the Polish translator of the Nilus pamphlet; she stole it. “The lady stole it [00:15:00] from Theodor Herzl’s home.” But what was she doing there? “A close associate of Nilus, a certain Butmi who published the Protocols as part of a violent attack on the Freemasons says that they had nothing to do with Herzl and the Congress. They were written by a Jewish Freemason lodge, named Mitzrayim.” Secondly, no correct answer was ever given about the language in which they were written and published. Nilus claims that they were written in French and translated into Russian. Theodor Fritsch, introducing his German edition maintains that they were 9 written in Hebrew. What is also amazing is that the first version of the pamphlet has never been found. And as Benjamin Siegel, one of the best, sharpest commentators on the [00:16:00] pamphlet notes, tongue in cheek, “After all, we don’t deal here with a text written in antiquity or even the Middle Ages, but in the twentieth century. How come that it was lost?” Do the promoters of this pamphlet really believe in its message? That we Jews are determined to attain absolute domination of the entire world? The famous French novelist and anti-Semite Céline, unfortunately a great novelist, believed it before the war. And the Hungarian war criminal László Endre believed it after the war. The night before his execution, March 21 1946, László Endre wrote in his last letter, I quote him, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are true. The means to establish a world kingdom are in Jewish hands, [00:17:00] and they will destroy everything that might constitute an obstacle to the new world state. Jewish policy is to exterminate not only those who did something, but even those who might yet do something or could have done.” Those words of a war criminal were written while the world had just awoke from its fiery nightmare of Auschwitz and Treblinka. 10 And these imbeciles didn’t ask themselves the question: If we are so powerful, how come that we allowed Auschwitz and Treblinka? How come that we allowed to hold the pogroms? How come that we allowed the persecution if we are so powerful? But now we must remember that such idiotic and vile theories of Jewish conspiracy are not new, and weren’t even new then when the first pamphlet appeared on the stage. [00:18:00] Already in antiquity, slanderous rumors were spread in many quarters about the Jewish people. Its stubbornness to go on existing in a world whose life and style was so different from others. The motives then were political, sociological, economical, military, and of course religious. In Rome, Julianus was angry at the Jews for, quote: “In their endless loyalty to one God they do nothing to appease other gods which they believe are meant for us alone. Their barbaric pride brought them to this folly.” Cicero distrusted Jews as witnesses. He said, quote: “They steal our gold in Italy and send it to Jerusalem.” Maybe, I wish it were true. Tacitus called [00:19:00] Jews abominable, and in Seneca’s eyes they were simply criminals. 11 Both Lysimachus of Alexandria and Posidonius of Apameia repeated a fable by a priest named Manethon, of the third century before the Common Era. That the Jews were not liberated from Egypt, but expelled from Egypt for spreading disease. Here is their vision of Exodus, I quote, “The King gathered all the invalids, numbering 80,000, and locked them in special places together with local convicts. After they fled to the land of Canaan an Egyptian priest from Heliopolis named after the god Osiris changed his nationality and took on a new name, Moses.” Now the concept of Sabbath, which after all is one of the most [00:20:00] beautiful laws given in Judaism; to allow the slave to rest the seventh day. What is their concern? They say, the Jew-haters explain it as follows: “While wandering in the desert, they,” the Jews “developed a strange disease called ‘Sabbathosis.’” (laughter) “Which forced them to rest on the seventh day.” Wild stories circulating about Jews accuse them of annually kidnapping a Greek pagan. They fed him well before sacrificing him. At the same time they were accused of keeping a donkey’s head inside the Temple to worship it. Jewish customs, practicing circumcision, abiding by family laws, and celebrating 12 solidarity was criticized, condemned and ridiculed. [00:21:00] Following the revolt of the Maccabeans -- the Maccabees, with the establishment of the Hasmonean kingdom, Hellenic patriots turned their rage against Jews. There the reasons were political and military. Strange as it may sound, many of these crazy stories survived the centuries and found their place in sources that preceded and followed the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Now we must remember that such idiotic and wild theories of Jewish conspiracy are not new. And weren’t even new, already we know that what happened in literature, in history. It’s very simple, hatred survived centuries. I believe, I believe it’s strongly that somehow everything must be done, [00:22:00] maybe on the summit level, maybe in the White House when the President has nothing else to do. We should organize a conference, bring the best doctors, the best psychiatrists, the best moralists, the best journalists, the best educators. And simply discuss something which I call, “hatred as an infectious disease.” It is an infectious disease. It somehow survives ages, survives all turmoils. And it’s a 13 cancer going from cell to cell, from limb to limb, from person to person, from community to community, unless it is stopped. Now let’s have a look at the pamphlet itself. It was subjected to a variety of influences, including a book by mediocre French writer, maybe of Jewish origin [00:23:00] named, Maurice Joly who years later committed suicide, and we shall return to it in a moment. In the 1840s a certain Millinger, alias Osman Bey, wrote a book called “World Conquest by Jews,” describing all the woes Jews bring on to Christians. Example: “They need and use Christian blood for baking Passover matzah. This has cost so many Jewish lives, because they believed it. They believed it so much that really some popes had to come out and forbid such slander. Another influence came from a German, Hermann Goedsche, alias Sir John Retcliffe. In the end of the nineteenth century [00:24:00] he published a novel called Biarritz. The novel begins like a thriller, filled with suspense and fear. A strange rebbe gives the password to a watchman and enters the cemetery of Prague to recite a prayer. In the cemetery an old convert from Judaism speaks to a young scientist about Kabbalah. 14 And he says, “Every hundred years during the holiday of Sukkot - -” which is coming “-- emissaries of the 12 biblical tribes of Israel gather at midnight at the cemetery, and discuss how to conquer the world. The last meeting took place in 1760. When the movement of Judaism --” maybe he meant Hasidism, but he doesn’t say “-- started. Now we are in 1787 years [00:25:00] since the destruction of Jerusalem, designated as the year by the kabbalistic Sanhedrin.” And the scene ends with Satan’s appearance in the form of a golden calf to be adored by the entire assembly in the cemetery of Prague. Years later in the Russian pamphlet called, “The Jews: masters of the world,” it is like the Protocols, it presented most parts of the scene not as fiction. Because Maurice Joly’s book was fiction, here it is facts. And you have in the Protocols, literally you have the story, the first stage, everything and he says what the rabbi says, the rabbi’s speech. This is the speech from the Protocols: “When we become at last the sole possessors of all the gold to be found on earth,” said the rabbi [00:26:00] to his assembled tribes’ representatives, “the power will practically be transferred to our hands. And the promises made to Abraham will be fulfilled. Gold is the 15 greatest power on earth, it is might, reward, the instrument of every authority. It is all man both fears and desires. And the problem before us now is to facilitate even to a greater extent the means of contracting these loans, and thus to become the sole managers of all the valuables. After which the exploitation of all their railroads, mines, forests, large factories, and industrial plants, as well as all other real property, including duties and taxes will fall into our hands as a security for the capital lent to us by the various states.” Well, that’s [00:27:00] what the Protocols say. Back to Maurice Joly. In 1864, he published a satire against Napoleon the Third, it was called “Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.” He doesn’t deal with Jews, but in Freemasons who implement Machiavelli’s method to destroy Montesquieu’s vision of social justice. Clearly the villain is the Emperor. Some years later, a certain Rachkovsky, a member of the Tsar’s secret police, the Okhrana, felt it politically useful to transform Joly’s fictional story into “Protocols between Elders of Zion” plotting to take over the rule over world affairs. The translation was done by a man named Mathieu Golovinski, who 16 lived in France. Helped and [00:28:00] exploited by a scoundrel named, we mentioned him earlier already, Sergei Nilus. It is he, Nilus, a notorious monarchist and anti-Semite, a pseudo- mystic with close connections to the imperial court and the Russian Orthodox Church who is now accepted as the author of the pamphlet as it exists today with some local modifications and adjustments. Its content we said, it is well known. Even those who haven’t read it could guess its goal; to slander the Jewish people, its faith and customs, its aspirations, and their influence on the environment. And to create suspicion, never to trust the Jew, never to believe a Jew, never to love a Jew. All the nasty rumors, all the malevolent fantasies, all the crazy accusations [00:29:00] ever leveled against the Jew are there in this pamphlet, as verified and undisputed facts. They want us to believe, the author, the Jew be he or she religious or agnostic, interested in economy, in politics, or human sciences, or medicine, or arts has but one interest and one goal. To humble all non-Jews, abolish their laws, violate their beliefs, and use all means to achieve the Jewish reign over the planet. All that is communicated in 24 chapters, 17 presented as lectures and speeches given by and to the secret Jewish government, at the secret meeting of the Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. As we said, the pamphlet went through several editions. A few [00:30:00] chapters were pre-published in 1903 in the newspaper Znamya, or The Flag, under the title, “The great and the small, Antichrist considered an imminent possibility.” The official censorship bureau in Moscow approved its publication as a book in 1905. The metropolitan of the city was so impressed with its tone and message that he ordered it to be read in 368 churches. A second addition follow to 1907 with few changes. But in his new preface, Sergei Nilus wrote, quote: “There is no room left for doubt. With all the might and terror of Satan, the reign of the triumphant king of Israel is approaching our [00:31:00] unregenerate world. The king born of the blood of Zion, the Antichrist is near to the throne of the world.” Ten years later a larger edition was published under a new title. The title now is at the door, “Here comes the Antichrist and the reign of the devil on Earth.” 18 Now Jews are not the only ones to be slandered in their pages. Freemasons too get their share for spreading liberalism and democracy, thus undermining the authority of the Emperor. Darwin and Tolstoy are being chastised, but Jews are more vilified. They are being targeted for that alliance with the Freemasons, so as to take over the political positions of all that have power. Jews are also being condemned for seeking to acquire property [00:32:00] and political influence. And all these endeavors are governed by the elders or sages of Zion, who gather regularly in secret places to get reports, analyze their implications, and reach guidelines and conclusions. At one point the description is offered of a session of the supreme body. And one has the eerie feeling from scrutinizing the text that the situation deals with a real super-government machinery, with its officers and technicians all working together to realize a clearly defined world. Apparently, the pamphlet was taken seriously in various quarters. Listen to what the venerable London Times [00:33:00] of May 8, 1920 had to say about it. This is, I read. He said: “The Times has not as yet noticed this singular little book, its diffusion is however increasing and its reading is likely to 19 perturb the thinking public. Never before have a race and a creed been accused of a more sinister conspiracy. We in this country, who live in good fellowship with numerous representatives of Jewry may well ask that some authoritative criticism should deal with it, and either destroy the ugly Semitic bogey or assign their proper place to the insidious allegations of this kind of literature. In spite of the urgency of impartial and exhaustive criticism, the pamphlet [00:34:00] has been allowed so far to pass almost unchallenged.” “The Jewish press announced it is true that the antisemitism of the Jewish peril was going to be exposed. But save for an unsatisfactory article in the March 5th issue of the Jewish Guardian, and for an almost equally unsatisfactory contribution to the Nation of March 27, this exposure has yet to come. The article of the Jewish Guardian is unsatisfactory because it deals namely with the personality of the author of the book in which the pamphlet is embodied. With Russia-reactionary propaganda and the Russian secret police.” “It does not touch the substance of the protocols of the learned Elders of Zion, the purely Russian side of the book and its fervid orthodoxies, not its most interesting feature is author 20 Professor Sergei Nilus or Nilos. Who was a [00:35:00] minor official in the Department of Foreign Relations of Moscow, had in all likelihood opportunities of access to many archives and unpublished documents. On the other hand, the worldwide issue raised by the Protocols which he incorporated in his book, and are now translated into English. As the Jewish peril cannot fail not only to interest but to preoccupy what are the theses of these Protocols with which in the absence of public criticism, British readers have to grapple alone and unaided?” And he says: “Are they authentic? Are they a forgery? If so, where comes the uncanny note of prophecy? Prophecy in part fulfilled, in parts far gone in the way of fulfillment? Have [00:36:00] we been struggling these tragic years --” 1920, two years after the end of the war, “-- to blow up and extirpate the secret organization of German world dominion only to find beneath it another more dangerous body, because more secret? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans and gloated over their exposition? Have we by straining every fiber of our national body escaped a Pax Germanica only to fall into a Pax Judaica? The Elders of Zion --” says the London Times, “-- as represented in their Protocols are by no means kinder 21 taskmasters than William the Second and his henchmen would have been.” [00:37:00] Other papers reacted more or less in the same way. The Spectator in London, and the Morning Post treated the pamphlet as a genuine document. But 15 months after its first editorial The Times had the decency and courage to print a public apology, with an extraordinary series of three articles unmasking the pamphlet as an outrageous forgery. But the fact is, you know how it is, it comes to a denial. One remembers the story that was denied better than denial itself. Now listen to the number one elder of Zion’s vision of the future. What does it say in the book. It’s enough to compare any segment of the pamphlet with earlier versions of Biarritz, or the Joly dialogues to reach the undeniable conclusion that we deal with a hoax, [00:38:00] based off plagiarism, distortion, and lies. The very first protocol opens with the following words, allegedly spoken by the leader of Jewish leaders. I quote him: “I maintain that man of evil instincts are more numerous than those of good character. Therefore far more will be achieved in the state through an unscrupulousness than through rational discussion. Every man strives after power, 22 what basic instinct rules the best of prey we call man. We must have that instinct.” Now listen to Maurice Joly, whose words were written decades earlier: “Evil instincts among men are much stronger than the good. Men are more strongly drawn by evil than by good. All [00:39:00] men strive for domination, what binds together the beast of prey called man.” From the Protocols they say our slogan is power and cunning, from Joly, you know only two words power and cunning. From the Protocols: “What sort of constitution should we give? Such a corrupt society must rest on power alone.” From Joly: “What sort of constitution do you deem appropriate to such a thoroughly corrupt society that salvation is to put the entire power in the hands of its rulers?” From the Protocols: “Like the Indian, pagan god Vishnu, they will have 100 hands and in each shall be the pulse of a different intellectual tendency.” From Joly: “Like the god Vishnu, my press will have 100 arms. Each hand of which will feel all the nuances of public opinion.” You can see the plagiarism is blatant, and nevertheless it was taken by [00:40:00] so many as works not of fiction, but of 23 facts. Among the silly theories to be found in the Protocols there is the importance given to the biblical serpent. A symbol of Jewish cunning according to the author again, Sergei Nilus. Quote: “As the course of history unfolded, the scheme of peaceful conquest of the world was elaborated in detail and completed by later generations of men who had been initiated into their secrets. These learned men decided by peaceful means to conquer the world for Zion, with the slyness of the symbolic snake whose head was to represent those who have been initiated into the plans of the secret Jewish administration, and the body of the snake to represent [00:41:00] the Jewish people. The Return of the head to Zion can only be accomplished after the power of all the sovereigns of Europe has been laid down. But is this to be accomplished? It’s simple: by economic crisis, moral corruption, spiritual demoralization, and wholesale destruction.” And they show exactly, exactly according to their crazy logic that whatever happened in the world happened only because Jews wanted it to happen. The wars, all the wars, war waged only because Jews were interested on both sides in those wars, and to make money, and more money, and gain power and more power. In the Protocols Jews love gold and wealth even more than 24 territory. Quote: “Wars should not result in territorial gains, but be brought to the economic [00:42:00] ground.” End of quotes. “For this they have successfully used Darwinism, Marxism, and even Nietzsche --” they say, “that the Jews replaced religion with materialism, modern progress with despotism, and instigated wars in America, China, and Japan. Ultimately,” says the Protocols, “unless checked the Jews will destroy the whole world.” Listen to, according to the Protocol, to the Jewish elder, and I quote him again: “You might well object that when the non-Jews finally figure out how everything we do fits together they will be so embittered as to take our weapons against us. For this eventuality we deserve the ultimate weapon. Before which even the bravest will quail. Soon all the world’s major cities will be crisscrossed with [00:43:00] subway tunnels. Should we be in danger we shall by means of these tunnels blow whole cities to kingdom come. Including state offices, archives, and all the non-Jews with all their possessions.” Like Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the worldwide distribution of the Protocols was handled by government officials in Berlin. Both 25 had the same goal. No wonder that in March 1940, Sergei Nilus’ son called, Sergei Sergeievich wrote this letter to Hitler’s racist mentor, Alfred Rosenberg: “I am the only son of the discoverer of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. [00:44:00] I can and must not remain indifferent in these times when the fate of the whole Aryan world hangs in the balance. I feel the victory of the Führer, that man of genius will liberate my country also. And I believe that I could contribute to this in any position. After the brilliant victory of the mighty German army, I have done everything to earn the right to take part actively in liquidating the Jewish poison.” Now, a weirder scene in the Prague Cemetery, with the rabbi, but you should read the whole, because the way they come, there’s a kind of script, the tribe of Shimon and Reuven left representatives, and it goes on and on. [00:45:00] It reads really like a great, great movie. If it were only a movie, but it is not. The fact is, what do the Protocols believe? They believe in the theory of conspiracy. And we in America, as well as in other lands, many people believe in these kinds of theories. Books have been written about these theories, and the books themselves 26 have become sometimes instruments of those who wanted these theories to be accepted. Now, it’s so easy, conspiracy theories explain all that eludes rational analysis. If some people are too rich and others too poor, too influential or too weak, too happy or too miserable; their condition has nothing to do with them, or with their talent, or with their aspirations. But with a [00:46:00] clandestine conspiratorial body which manipulates destiny, and governs history that is supposed to explain astonishing events. It’s comfortable to attribute them to evil plotters, the Black Plague? Remember the Black Plague? It happened because Jews have shamed sacred Christian symbols and icons. Poverty? It exists because Jews steal from the poor. Hunger? Because Jewish food merchants want to make more money on their product. Conspiracy theories accompany general events as well. Haven’t they been invoked to explain the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Or the suicide of Marilyn Monroe? Hasn’t the Muslim propaganda not spread insane rumors that the immense cruel, [00:47:00] tragic 9/11 event was the work of the Mossad? Hitler wasn’t the only one to draw inspiration from the Protocols’ myth of Jewish conspiracy. Together with his chief 27 propagandist Joseph Goebbels, he succeeded in poisoning the minds of millions of his subjects, and admirers, and followers. When he spoke with growing hatred of international Jewry he made Jews responsible for the First World War, for Germany’s military defeat, for its national humiliation at Versailles, for the debacle of its currency. All that happened to Germany then, for Hitler and his admirers it was the fault of Jews. But the same could be said on a different level to Stalin, especially in his later years. When stricken with paranoia, [00:48:00] he saw bloody, thirsty plotters everywhere. Hence the infamous show trials, and the execution of his old companions. It’s true that many of Lenin’s companions were Jewish. It’s true that many Communists of the early stage of Communism were Jews, some of them came from very good Jewish homes. And they had -- in then, at that time -- that time Communism, the Communist text was not bad. It had promise, it became a laboratory of deceit, and falsehood, and murder. But in the beginning, the meaning was good. And there is a marvelous story, a true story, we have it from documents. There were two great, great Communist leaders, Kamenev and Zinoviev. And both of them were also sentenced to 28 death during those show trials, [00:49:00] they had to confess. And Zinoviev, in the story was tortured. And each time he was convinced when he spoke to his torturer, he said he was convinced that Stalin didn’t know anything about it. And each time when he was tortured and forced to sign false confessions he would say, “One day Stalin will learn all that, and he will punish you.” Going on, day after day, week after week, and then he was sentenced to death. And the tormentor took him to the cave to - - with a gun, with a rope to kill him, a bullet in his neck. At the last minute, he says, he said to him, “You are a fool. Not only does Stalin know, we act on his orders.” At which point Zinoviev’s world collapsed. And the story has it, we saw it in documents, he fell to his knees and he re-became the Jew, and he said, “Sh'ma Yisrael,” “Hear Oh God.” This [00:50:00] man who was an atheist in every fiber of his being, at the last minute when Stalin was gone! Came back to God. So, Stalin was obsessed with his hatred for Jews, he believed that Jews really controlled the world. Therefore he murdered Jewish writers and artists, the greatest ones. He too was convinced that there was a Jewish conspiracy. Was he poorly 29 informed or literally mad when he maintained that “The Joint,” the superb Jewish charitable organization, was a cover for CIA activities? And actually, the “The Joint” controlled America’s foreign policy. But he believed in it? So, conspiracy is the key word for the anti-Semite. In the eyes of the Jew-hater it explains all that is happening in the world. Too many wars? [00:51:00] Fomented by Jews. Walter Rathenau’s murderers confessed why they had killed him: “He had to die,” they said. “Because he and his Jewish accomplices were responsible for German’s downfall.” Again a certain Millinger, the Osman Bey, who was convinced, really convinced that we need children, Christian children’s blood for matzah. A Jewish convert to Christianity, Jacob Brafman wrote a book called, The Book of Kahal. In it, he says: “Jews are being taught how to cheat Gentiles.” He described Jewish fraternities such as La Alliance Israélite Universelle, whose only function was to establish schools as branches of a worldwide conspiratorial movement. Wherever there is trouble look for the Jew. Wherever, [00:52:00] whenever situations become catastrophic search for the Jew. 30 In other words, people need scapegoats. And to be the anti- Semite, the Jew responds to that need. Even Adam and Eve needed the one, the serpent. When things go wrong it’s always the other who is to be blamed, the other, even the other in us, which is not us. To the anti-Semite, the Jew represents the ideal scapegoat. The richest man in the world? Of course, Jews. Wall Street? Jewish. The most talented? Jews. The most dangerous? Jews. Television? Jews. The French Revolution and its gift of emancipation, Jews. Jews provoked it, the most pious against Jews, only Jews. I had once a conversation with a French intellectual, a Catholic, and he was a friend of Jews. And when I was so worried about Israel, he said: “What are you worried about? Look, don’t, we have such power in London.” [00:53:00] And goes on, and on, and on. I said, “You really believe that we control the world?” He said, “No, but you have influence.” Said, “Look,” I said. “We don’t, believe me we don’t. Actually, the world has been dominated for 2000 years by Christianity and Islam, but not by Jews. But I have an idea; give us the world for one generation. I promise you when we gave it back it won’t be worse.” (laughter) 31 Well, one would really think that the Jew has acquired the gift of the secret of ubiquity, omniscience and omnipotence. Once more, as many times before, one cannot but wonder at the ignorance and stupidity of these Jew-haters. Do they truly believe that what they read corresponds to reality? If Jews have been, and had been, and still are so well-organized, so influential, so powerful, controlling so many areas of [00:54:00] society - how come that they suffered so much, so often, in so many places? If their conspiracy is so perfectly organized at home and abroad, beyond frontiers and oceans - why weren’t we informed that the perils threatened us. Why did we not assure our survival in more efficient ways? Now how are we to respond to the hatreds fanatics are preaching? Why is it so appealing to so many? Of all the “isms” produced by the last centuries, fanaticism alone survived, as did antisemitism. We have witnessed the downfall of Nazism, the defeat of fascism, and the abdication of Communism. But fanaticism is still alive, as thus racism or antisemitism. And this fanaticism is spreading fast, horrible as it may sound, racial hatred, antisemitism and Bin Laden terrorists are still [00:55:00] popular. If not glorified in certain communities. 32 How could their followers be brought back to moral sanity? How could their killers and suicide warriors be disarmed. Twentieth century had two fanaticisms; political one in Moscow, racial one in Berlin, and both were defeated. But it goes on now, and now it’s a new middle age, medieval fanaticism, and we know its name. And we are worried. So what should we do? I don’t really know. I don’t know the answer to essential questions, but I do know, and I repeat it so often. That whatever the answer, education must be its major [00:56:00] component. In conclusion, at the risk of disappointing some naive students; Jewish history has no memory of political, economic, or social religious conspiracy. We never engage in that. What Moses has done, he has done in the open. Joshua did not conspire to succeed him as leader of Israel. David did not conspire with his friend Jonathan to unseat his father’s soul from his throne. Hillel and Shammai, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Yishmael, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, their numerous disciples; but they were involved in study, not in conspiracy. The only holy conspiracy mentioned in our religious chronicles may be found in Hasidic folklore. We are told of three great 33 masters: the [00:57:00] Seer of Lublin, the Maggid of Kozhnitz, and Rabbi Mendel of Rimanov. The three decided at the beginning of the nineteenth century, already fraught with violence and bloodshed, to precipitate redemption. They wanted the Messiah to come and save, and save the human condition. Convinced that their joint efforts would produce the needed result for their people in exile, and all people. Therefore their hopes were high, but premature. All three left this world the same year. Could the idea of Messianism, the Jewish offering to humanity -- it’s a Jewish gift to history -- be considered a conspiracy? Yes, it could. But remember, its aim was never to conquer the world but to redeem it. Remember, even when the Messiah will arrive, [00:58:00] and I hope he will, it doesn’t mean that the whole world will become Jewish. It means that it will become more hospitable, more compassionate, more understanding, warmer, and above all, more human. In two days, we Jews celebrate Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement, which is a great holiday. When we are supposed, we are supposed to ask God to forgive our sins. But there are sins God will never forgive, these are sins that a person has committed 34 against another person. Only that person can forgive. Question: Will I ever forgive the authors of the Protocols of the Sages of Zion? [00:59:00] No. (applause) END OF AUDIO FILE 35