Occasionally I will post a sports story on Holland’s Heroes. I generally do this because of a specific interest I have in the event or a team playing. The one common denominator in any of my sports related posts is the fact that the sports story is a fun distraction or diversion from the seriousness of reality. Sadly, due to the tragic events that unfolded last night surrounding Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, today is the exception that proves the rule.
After making a tackle in last nights NFL Matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills, 24 year old Hamlin went into cardiac arrest. They were able to restore a heartbeat on the field, but as he is still in critical condition, no one knows as of the time I am writing this piece to what extent he will recover, if at all. I always say that I love sports because while I put so much emotion into cheering on the players and teams that I love, when my team loses it takes very little time to move on, and sometimes even laugh about it. As important as it feels the moment your team wins or loses, in the scheme of life there are so many things that matter more. No matter how much good sports can be part of and how much joy it can bring, sports is still ultimately just the playing of games. So when Damar Hamlin collapsed on the football field after going into cardiac arrest and still for all intents and purposes is fighting for his life, what had the potential of being the best game of the year, turned into a terrifying reality for a young man, his family, teammates, closest friends and that very special fanbase known as Bills Mafia.
For fans like me, a big fan of the NFL yet someone who didn’t even know his name till last night, it became a story that left the fantasy world of sports and moved to a harsh and frightening reality. This was no longer a distraction or a diversion. This is now a tragic story, one we can only hope and pray gets better.
In February 1941, between 300-500 Jewish men of sound mind and body were rounded up in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupying forces. Every single one of them was deported out of the city, most of them to the Mauthausen concentration camp. The majority of those were either shot, pushed of a rock quarry at the top of the “stairs of death”, or literally worked to death. This event symbolized the beginning of the Holocaust in the Netherlands. While one of these men was my mother’s favorite cousin, David van Hasselt, even if there wasn’t this personal element attached to the story, I would still be enormously offended by your comments.
If there was any accuracy to your comments, which there is not, finding it necessary to insist that the Holocaust wasn’t motivated by race is like saying that slavery was really only about getting cheap help. It whitewashes the murder of 6 million Jews, diminishes the pain and suffering of those that experienced it and the burden of responsibility and vicarious anguish felt by future generations.
In September of 1919, 14 years before Adolf Hitler came into power, he categorized the Jews as a race, not as a religious community. He described the Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples “, and said that “the ultimate goal must be the removal of the Jews altogether “.
In 1923, 10 years before seizing power, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”.
While Hitler did have a disdain for the mentally and physically deficient, he also hated Homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, and any race not seen as Aryan. This is why Jesse Owens’ victories in the 1933 Munich Olympics made him such a hero, something I would have commended you for taking time to recognize, as he showed his superiority in his athletic prowess right in front of Hitler’s face.
What this all comes back to is that your comments are not only incredibly and continuously insensitive, their inaccuracies are dangerous. The reason why myself and so many others find the need to make telling this story our life’s work, is because as soon as it’s forgotten, or distorted as you are doing, the danger of history repeating or even somewhat duplicating itself becomes significantly greater.
And finally Whoopi, despite the fact that your comments put your mental stability in question, because of the last name you go by, Goldberg, the Nazis would have come for you before seeing the color of your skin. A fact you would be wise to acknowledge.
Let me tell you about the life of a World Cup fan. 30 hours from the time I finish writing this I will either be happy, ecstatic, or miserable. The World Cup has captured the attention of people everywhere. While countries with teams in the tournament have the most at stake when following the results, there are those among us with split loyalties. It so happens that I am one of those people, as my loyalties coming in were not only split, they were split 3 ways.
In a tournament that is played every day, situations with various teams are always changing. If I had written this 7 days ago, all my favorite countries would still be playing. 30 hours from now, all three may have been eliminated. Be that as it may, I am going to share which teams I support, and why, as well as tell you what would be not only my dream final-if it is even possible in the brackets-and why I rank my teams as I do.
I was born in the United States to Dutch parents. My first soccer memory, while faint, is of Holland losing in the final of the World Cup to Germany in 1974 by a score of 2-1. When I was 14 I started 4 years of High School in London. I was once married to an Argentinian, and Argentina was the second team to beat Holland in a World Cup final in 1978, in a game I felt Argentina manipulated unfairly. While some people think my desire to beat the Argentinians is connected to having an ex wife from there, that is not the case. It doesn’t help their cause, but it is more about 1978. If you want to know more about that game I suggest that you go on You Tube.
While I was berated by some, lovingly of course, for wanting the Netherlands to defeat the U.S. last week, Holland is my number one team. It’s not about loyalty or patriotism, it’s about emotional investment. However, I do admit that if the U.S. had won, while I would not have been as happy as I am, I would still have been happy. And last weeks victory for Holland set up what will be a very intense, potentially remarkable next 30 hours. In one hour Holland will play Argentina in the quarterfinal, 24 hours before England will play France. What makes this next day or so potentially even more speoial, is that should Holland and England win, and then go one to win one more game each, they would face each other in the World Cup final, an event that would be my personal ultimate in sports joy.
There is one final twist to all of this wonderful drama. My father, who passed away 15 1/2 years ago at the age of 87, was an enormous fan. Back in the day when it was not easy to call overseas, if you would call my father in the middle of a game he would immediately say, “Call me back. I am watching football”. Naturally, as a man born and raised in Holland, his favorite team was the Dutch national team. Because of the fact that this World Cup is being played in Qatar, for the first time ever the final is not taking place in the summer. If Holland is to win their first ever World Cup, it will happen on December 18th. A day that also happens to have been my father’s birthday.
The stars are all aligned for the perfect ending. Of course 3 1/2 hours from now that dream might be over, but whatever happens, the great thing about sports is that it is wonderful to dream.
Hup Holland! (You understand that if you are Dutch or a fan).
While the comments you made yesterday addressing the controversy regarding your promotion of the movie “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake up Black America”,were certainly an improvement from comments previously made or conspicuously not made, “accepting responsibility” as you cleverly stated, is not enough. As a proud Jew and son of Holocaust survivors, I demand to hear the following words out of your mouth. “I apologize”, or “I am sorry for the words that I said and the pain that I caused.”
You see, anyone who has followed you over the years knows that you think you are smarter than everyone else. As it happens though Kyrie, the world is not flat, and Jews are not the devil. So, you are clearly not as smart as you think you are. I would guess that no one is as smart as you think that you are. That being said, because of your arrogance, it is striking to me that in your statement, you never mention anti-Semitism, and you never apologize to the Jewish people. Saying you take responsibility, in Kyrie speak, is a clever way of addressing it, without saying you did anything wrong.
Just in case you do believe you did nothing wrong, let me make it clear to you. As Rich Eisen beautifully stated after you accused Nick Friedell of dehumanizing you for of all things holding you accountable for your actions, your behavior dehumanizes us as Jews. And frankly I can’t help but think that somewhere in your thought process you felt that not apologizing to Jewish people and not mentioning anti-Semitism specifically, kept you in good stead with the likes of Kanye West and Louis Farrakhan.
Tell me I am wrong Kyrie. Let me hear you say you are sorry. Then, and only then will your words mean anything to me. In the meantime, if you don’t care for Jews, you might consider getting the hell out of Brooklyn.
In the latter months of 2012, Alexandra Van Hasselt was searching for family members on the internet. In her efforts she would make contact with Ron Van Hasselt, a distant cousin on her father’s side. In his own research, Ron came across information regarding one of his relatives, David Van Hasselt. He found a book in which David Van Hasselt’s death in the Mauthausen concentration camp was documented. The book he found was the book I authored, Jew Face. David Van Hasselt was the first cousin of my mother Sipora and someone very special to her.
After having contact with Alexandra, Ron would forward her my contact information. Alexandra’s father, Vince, would subsequently contact me via email. Vince’s father was Eddie Van Hasselt, the brother of David and also my mother’s first cousin. As good fortune would have it, Vince, together with his wife Melanie and daughter Alexandra, were living in Florida, less than an hour from my mother, who at the time was 90 years old. They would meet, Vince and I would meet in New York, and little by little the whole family would get to know each other and a special connection would develop between many members of my family, and Vince, Melanie and Alexandra. But of all the relationships, perhaps the most special of the relationships was between my mother and Alexandra. Having grown up in a household with diverse culture, my mother played piano, sang, and had a tremendous love for the arts. Alexandra, a young girl of 15, was already a very talented dancer, with a beautiful singing voice and a growing love for acting. The bond that would develop between these 2 newly acquainted cousins, separated by 85 years, was as unique as any imaginable. They would sing together, have long talks with each other, and form the most unlikely of friendships. In Alexandra, my mother saw her younger self, a young lady filled with talent, joy and promise. In my mother, Alexandra saw a kindred spirit, whose age and experience and love, gave her extra encouragement to pursue her dreams and be someone who my mother could live through vicariously. For Alexandra, although saddened by mother’s passing in 2017, that special relationship would always stay with her.
All of this would be what would make today, October 30, 2022 so special. Today I got to see Alexandra perform in Jerry Herman’s play, Milk and Honey. Based in Israel in the early 1960s, this wonderful production was playing at the Wick Theater in Boca Raton, Florida. As I sat there, next to 2 of my brothers, my sister-in-law, and Vince and Melanie, watching Alexandra perform on stage with her powerful and talented presence, in a play about Israel, the magic of what took place 10 years ago and in subsequent years, came back to me in full force. I felt an almost mystical connection between past and present, made even more palpable by the young character in the play who was 9 months pregnant and due to give birth at any time. Her name, Sipora. After the play when I asked Alexandra how it felt when she learned that there was a character in the play of that name, the same name as my mother, she replied that it was very special and that on this day she had thought about my mother a lot.
I know I am far from alone in feeling that the importance of telling the story of what took place under Nazi-occupation can’t be overstated. But I’ve also felt that in telling the story and opening up this connection with the past, we have the opportunity to witness the continuation of life in its most poignant manner. In 1941, when word of David Van Hasselt’s death would reach Amsterdam, it would fall on my mother, a young woman of just 19, to inform David’s mother, Vince’s grandmother, of the death of her son. Today, more than 80 years later, David’s great niece Alexandra would perform on stage in front of 3 of Sipora’s children, and his nephew Vince, in a story about nothing other than Israel, the Jewish state. With all the trials and tribulations life has to offer, it is hard to find something more indicative of how life goes on, and even thrives, as this connection between past and present.
The play and the performance were beautiful, but perhaps nothing was more beautiful than the lesson learned from all the events surrounding it for me and my family. The lesson that what we do matters, and that who we come from stays with us forever.
I am actually writing this letter more to those within the Black community who believe they should be listening to you in regard to your stance towards Jewish people than I am to you directly. I am writing this because it is my hope that people will begin to understand that not only are your words hateful lies, but they also do a disservice to the community you claim to represent. You see, not only should Jews not be seen as the enemy, to anyone truly looking to help people of color, they would recognize that Blacks and Jews are natural allies.
It’s ironic. I am someone who usually is most disgusted in situations such as these because of the unwarranted attack on my people. As a proud Jew and Zionist, I see the world as a melting pot of people of all races and colors. Every person I meet, regardless of color, race, nationality, sexual identity, or social status, starts off exactly at the same place with me. I once met a woman who when I told her that I do not see color, responded to me by saying that she felt my statement was the epitome of white privilege. While I chose to remain silent, I generally tend to avoid wasting my breath on idiots, I did think to myself that a white woman deciding what is right and wrong for the Black community is actually the epitome of white privilege. Remembering what I thought that day, and always making every attempt to not be a hypocrite, I will not sit here today and claim to know what choices black people should make. I will however say that to portray another community as the enemy of your community solely for the purpose of garnishing attention, and with so little merit that it is of detriment to your ability to work positively with that community, is cynical and selfish.
I want black people to know that about 50 percent of civil rights lawyers in the south in the 1960s were Jewish. I want them to know that about 50 percent of the whites that marched in Mississippi in 1964 against the Jim Crow laws were Jewish. I want them to know that Colin Powell, the first African American Secretary of State spoke Yiddish, having learned it from a shopkeeper that employed him at a young age.
Do these points I make mean that everything Jewish people do towards people of color has always been correct and even decent? Of course, it doesn’t. But within every community there are the good and the bad people. What is important to know is that over the years Jews and Blacks have suffered similar attacks of hate, often fought for the same causes, and often worked their way from the bottom to the top. Barack Obama’s first Chief of Staff was the son of a man who fought for Israel’s independence as a member of the Irgun, an underground Jewish organization battling the resistance of Jew haters to the creation of the Jewish state.
So, to any of you in the Black community reading this who want to know the truth, you should know that there is not one group in the entire United States of America more of a natural ally than the Jewish people. And if you choose to believe otherwise because an attention seeking, self-serving, money hungry man who happens to be the same color and was once somewhat talented tells you otherwise, you are not only hurting me, but you are also hurting yourself.
I urge you to not let anyone tell you how to think, least of all someone hiding behind similar skin color claiming to be your advocate.
Although I have not directly heard your feelings on the subject that I am about to address, seeing as you hold the ultimate responsibility for what takes place on Facebook, it is of critical importance that I reach out to you. I am referring to the sitewide banning of the movie “Beautiful Blue Eyes” from every aspect of Facebook. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/facebook-holocaust-film-race-policy-1234592908/
I could start by saying that I have no personal stake in the success of this movie, but that would not be entirely true. You see Mr. Zuckerberg, not only do I have a stake in it, you do as well. I do not know you, so I do not claim to know how you feel about your connection to the past, but I do know you are a Jewish man who has never hidden from that fact. It must be understood that the survival of the Jewish people will always be connected to acknowledging and remembering our persecution. So I ask you, does the future of the Jewish people mean anything to you? Or are the policies of Facebook so out of touch with reality and are you so detached from the operations of this giant you created that we are subjected to this ignorant and highly detrimental stance?
My personal issues towards this matter can be best explained by telling you a little bit about my background. I am the son of Holocaust survivors, and the importance of this and how it relates to me personally is not by any means exaggerated. When I see Facebook banishing a movie with the title “Beautiful Blue Eyes” because as the ruling states, it violates the policy against content that “includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race,” knowing a little what the movie is about, I am in utter shock and disbelief. The title of the story is based on someone who is part of the story, someone with blue eyes, who was murdered by the Nazis. As someone whose father had eyes the color of a blue ocean, knowing that both his parents and younger sister were also murdered by the Nazis, it’s hard to imagine one of the 3, if not all of them, not having blue eyes. And had my father not been blessed to survive, his blue eyes would not have stopped the Nazis from murdering him as well.
But the stronger message here may come from relating to the story of my mother and her side of the family. Whether Facebook chooses to acknowledge this or not, the Nazis often identified their victims, particularly their Jewish victims, from their physical appearance. This was as evident in the Netherlands as anywhere else. My mother, born in Amsterdam and of Sephardic Jewish descent, looked different than most Dutch people at that time. My father, who had red hair and blue eyes, could, for all intents and purposes, hide in plain sight. My mother, with dark hair, brown eyes, and a darker complexion, immediately was recognized as being Jewish. It was only through the help of my father who worked with the resistance, and the hand of God, that my mother survived. But sadly, her father and brother, with similar physical attributes were taken to Auschwitz and murdered. The importance of my mother’s appearance was so significant and so important in understanding what took place that I even named the book in which I chronicle their 5 years in Holland during the Nazi Occupation, as “Jew Face”. https://hollandsheroes.com/general-book-information/ And just like “Beautiful Blue Eyes”, the title was based partly on a character in the book, my mother, and partly on an incident that took place.
As someone who is proud to be Jewish and forever cognizant of the past, present, and likely future threats we will always face, my reasoning for calling the book “Jew Face” was clearly not a racist or bigoted attack on, of all people, my fellow Jews. Maybe the point can best be made clear to you and anyone who may choose to bury their head in the sands of Woke Beach, by sharing the following anecdote.
After the publishing of my book, close to 5 years after my father’s passing, my mother would occasionally speak to various institutions about her experiences during those horrific times. She would often use the book as a guide in telling the story, and when on one occasion she informed the audience of its title, “Jew Face”, a woman commented to her that, “this is an ugly title for a book”. My mother’s immediate and instinctive response was, “it was an ugly time”. Maybe this is what you and the people who work for you are not comprehending. Sometimes to make a point, a point that can ultimately promote love and understanding and even save lives, you need to say and do harsh things. To avoid this in the name of equality or standards is at best shortsighted and divisive, at worst it is out and out dangerous. In fact, this application that states it violates the policy against content that “includes direct or indirect assertions or implications about a person’s race,” is so out of touch with the reality, it is closer to Holocaust denial than it is to enforcement of a ruling in the name of the common good.
I urge you to look at this situation with a broader and more educated perspective and realize that decisions such as these are counterproductive to what you claim to be important.
There are some celebrities that have such an important and frequent impact on your life that they become important to you. Till about 6 or 7 years ago I considered baseball my favorite sport. While the game and players have changed to the point that I no longer feel that way, I still do, and probably always will consider Vin Scully to be the greatest sports announcer to ever live. So, on the day of his passing, I feel compelled and happy to pay him this tribute.
I know that I am far from alone in feeling as I do. The accolades that have poured in since Scully’s passing reveal how so many people feel the same as I do. It gets to a point where it is no longer that we think he was great, we know that he was.It is that rare occasion where it transcends from opinion to fact. Vin Scully was great.He had the most pleasant voice to listen to, never grating, and never spoke in an awkward fashion.He told stories, painted pictures, and had an unmatched ability to know when to be quiet and let the actions on the field, or the noise of the crowd speak for itself. He called the game as though he loved the game as much as anyone watching, and he helped you get lost in the pleasure and excitement of the competition on the field.
Even if he had not called my personal all-time favorite call in sports history, I still would have felt exactly as I do. But in honor of the loss of this legend I present you with the last play that took place in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
Recently, as I was working on the book regarding the story of my Uncle Bram’s violin, I came to the conclusion that there was one book that could help me at the very least, try to get some sort of grasp on what Bram went through as a teenager transported to Auschwitz with his father. The book I am referring to is “Night”, by Elie Wiesel. While the impact of reading it was profound, it was nevertheless different than I anticipated, and one might argue even more important.
In September of 1943, 22 days shy of his 19th birthday, my Uncle Bram was murdered in Auschwitz. As I work on giving him the legacy he deserves, through having his memory be remembered in a way that not only gives respect to his memory but also inspires others, reading “Night” seemed logical, albeit difficult. While the impact it had in regard to my work was powerful, it was not what I expected.
When I wrote “Jew Face”, I often successfully tried to feel like I was with my parents as young adults going through the trial and tribulations of evading murder by the Nazis. But trying to do this with someone who was in Auschwitz is an exercise in futility. Probably a fortuitous one. The pure horror described by Elie Wiesel in his book, and the countless accounts and images provided over the years show the devastation as best it can, but the generations that follow are inevitably limited in what they can feel.
In his preface Wiesel writes:
“Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know.
But would they at least understand?
Could men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak, to heal the sick, to protect small children, and to respect the wisdom of their elders understand what happened there? Would they be able to comprehend how, within that cursed universe, the masters tortured the weak and massacred the children, the sick, and the old?”
I am not quite sure what it means to understand the unimaginable. I am not sure how to comprehend an army’s mission to dehumanize an entire group of people. Millions of people. I thought that maybe reading the book I could somehow feel like I was there. At least enough to help me write more about what it must have been like for my lost Uncle and millions of others, including so many others in both my mother’s and father’s families. I will not go as far as saying I reached anywhere close to that point, or if I ever will. I do know however that in finishing it something else, maybe even more important happened. I felt an increased sense of responsibility. A responsibility to do more than just read, or even write a book. A responsibility to do something significantly more important than relating to the horrors. My responsibility is to consistently tell the story. To make sure continuing generations know what happened. To let them know that those places that still stand where events leading to the murder of 6 million Jews or where monuments of remembrance have been placed are so much more than tourist attractions. They are the representation of the very soul of those we remember. They have the sanctity of a cemetery, and they give life to the souls of those taken from us by vicious murderers.
I sat down to read “Night” hoping something important would happen to me. While it was not what I expected, I came away with something far more important than I anticipated. An increased determination to make sure the world knows what happened and never forgets. To let it be otherwise would be more than tragic than I could imagine, and substantially more dangerous.
While I urge you not to hate me for the fact that I’ve never really liked Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, and therefore have no personal stake in the game, I do recognize that their product is popular worldwide, and more relevant to this conversation, popular in Israel. I also know that if I did like the product, I definitely would have stopped using it when they chose to boycott Israel, and I would have found myself in a tough position now that their ice cream will once again be sold in Israel.
Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company released the following statement. “The new arrangement means Ben & Jerry’s will be sold under its Hebrew and Arabic names throughout Israel and the West Bank under the full ownership of its current licensee.”
While I applaud the efforts of American Quality Products, Ltd. and its owner Avi Zinger, this whole thing leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. No pun intended. It feels a lot like a divorcing couple that got there because one person walked out of the marriage and then came back because they realized they need the economic benefits the marriage offered. You really want to say, thanks but not thanks.
But my quandary regarding the whole matter is quite obvious. While I’m still disgusted with Ben & Jerry’s, and I do not mean the actual taste of the ice cream, I also do not want to push a narrative that takes business away from an Israeli owned company. I guess I am just going to have to swallow it and say, great news. And again, I don’t mean the ice cream.
Holland's Heroes 