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The End of Judaism
An Ethical Tradition Betrayed
Hajo G. Meyer
Secure Transaction
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Price: $13.95
Paperback | 264 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9788691-2-0 |
Summary
In The End of Judaism, Auschwitz survivor Hajo G. Meyer expresses in impassioned terms his dismay at what he sees as the moral collapse of contemporary Israeli society and the worldwide Jewish community as a whole. Meyer is a member of “A Different Jewish Voice,” a Dutch-based, secular Jewish movement that dares to openly criticize Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. In his observations, deeply colored by his personal experiences during the Holocaust, Meyer compares Israel’s current policies with the early stages of the Nazis’ persecution of the German Jews. He clearly explains that he is in no way seeking to draw a parallel between the current policies of Israel and the Nazis’ endgame, which resulted in the mass murder of six million innocent people. He is merely trying to point out the slippery slope that eventually led to this catastrophe, and the necessity of foreseeing the possible consequences of a policy that oppresses and marginalizes the Palestinians in their own homeland. As a result of his experiences in Auschwitz, Hajo Meyer claims to have learned one fundamental lesson: that his moral duty as a human being was to never become like his oppressors. The End of Judaism is the outcry of a dissident Jew who is not afraid of standing up to entrenched ways of thinking about history and particularly about the Palestinian conflict, which is one of the most intractable social and political problems in the world today. “The events that occurred between 1933 and 1942…sensitized me to the discriminatory and humiliating treatment of any people forced to live as second-class citizens. This sensitivity has been heightened by the fact that the Jewish people are themselves harassing and humiliating the Palestinians. Whenever I read or hear about these events, memories from my formative years come bubbling to the surface.”
About the Author
Hajo G. Meyer was born in Bielefeld, Germany, in 1924. In 1939, at the age of 14, he fled alone to Holland to escape the Nazi regime. After the Germans occupied that country, he was captured by the Gestapo in 1944, and survived ten months in Auschwitz. After the war, he studied theoretical physics and became a researcher at Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven. He received his Ph.D. in 1956, and in 1974 became managing director of the lab. Retiring in 1984, he became a maker of violins, selling his instruments to professional musicians. Since 2002 he has devoted himself full-time to his work as a publicist and essayist.
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