Running the Gauntlet of Anti-Semitism
From Polish Counter-Intelligence
to the German-American Marshall Center
by
Michael Moshe Checinski
Who could have predicted that even into the 21st century, Jews would
continue to feel the lethal blade of anti-Semitism, with unrelenting
attacks on synagogues, rabbis, individuals, Jewish institutions
and Jewish-owned property? Michael Moshe
Checinski is not surprised. He has lived through the
virulent anti-Semitism that produced the Lodz ghetto and the Nazi
death camps. After the War, as a member of Polish Counterintelligence,
Michael confronted the anti-Semitism that "cleansed" him from his
native land. As a Research Fellow, he encountered the gargoyle of
anti-Semitism at Harvard, and as Professor of Defense Economics,
he came face-to-face with unrelenting anti-Semitism in the bastion
of modern Democracy, The American-German Marshall Center. At each
period in his life, Checinski believes firmly that he has finally
arrived in a social Eden, only to discover that even the good people
turn away and shrink from the fight against anti-Semitism. So, he
begins to collect data -- reports, memos -- snippets of information
that will corroborate what he has found out, first hand: that the
tentacles of anti-Semitism cannot be cut off by just wishing them
away, or ignoring them. They must be aggressively confronted and
their root cause, destroyed. Checinski is on a crusade, but he is
no Don Quixote. He is a proud Jew, fighting bigotry, and more often
than not, pays a high price for his ideals. |
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