Literary / Arts
“I Was a Catholic Zionist” – An Eloquent Exploration
Allan C. Brownfeld
Volume 34 Issue 1, 2 & 3 | Posted: December 20, 2019
Growing up on Palmerston Blvd. in downtown Toronto, Ted Schmidt was exposed at an early age to the richness of Jewish culture. His memoir Shabbes Goy: a Catholic Boyhood on a Jewish Street in Protestant Toronto (2001) detailed his early exposure to anti-Semitism which resulted in his pioneering work (1968-1996) as a Holocaust educator in Canada.
For two decades he taught Catholic teachers the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. For many years, he wrote a column in Canada’s leading progressive Catholic newspaper, Catholic New Times, and served as editor from 2001-2006. In 2013, he received the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Medal for his work in Education and Justice.
Growing up on Palmerston Blvd. in downtown Toronto, Ted Schmidt was exposed at an early age to the richness of Jewish culture. His memoir Shabbes Goy: a Catholic Boyhood on a Jewish Street in Protestant Toronto (2001) detailed his early exposure to anti-Semitism which resulted in his pioneering work (1968-1996) as a Holocaust educator in Canada.
For two decades he taught Catholic teachers the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. For many years, he wrote a column in Canada’s leading progressive Catholic newspaper, Catholic New Times, and served as editor from 2001-2006. In 2013, he received the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Medal for his work in Education and Justice.
This book is dedicated to “…the Jews of Conscience whose hearts remained open when the great gift of the prophetic came calling. You are the ones who will redeem Israel. There are thousands of you and I am very grateful for your witness. I believe you have carried the spirit of the Torah into history. You are the true ‘Jewish Jews’ whose witness will endure.”
The beginning of his association with Zionism came at a very early age for Ted Schmidt: “I was a Catholic Zionist. I just couldn’t help it, growing up where I did and when I did…On November 29, 1947, a cheer had gone up in the neighborhood when the UN General Assembly voted by a two thirds majority to partition Palestine into two parts.”
Observing the anti-Semitism his Jewish friends and classmates met produced “righteous anger” in Schmidt: “My friendship with the living embers of Europe had been soldered permanently into my young heart. Jews and the Jewish state would find a lifelong friend. Anger at any sign of anti-Semitism and courage at fighting it would be my lifelong companions…I was a Catholic Zionist. Of course, I had no idea what Zionism was.”
Holocaust Loomed Large
The Holocaust loomed large in Schmidt’s early days: “I had been largely affected by the Holocaust largely because of my close proximity to the children of survivors. Third baseman Manny Gold had lost eight aunts and uncles ..in Poland. Shortstop Brian Analevitz was a cousin to Mordecai Anielewicz, one of the Zionist leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Here was my chance in 1968 to perform an act of reparation for these friends” relatives whose only crime was that they were Jewish. Remembrance, as the great Hasidic master the Baal Shem Tov said, is the secret of redemption. I know I was the first secondary teacher in Canada to tackle this subject in depth..Over the next two decades I refined, expanded and deepened my exposure…Catholics, I felt, needed to deal with the issue of mass murder perpetrated by the baptized. We had to confront ‘the teaching of contempt’ (Jules Isaac) that had undoubtedly poisoned Christianity for 2, 000 years. It was quite simply an act of Justice.”
As time went on, Schmidt came to the view that Zionism had, in effect, hijacked Judaism, and transformed it into a form of tribalism and ethno-nationalism, abandoning the prophetic universalism he believes to characterize genuine Judaism. He provides the reader with an extensive history of Zionism and explores the indifference of Zionists, from the earliest settlers of Palestine in the 19th century, to the area's indigenous inhabitants.
He describes the terrorism of men such as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir—from the bombing of the King David Hotel to the assassinations of Lord Moyne and Counte Folke Bernadotte, the Swedish U.N. negotiator who had saved thousands of Jews from the Nazis, to the massacre at Deir Yassin and the ethnic cleansing which followed. He moves forward to the 51 year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the growth of religious extremism which fosters contempt for non-Jews.
The history of Zionism, Schmidt shows, from the very beginning had as its goal the establishment of a Jewish state in all of historic Palestine and the removal of as many of the indigenous population as possible. In a now infamous letter (Oct. 5, 1937), to his son Amos, David Ben-Gurion explained what had always been the Zionist plan: “A partial Jewish state is not the end, but only the beginning. The establishment of such a Jewish state will serve as a means in our historical efforts to redeem the country in its entirety We shall organize a modern defense force…and then I am certain that we will not be prevented from settling in other parts of the country, either by mutual agreement with our Arab neighbors or by some other means…We will expel the Arabs and take their places…with the force at our disposal.”
David Ben-Gurion once confessed to Zionist leader Nahum Goldmann that if he were a Palestinian he would do all he could to resist the Zionist encroachment upon his land. Ben-Gurion, who was not in any sense religious, declared: “Sure, God promised it (the land) to us but what does that matter to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing. We have come here and stolen their country.”
The massacre of Palestinian men, women and children at Deir Yassin is discussed in some detail. Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian Jewish author, noted that, “The bloodshed at Deir Yassin was the psychologically decisive factor in the spectacular exodus of the Arabs from the Holy Land and the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem.”
Deir Yassin, a village just outside Jerusalem, had lived in amity with its Jewish neighbors. In fact, it had signed a non-aggression pact with the Haganah, the mainline Jewish defense group, in exchange for its safety. In the end, the terrorist groups, Irgun and Lehi (the Stern gang) were permitted to enter the village.
The New York Times of April 13, 1948 estimated the death toll at 248. This came after the dead were burned but further research lowered the toll to 120. “But the scope and nature of the massacre, ” writes Schmidt, “was profoundly shocking—old men, women and children were the main victims. Mutilation, rape, looting and dynamited houses proceeded apace.
Several stunned survivors were paraded through Jerusalem on a flat bed truck where they were mocked before being returned to Deir Yassin where they were shot…The Arabs fled in terror. The cry ‘Deir Yassin’ was yelled through bullhorns as the soldiers of the Yishuv advanced on villages and towns. Terror spread like wildfire through Palestine as the exodus continued.”
Myth That Palestinians Left Voluntarily
For many years, Israel spread the myth that Palestinians left the country voluntarily, a myth widely promoted by the organized Jewish community in the U.S. and elsewhere. It was Israeli historian Benny Morris, with access to Israeli Army files of June 30, 1948, who, exploded this false narrative:
“As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be be significant in only 5 percent of cases…Above all, let me reiterate, the refugee problem was caused by attacks by Jewish forces on Arab villages and towns and by the inhabitants’ fear of such attacks, compounded by expulsions, atrocities and rumors of atrocities, and by the crucial Israeli Cabinet decision in June 1948 to bar a refugee return.”
The growth of religious extremism in Israel is particularly disturbing, as Schmidt shows us. Baruch Goldstein, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who emigrated to Israel from the U.S., murdered 29 Muslims at prayer in the Ibrahim Mosque in Hebron on Feb. 25, 1994.
At his funeral, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin declared: “Even one million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail.” Ovadia Yosef, Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi, said in October 2010 that, “The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews. They have no place in the world…”
Yitzhak Ginsburgh, a rabbi who runs a yeshiva in the West Bank, reminds his followers that, “ Something is special about Jewish DNA..If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life has an infinite value.” Sadly, many pages are filled with similar sentiments.
Schmidt is saddened that so many Jews have acquiesced in this corruption of their faith: “As a young teenager, I was staggered by awareness of Christian complicity in the Nazi Judeocide. ‘How could people go along with this…,’ I asked myself. Where were the prophets, the courage of the baptized, the voice of Catholic officialdom, I was angry for decades and slowly turned this anger into solidarity with Jews and then all victims.
And now I was watching Judaism being emptied of evangelical power and prophecy. This was not good news for organized religion which was already in free fall…I finally realized 25 years ago that Israel and Zionism was wreaking havoc on the gift of Sinai. Hence, this book.”
Continued in the Spring Edition of ICN
Allan C. Brownfeld