1917: A #Very #Bad #Year

Herbert Johnson’s cartoon from the era, titled “Make This Flood Control Permanent.”

New York Times: Revisiting 1917, a Year That Reverberates for Jews Around the World

By GERALDINE FABRIKANT 

REBUTTAL BY

A museum exhibit set to open this weekend at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and later this year at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York will focus on three historic events and their impact on Jews (evidently, no else really matters). The exhibit titled, “1917: How One Year Changed the World,” will feature America’s entry into World War I, the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the Balfour Declaration.

Though much of what this particular Slimes article tells of these three events is indeed accurate, the deception lies in what is omitted about this sad centennial. Let's dive in and see what we mean.

Two major Jewish museums are teaming up to school their flocks on 1917 --- but their exhibit leaves out a few details.

Slimes: The war and the revolution resulted in strict limits on immigration to the United States, reflecting a fear among Americans that unrest in Europe would spread to their country. The restrictions were not overtly aimed at Jews, but because the quotas from countries with high Jewish populations were tightened, fewer Jews were able to settle in the United States.

The Omission: The restrictions were aimed, in large part, at stopping the influx of Anarchists and Communists who had been causing problems in America since the 1880's. And it just so happened (surprise, surprise) that many of these subversive characters were of a certain ethnic group (cough cough).

1 & 2 - 1901: President McKinley was murdered by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist son of Polish immigrants

3. The lovely and gracious Anarchist guru Emma Goldman (cough cough) from Lithuania (Russian Empire) defended Czolgosz's dirty deed.

Slimes: After the revolution, when the Bolsheviks came to power, and the xenophobia coalesced together and had the power to influence, that fear accelerated.

The Omission: The Bolshevik Revolution was a Jewish affair. With the exception of front man Lenin (1/4 jew who spoke Yiddish), a review of the roster of Russia's leading Bolshevik killers reads like the guest list for a Russian-Jewish Bar Mitzvah -- Trotsky (Bronstein), Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, Litvinov (Wallach), Radek (Sobelsohn), Kamenev (Rosenfeld), Uritsky and many, many more.

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