The Simon Wiesenthal
Center
Arriving in Los Angeles in 1977 with a $500,000 gift from
Canadian Jewish businessman Samuel Belzberg, Rabbi Marvin Hier
lost no time launching his dream project: the Simon Wiesenthal
Center. In the years that followed, Hier succeeded in building the
Center, named after the well-known "Nazi hunter," into one of the
world's most influential Jewish organizations.
"Now second in membership only to B'nai B'rith International with
380,000 members," noted the Los Angeles Times in 1990, "the Simon
Wiesenthal Center at times rivals the venerable American Jewish
Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the World Jewish
Congress for its impact and access to world leaders."1 Today, five
years later, the Center's power and impact are, if anything, even
more formidable.
Fear mongering and
'Holocaustomania'
Hier achieved all this, and so quickly, because he hit on a
winning formula for raising vast sums of money from American Jews:
highly emotional appeals to raw fear with sensationalistic
exploitation of the Holocaust story.
Hier and his colleagues never cease harping on the danger of
anti-Semitism (or, as the Center spells it "antisemitism"). In its
wide range of propaganda materials, including videotapes and
fund-raising mailings, and especially in its glossy magazine,
Response, the Center conjures up a paranoid fantasy world in which
a sinister international network of neo-Nazis, Islamic extremists
and other anti-Jewish forces of "hate" are on the march
everywhere, plotting a murderous new "Final Solution" of all
Jews.
The Center projects a paradoxical image of American Jewry:
Fabulously wealthy and influential, but simultaneously threatened
with physical extermination. Only the eternally vigilant Simon
Wiesenthal Center, its publications suggest, protects Jews against
a dangerous worldwide "hate" conspiracy and a new "Final
Solution."
"In America," writes New York Times Deputy Media Editor Judith
Miller in her 1990 book, One, by One, by One, "the lowest common
denominator often sets the agenda. The Holocaust is not immune
from this tendency."2
"Marvin Hier and the Center will always cry anti-Semitism," a
renowned scholar told two Los Angeles Times writers, who summed
up: "To get people to pay attention to his battle against
anti-Semitism, Hier refuses to let anyone forget the Holocaust
even for a minute."3
As even the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith has
acknowledged, though, the Wiesenthal Center makes "inaccurate" and
"exaggerated claims" about anti-Semitism to raise money. In a 1984
internal memorandum, ADL official Justin Finger cited a Center
fund-raising letter that is "replete with factual misstatements
and exaggerations" about anti-Jewish sentiment in the United
States and Europe.4
The 1991 Gulf War provided an ideal opportunity for the Simon
Wiesenthal Center to trot out sensational new propaganda lies.
According to a "shocking revelation" in the Spring 1991 issue of
Response, German firms were producing
Zyklon B gas in Iraq, "the chemical
used by the Germans to murder millions of Jews during the Nazi
Holocaust."5
Iranian prisoners of war, the Center's slick magazine went on,
were being killed with Zyklon B "in gas chambers specially
designed for the Iraqis by the German company Rhema Labortechnik."
Recycling a familiar Second World War propaganda theme, Response
continued: "An eyewitness reported the [Iraqi] gas
chambers were tiled to look like operating rooms, with a separated
observation room for each gas chamber with reinforced glass
visibility."
In fanning the flames of what Jewish American historian Alfred
Lilienthal calls "Holocaustomania," the Wiesenthal Center has no
peer. "Rabbi Hier and the Wiesenthal Center are, in my opinion,
the most extreme of those who utilize the Holocaust," said the
director of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust center in 1988. "The
Jewish people does many vulgar things," he went on, "but the
Wiesenthal Center [has] raised it to a complete level: The
optimum use of sensitive issues in order to raise money ..."6
"The enormous success of the Simon Wiesenthal Center," says author
Judith Miller, "has given new meaning to what was once a macabre
in-house joke ... 'There is no business like Shoah business'."
("Shoah" is Hebrew for Holocaust).7 "It's a sad fact," adds the
Center's chief financial backer, Canadian-Jewish financier Samuel
Belzberg, "that Israel and Jewish education and all the other
familiar buzzwords no longer serve to rally Jews behind the
community. The Holocaust, though, works every time."8
In 1989, for example, the Center pulled in some $15 million in
contributions.9 Marvin Hier is generously compensated for his
work. In 1994 his annual pay was $225,000 (benefits included). At
least six other Center officials were paid more than $100,000
each.10
Originally from New York's Lower East Side, Hier possesses no
academic credentials beyond his yeshiva (rabbinical school)
certification. But he was not ashamed to appoint himself "Dean" of
the Wiesenthal Center and of the Center-affiliated Yeshiva
University.11
Hier has proven to be a tremendous boost to Simon Wiesenthal and
his international image. "Before meeting up with Hier," said one
Center insider, "Simon was nickel and diming it in Vienna. He
couldn't even pay his phone bills."12
A Jewish mission
While the Center makes a feeble pretense of concern for all
humanity, its real agenda is narrowly, even chauvinistically
Jewish. Hier frankly calls his Center a "full-fledged Jewish
defense agency,"13 and Center publications skillfully play to
Jewish fears, concerns and sensitivities.
"... The phenomenal growth of the Wiesenthal Center suggests that
the haunting memory of the Holocaust is, for better or worse, what
makes millions of Jews feel like Jews," says Baltimore Jewish
Times editor Gary Rosenblatt.14
Rival organizations that compete with the Center for money from
the Jewish community privately resent Hier's brash, "anything
goes" tactics.
Hier "has become a self-appointed spokesman for American Jewish
interests," complains Leon Wieseltier, Jewish literary editor of
The New Republic. Hier's linkage of the Holocaust and American
politics has "vulgarized" both, adds Wieseltier. "He and his
operation have no right to desecrate the memory of millions of
dead Jews by glibly associating their memory with the Center's
politics."15
"Critics of the Simon Wiesenthal Center," notes Judith Miller in
One, by One, by One, "have also complained about the use of the
Holocaust to justify lobbying for Jewish interests... 'You must do
this for the Jews because there was a Holocaust'."16
Hier and his organization ceaselessly promote Zionist and Israeli
interests. "Another implicit message of the Wiesenthal Center is
that the Holocaust helped to validate the state of Israel," writes
Miller. "Remembering the Holocaust leads to staunch support of
Israel."17 Hier has had a particularly close relationship with
Israel's ultra-Zionist Likud party and hard line Israeli Prime
Ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir.18 Although Hier and
his Center demands dauntless pursuit and punishment of "Nazi war
criminals," Hier hypocritically ignores the well-documented
records of Begin and Shamir as Zionist terrorists.19
No trust for non-Jews
A recurring Wiesenthal Center theme is that non-Jews are never
entirely trustworthy. If "it" could happen in cultured Germany,
Hier's Center never ceases to suggest, "it" can happen anywhere.
Anything less than fawning solicitude for Israeli and Jewish
concerns, the Center implies, all but inevitably leads to shoving
Jews into gas chambers. Hier's "message is that Jews are never
safe, that anti-Semitism is pandemic, occurring everywhere and in
various degrees of virulence," the Los Angeles Times sums
up.20
"We're like the baseball hitter who is up to bat with two strikes
against him," says Hier. "That's the proper attitude for Jews. We
shouldn't be going around saying: it cannot happen again ... We
Americans have never been tested."21 Regarding a Wiesenthal Center
exhibit on the Holocaust, the monthly magazine of the American
Jewish Committee remarked: "The message was that Jews have
enemies, murderous enemies, and should look out."22
In Hier's view, the non-Jewish world -- and especially European
Christians -- bears a collective guilt for what the Holocaust
lobby insists is the most terrible crime in history. In a 1995 Los
Angeles Times opinion piece, for example, Hier took aim at
Christian leaders during the Second World War, chastising the
"prelates -- from Pope Pius XII down -- who at best looked the
other way, protected their own, were bystanders rather than
activists and sometimes even assisted the Nazis in carrying out
their Final Solution."23
For from promoting "tolerance," says Dr. Frank Knopfelmacher, a
leading Australian Jewish scholar, the Wiesenthal Center actually
foments "ethnic hatred." Australia government officials, added
Knopfelmacher, should have "banned the members of the Simon
Wiesenthal Center from entering Australia and should have deported
those who were here."24
Phenomenal clout
For an organization founded just 16 years ago, the Wiesenthal
Center wields phenomenal political and financial power. "Hier has
accrued unprecedented clout in the Legislature, on Capitol Hill,
in the city's boardrooms and even in Hollywood," noted the Los
Angeles Times Magazine in a 1990 profile article.25
Among the many prominent and wealthy individuals who have given
public support to the Simon Wiesenthal Center have been President
Ronald Reagan, President George Bush, Senator Dianne Feinstein
(and her investment banker husband Richard Blum), entertainers
Frank Sinatra and Elizabeth Taylor, columnist George Will,
Mortimer B. Zuckerman (publisher of US News and World Report and
the Atlantic Monthly), television journalist Barbara Walters,
several members of the moneyed Belzberg family, Alan Greenberg
(chairman of the investment firm of Bear Stearns), and New York
financiers Nelson Peltz, Ronald Perelman and Ivan Boesky. (Boesky,
a member of the Center's board of directors, was later found
guilty of large-scale illegal stock dealing).
"Genocide," an 88-minute Holocaust motion picture coproduced by
the Wiesenthal Center, was awarded the 1982 Academy Award for
"Best Documentary Feature." Accepting the Award was "Dean" Hier,
the only Orthodox rabbi ever to win an Oscar.26 A more recent
expression of the Center's close Hollywood ties is the 1995 HBO
made-for-television motion picture, "The Infiltrator," a highly
flattering portrayal of the Center and its work (in which IHR
Director Mark Weber is smeared, by name, as a "big time
fascist").
Political pull and public money
Such is the political clout wielded by the Center that
California lawmakers recently voted to give it a second $5 million
grant of state taxpayers' funds. (The first was in 1985.) This
money, allocated for the Center's "Museum of Tolerance," came from
funds normally reserved for California public schools. Backing
this extraordinary grant were prominent politicians of both
parties, including California Governor Pete Wilson.27
At a time of belt-tightening across the board, the Wiesenthal
Center can count on "special treatment" for state lawmakers. One
cautiously indignant Californian echoed the sentiment of many
others in a letter published in the leading Los Angeles daily
newspaper:28
Giving the Wiesenthal Centers another $5 million in
state tax dollars when clinics and hospitals are closing, local
schools' teaching budgets are being cut and public libraries
fight to keep open on even a limited basis is difficult to
justify.
Financially strapped education leaders and spokesmen for
hard-pressed public interest groups were understandably outraged.
Responding to Hier's claims of school children visits to his
"Museum of Tolerance," a lobbyist for the California Teachers
Association sarcastically commented: "70,000 kids might go
McDonald's every day, but we don't pick up their lunch tab."
In addition, the Center has received $5 million in federal funds,
through legislation sponsored by California Congressman Henry
Waxman.29
The Center's ties with California Governor Wilson could hardly be
closer. A senior political advisor to Wilson is a member of the
Wiesenthal Center's board of directors. To show its appreciation,
last year the Center awarded Wilson its "National Leadership
Award." Among those attending the award dinner was Michael Fuchs,
chairman of Home Box Office (HBO) and a member of the Wiesenthal
Center's board of directors.30
On at least one occasion, Marvin Hier used his influence to help a
favored politician. In April 1992 he appealed for money on behalf
of Mel Levine, a US Congressman and Democratic candidate for US
Senator from California. In a letter sent out to the Wiesenthal
Center mailing list, Hier attacked Patrick Buchanan and praised
Levine for his unwavering support for Israel and his "sense of
history." "Never Again must be America's slogan," wrote Hier. "And
Mel Levine, as US Senator from California, will be an important
force for a farsighted American foreign policy." (In spite of
Hier's appeal, Levine failed to win the Democratic party
nomination for US Senate.)
In 1988 Hier and the Center honored Simon Wiesenthal at two gala
dinners, one in Los Angeles and another in New York City. At the
California gathering, Hier singled out President Reagan for
special commendation, and at the New York dinner, which netted
$700,000, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl delivered the main tribute
to Wiesenthal.31
A Wiesenthal Center "National Tribute Dinner" in November 1989
provided another opportunity to manifest the organization's
wide-ranging influence.32 Speakers included Simon Wiesenthal,
Israeli premier Yitzhak Shamir, and Center Chairman Samuel
Belzberg, with awards to prominent media personalities, including
MCA President Sidney Sheinberg and actor Ben Kingsley.
"Dinner chairman" Robert Maxwell was unable to attend the event,
but the Jewish publishing baron's daughter was on hand to deliver
his passionate speech. (It was only after his mysterious death in
October 1991, and a state funeral in Israel, that Maxwell's record
as perhaps the greatest swindler in history came to light. He had
stolen at least $1.65 billion from the public companies he
controlled.)
American newspapers and magazines treat the Wiesenthal Center with
uncritical deference, accepting at face value its bogus pretense
to be an impartial source of reliable information. The Los Angeles
Times -- the most influential newspaper in the western United
States -- routinely provides space for lengthy "op ed" opinion
essays by Wiesenthal Center spokesmen.
Earlier this year the Center flexed its muscles with a stunning
display of global power. It acted quickly and decisively after a
major Japanese monthly magazine, Marco Polo, published a ten-page
article in its February 1995 issue that presented credible
evidence to show that there were no execution gas chambers in
wartime German concentration camps, and that many other
Holocaust stories are exaggerated or
untrue.33
While recklessly misrepresenting the article's content, the
Wiesenthal Center promptly lashed out at the magazine and its
publisher, and mounted an international boycott campaign to
pressure major international corporations into withdrawing
advertising. Quickly capitulating to the Center's campaign --
which the Institute for Historical Review called "an arrogant
expression of bigotry and intolerance" -- the publisher took the
astonishing step of shutting down Marco Polo magazine altogether.
At a packed news conference in Tokyo, Wiesenthal Center "Associate
Dean" Abraham Cooper accepted a craven public apology from the
publishing company's president.
Attacking the IHR
In many ways, the Institute for Historical Review and the Simon
Wiesenthal Center are antipodal adversaries. Not surprisingly,
then, the Center has hit hard and often at the IHR.
In a frenzied fund-raising letter mailed out in 1985, for example,
the Center cited The Journal of Historical Review as a source of
special concern, warning that a goal of the Journal is to
"undermine the legitimacy of the State of Israel." The letter
ominously added:
We must learn the names and location of all neo-Nazis
and revisionist leaders in every state. We must both keep
careful records of their activities and expose them to the
public.
Wiesenthal Center official Aaron Breitbart castigated the IHR
in an article published in the 1986 Jewish Directory and Almanac.
"The jewel in the crown of revisionism," he wrote, "is the
California-based Institute for Historical Review." Another
widely-distributed Wiesenthal Center fund-raising letter signed by
actor Glenn Ford included a furious and lengthy smear against the
IHR and its Journal.
In a prominently featured "op ed" opinion essay published in April
1995 in a Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, Wiesenthal
Center official Abraham Cooper warned:34
With access to the Internet limitless, the scope of
hate-group activities is rapidly expanding. The Institute for
Historical Review, the leading voice of Holocaust denial in the
United States, has set up a site on the World Wide Web portion
of the Internet where its literature can be obtained free.
Nearly every issue of the Center's "World Report" magazine,
Response (with a claimed 1995 circulation of 320,000) attacks the
Institute and leading revisionist scholars. Contrary to the
Center's bogus "tolerance," Response frequently gloats about legal
repression of Holocaust revisionists in foreign countries. Typical
is an article in the Summer 1992 issue, headlined "Holocaust
Deniers on the March" and illustrated with a color photograph of
French professor Robert Faurisson. Several items in the Winter
1992 issue take aim at the Institute, including one specifically
devoted to the IHR's Eleventh Conference. Likewise, a snide and
misleading article in the Fall-Winter 1994 Response reported on
the Twelfth IHR Conference.
Glitzy 'Museum of Tolerance'
When the Wiesenthal Center opened the doors of its eight-story,
$50 million "Museum of Tolerance" in 1993, American television,
newspapers and magazines responded with an outpouring of
flattering coverage. California Governor Wilson called the Museum
a "treasure," and Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky
ascribed almost miraculous powers to it. "If every citizen of Los
Angeles...will walk through the halls of this Museum and heed its
lessons," he said, "then this city will have nothing to worry
about."35
The Museum on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles -- also called
the Beit Hashoah in Hebrew ("House of the Holocaust") -- draws
350,000 visitors a year, says Hier. This includes more than 70,000
public and private school children who are taken through the
Museum yearly. "It's almost a second home to public schools,"
boasts Hier. "We want to keep them there."36
This is no ordinary museum. A slick, high-tech enterprise that
"marries theme-park glitz with harrowing themes" (Los Angeles
Daily News),37 it presents a relentlessly Judeocentric version of
history, packed with grotesque historical distortions and
falsehoods. (A detailed look at the "Museum of Tolerance" will
appear in a forthcoming Journal issue.)
Conclusion
The phenomenal growth and impact of the Simon Wiesenthal Center
is a reflection of the predominant financial-political forces in
American society today, and consequently of its prevailing
cultural values and historical outlook. It is a barometer of
Zionist-Jewish power and influence in the United States, of the
hypocrisy and weakness of this country's political leadership, and
of the quasi-religious role that the Holocaust story has come to
play, not only in America but throughout the world.
Phone: +46708121240
