Artist Confronts Acquiescence to 'Murder Jews' March in Berlin

Israeli Artist Renews Tradition of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’

An Open Letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Berlin Mayor Michael Müller:

How could you open your streets to the Al-Quds Day rally in Berlin that called for Israel's destruction?  Why did you condone a march of virulent anti-Semites demanding the murder of the next six million Jews? 

You were silent when supporters of terrorism marched in Berlin holding aloft photographs of the leader of Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist partner.  His Al Quds Day speech was accompanied by crowds chanting “Death to Israel.”  Hezbollah’s charter calls for a terrorist struggle that will not end until the Jewish State is obliterated.  They have tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel’s cities from Lebanon ready to be launched on orders from Teheran.  According to your own intelligence agency, there are 250 active Hezbollah members and supporters in Berlin and some 950 Hezbollah operatives in Germany.

Knesset Member Yair Lapid, son of a Holocaust survivor, wrote to Mayor Müller: “Your decision to remain silent in the face of this incitement and hatred is a grave mistake. Allowing the glorification of terrorism in your city won’t appease extremists, it will embolden them.”  He ended his letter: “We would never allow a parade celebrating the murder of your citizens, why do you allow a parade celebrating the murder of ours?”

In the tradition of Picasso’s Guernica extended into networked times, I created the “Future Holocaust Memorials” blogart project in 2006 http://futureholocaustmemorials.blogspot.com as a wakeup call to prevent a second Holocaust being planned by Iran and is allies.

As an artist whose artworks are in the collections of forty museum worldwide, I am offering to upgrade the Berlin monument built as a memorial to the first six million Jews that Germany exterminated.  I propose doubling the size of the sprawling field of 2,700 stone slabs by adding 2,700 more stone slabs as a future memorial to the six million Jews of Israel incinerated by Iranian nuclear bombs. 5,400 stone slabs for twelve million Jews murdered.

My proposal follows in the tradition of artists who confronted evil through their artworks like Picasso’s Guernica crying out against the bombing practice by Hitler’s burgeoning war machine killing hundreds in a village in Spain in 1937. Just as the world’s acquiescence to Hitler’s raining bombs on the village of Guernica gave him the license to proceed with preparing for WW II and exterminating the Jews of Europe on his way to global conquest, the world’s indifference to the thousands of rockets aimed at Israel by Iran and its proxy armies, Hamas and Hezbollah, are empowering Iran to annihilate the Jews of Israel as a prelude to global jihad.

Do not forget the partnership of Germany and the Arabs to exterminate Jews during the second World War.  The anti-Semitic marchers in Berlin this past weekend are the heirs of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who joined the Nazis in exterminating Jews.  Below is the Nuremberg trial testimony of SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dieter Wisliceny (Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man):

“According to my own opinion, the Grand Mufti [Hajj Amin al Husseini], who has been in Berlin since 1941, played a role in the decision of the German Government to exterminate the European Jews, the importance of which must not be disregarded. He had repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he has been in contact, above all before Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution of the Palestine problem. In his messages broadcast from Berlin, he surpassed us in anti-Jewish attacks. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and has constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber at Auschwitz.”

I hope that today’s Germany will partner with Israel in defeating Islamist terrorism that seeks to exterminate the Jewish State and spread its hatred of freedom and democracy in Germany and throughout the world.

Respectfully yours,

Prof. Mel Alexenberg 

melalexenberg@yahoo.com, Ra’anana, Israel 

"Artist Confronts Acquiescence to 'Murder Jews' March in Berlin," The Times of Israel, 27 June 2017

"Israeli Artist Renews Tradition of Picasso's 'Guernica'," LinkedIn article, 28 June 2017

Artist confronts France’s embrace of Iran’s genocidal regime

by Mel Alexenberg

From The Jerusalem Post, February 7, 2016, http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Artist-confronts-Frances-embrace-of-Irans-genocidal-regime-444075

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Hollande enthusiastically welcomed Hassan Rouhani, president of the Holocaust-denying, genocidal Iranian regime.

In the tradition of Picasso’s Guernica, I propose to President Francois Hollande to double the size of the dozens of Holocaust memorials in France to mark the murder of 6,000,000 Jews in Europe.   These upgraded Holocaust memorials will include in advance the extermination of the 6,000,000 Jews in Israel today that Iranians and the Palestinians are planning with France’s help.

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, President Hollande enthusiastically welcomed Hassan Rouhani, president of the Holocaust-denying genocidal Iranian regime.  Less than a week later, France threatened to recognize the establishment of a terrorist state of Palestine in the historic heartland of Israel.  

Future Holocaust Memorials is a wake-up call warning the world of France’s actions to trigger a second Holocaust.   It follows in the artistic tradition of Picasso, crying out against a barbaric prelude to genocide.

Just as European leaders’ acquiescence to Hitler’s raining bombs on the Spanish village of Guernica gave him the license to proceed with preparing for WW II and the exterminating Europe’s Jews on his way to global conquest, France is supporting Iranian ayatollahs and Palestinian jihadists in their efforts to annihilate Israel as a prelude to destroying the democratic way of life everywhere. 

The same French who established a Nazi Vichy government that rounded up the French Jews for slaughter in the 1940s subsequently built dozens of Holocaust memorials and museums in France to honor the 6,000,000 Jews that they participated in murdering.  It seems that France loves dead Jews but loathes living ones. 

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein decried the “hypocrisy” of France hosting Iranian President Rouhani. “I have no words for the hypocrisy of the presidents of countries, like France, that on International Holocaust Remembrance Day host the president of Iran,” he said. “We will have to continue our struggle to make sure the Holocaust is remembered and so that others’ consciences will speak to them.”  Edelstein also mentioned the Holocaust cartoon contest sponsored by the Tehran Municipality and set for June, carrying a $50,000 prize.

Michael Oren, former ambassador of Israel to the United States, asked: “How can Europe respect the memory of the Holocaust, while on the same exact day it hosts the leader of the Iranian regime, which denies that the Holocaust even happened?”

Seventy years after Auschwitz, the president of France is full of smiles as he honors the Iranian president in Paris who threatens to exterminate all the Jews of Israel.    

The Iranians are up-front about their intentions:  "Israel is doomed to be wiped off the map in a war of destiny.  "Israel no longer has reason to exist and will soon disappear."  "Israel is a disgraceful stain on the Islamic world and a rotten dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm."

When Rouhani and his henchmen call for the incineration another 6,000,000 Jews, believe them.  

Instead of telling the Iranians to end their Holocaust denial, support for terrorism, and genocidal threats, the French are enthusiastically arranging billions of eruros worth of business with Iran, including the sale of dual-use technologies to boost Iran’s nuclear and missile development. 

In addition to honoring Iranian anti-Semitism, France threatens to recognize a Palestinian terrorist state on the highlands overlooking Tel Aviv.  In the previous election for a Palestinian parliament, the majority in both the West Bank and Gaza elected Hamas, whose charter reads: 

“Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims…. Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…. I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.”

Palestinian public opinion data from surveys conducted by four independent research groups over the past 25 years exposed Palestinian positions about Israel that all bear directly on the current Palestinian terrorist offensive.  A solid majority of Palestinians have supported terrorism against Israelis.  Moreover, the more murderous an attack, the more it is supported.  The vast majority of Palestinians state that they hate Israelis and believe that Jews have no right to the Land of Israel, and therefore the Jewish state has no right to exist.

When 80-year old Abbas dies or retires, the struggle for power in the West Bank will be between Fatah, Hamas that rules Gaza, and Islamic State seeking a caliphate that demands that Israel be eliminated.

The author is professor emeritus of art and Jewish thought at Ariel University, professor of art and education at Columbia University and Bar-Ilan University and research fellow at MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies. 

Artist Using Technology to Challenge Holocaust Denials

This article by James H. Burnett III appeared in The Miami Herald, Friday, Dec. 22, 2006.  Ten years have passed since I started this blogart project as a wake-up call to counter Iran's threats to wipe Israel off the map.  The dangers have increased as smiling Rouhani has replaced scary-faced Ahmadinejad to woo France and other European countries to embrace Iran's genocidal regime.     

When Mel Alexenberg heard that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hosted a Holocaust denial conference earlier this month in Tehran, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He settled quickly on the tears.

The news was frustrating and scary, said Alexenberg, former dean of visual arts at Miami Dade College's New World School of the Arts, because Ahmadinejad's rhetoric didn't seem to generate urgency or fear on a worldwide scale.

''No one took Hitler seriously at first, either,'' said Alexenberg, who lost dozens of relatives in concentration camps. "Just as Ahmadinejad has been allowed to speak at the United Nations, Hitler was also hosted by the League of Nations, and then he carried out his threats.''

Determined not to let Ahmadinejad's threats to destroy Israel and his denial of the Holocaust go unchallenged, Alexenberg decided he would fight back with a weapon familiar to him: art.

After all, Pablo Picasso ''fought'' the Nazis with paintings of Guernica, Spain, after the German ruler had the Basque city bombed in what some called a test run for World War II air assaults. And Francisco José de Goya painted scenes of the Spanish uprising against Napoleon Bonaparte's invading forces in the 1800s.

''I thought I would use new technology as a form of art itself, and launch a blog,'' he said.

Alexenberg, who moved to Israel six years ago to teach art and Jewish thought at the University of Judea and Samaria in Ariel, recently started the Future Holocaust Memorials blog (http://www.futureholocaustmemorials.blogspot.com/).

''Before I moved to Miami even, in the 1980s, I was at MIT, at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies,'' Alexenberg said. "So I've worked with high technology as art for many years.''

Known for his use of new media to make postmodern Jewish thought-inspired art, Alexenberg exhibited Cyberangels: Aesthetic Peace Plan for the Middle East in 2004 at the Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic, where visitors were able to use computer stations to send angel images over the Internet as peaceful gestures to various world leaders.

Should anyone scoff at the idea of a blog as art, they should know that Alexenberg is a conceptual artist who regularly uses the Internet, said Kenneth Treister, an artist and retired architect who designed the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial.

''Mel doesn't do decorative paintings,'' Treister said. "He is one of the world's foremost authorities on visual art through new media. And this site is a way for him to describe a possible future, to warn that if people don't wake up to the similarities, another Holocaust could really happen.''

Avi Mizrachi, executive director of the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial, applauded Alexenberg's new project.  ''The tools of the 1940s are not the same as the tools of today,'' Mizrachi said. "All of us now are hooked and connected to our gadgets in some way. So if it takes the Internet to educate people about the Holocaust and inform them of what people like the Iranian president are saying about the future, that is good.''

Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi, director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community and secretary general of the Italian Muslim Assembly, wrote to Alexenberg that he appreciated the blog initiative.

"Many of those politicians who repeat days and nights, "We will never permit a new Holocaust to happen, are doing virtually nothing to stop Ahmadinejad and the danger he represents,'' Palazzi wrote. "We need to remember that plans for a Holocaust are, unfortunately, not limited to the past.''

Alexenberg is calling on Jews worldwide to contribute to the Future Holocaust Memorials project by starting their own blogs and linking to his site so they can create a blogging network of uploaded letters and photographs of Holocaust survivors, as well as other relatives killed by the Nazis.

''Art doesn't have to be on a canvas or as a sculpture,'' Alexenberg said. "This technology provides us with a bigger forum and audience than any museum ever could.''

Merkel's Disastrous Historical Precedent

From The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 10, 2015

SA paramilitaries outside a Berlin store posting signs with: "Deutsche! Wehrt Euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!" ("Germans! Defend yourselves! Do not buy from Jews!").

Chancellor Merkel could have followed the advice of Bundestag President Norbert Lammert who told Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein in Berlin last week that the EU directive is unwise.  Instead, she chose to follow a disastrous historical precedent.

On April 1, 1933, a week after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, he ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses throughout Germany.  Boycotting Jewish businesses was the prelude to the extermination of six million Jews in Europe.

This year’s EU resolution was passed as the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom was being publically remembered.   On Kristallnacht, Hitler upgraded his boycott to murder Jews, destroy Jewish businesses, demolish thousands of Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools, burn down 1,000 synagogues, and ship 30,000 Jews off to Nazi concentration camps.

Applying a double standard concerning Israel, while ignoring that there are over 200 other territorial disputes worldwide, is European anti-Semitism revisited.

MEL ALEXENBERG

Ra’anana

The Spirit of Amalek Rising Up Invites Future Holocaust Memorials

From The Times of Israel, Nov. 26, 2015. http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-spirit-of-amalek-rising-up-invites-future-holocaust-memorials/.

Thsi blog post relates to two of my blogart projects: “Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life” http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com, this blog “Future Holocaust Memorials,”  and my book Photograph God: Creating a Spiritual Blog of Your Life http://photographgod.com 

 
THE SPIRIT OF AMALEK IN GERMANY  

Genesis 8: Vayishlah/Sent (Genesis 32:4-36:43)

Rescue me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him lest he come and kill us all, mother and children alike…. Jacob went to Sukkot….  Esau was the ancestor the Edomites.  (Genesis 32:12,17,43)

Remember what [the Edomite tribe] Amalek did to you on your way out of Egypt.  When they encountered you on the way and struck those of you who were weak and lagging behind when you were weary and exhausted. (Deuteronomy 25:17,18)

The spirit of Amalek rises up in every generation to murder Jews because they are Jews from the time of the Exodus to the Persian Haman.

And to the Spanish Inquisition to the Russian pogroms to the Holocaust orchestrated by Hitler with Germany efficiency.

Arising once more in Persia today as Iran develops nuclear weapons to wipe Israel off the map.

Germany is promoting a second Holocaust by doing billions of dollars’ worth of business with Iran despite international sanctions.

The week of Vayishlah, Mel was keynote speaker at the symposium “Postdigital Narrative Art” at Germany's ZKM Center for Art and Media.

Mel's presentation focusing on this blog as postdigital narrative art was presented in what was formerly Hitler's torpedo factory in Karlsruhe.

In the 1200's, Munich's Jews were herded into the synagogue and burnt to death.  In the 1700's, Munich authorities made it illegal to build a sukkah.

For Sky Art '83, Mel built a sukkah at the entrance to the BMW Museum in Munich that was attacked by a neo-Nazi motorcycle gang.

Although they failed to destroy the sukkah, they smashed the table holding earth from Israel that had cast its shadow on the sukkah floor.

The scattered earth was swept up.  Mel spread it on the grass at the site of Hitler's death camp in Dachau.

He wrote from multiple viewpoints the word sukkah with Hebrew letters constructed from rebar rods discarded at a building site.

(See all the photos for the blog post above at http://bibleblogyourlife.blogspot.com and more photos and texts about my art projects mentioned at my website http://melalexenberg.com.) 

GERMAN-ARAB PARTNERSHIP IN EXTERMINATING JEWS

Current Palestinian leaders from Fatah to Hamas are the heirs of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who joined the Nazis in exterminating Jews.  Below is the Nuremberg trial testimony of SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dieter Wisliceny (Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man):

“According to my own opinion, the Grand Mufti [Hajj Amin al Husseini], who has been in Berlin since 1941, played a role in the decision of the German Government to exterminate the European Jews, the importance of which must not be disregarded. He had repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he has been in contact, above all before Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution of the Palestine problem. In his messages broadcast from Berlin, he surpassed us in anti-Jewish attacks. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and has constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber at Auschwitz.”

In the last election for a Palestinian parliament, the majority in both the West Bank and Gaza elected Hamas whose charter reads: 

“Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims…. Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma introducing fundamental changes in educational curricula: 'I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.'”

PROPOSAL TO DOUBLE THE SIZE OF BERLIN HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL

In the tradition of Picasso’s Guernica extended into networked times, I created the “Future Holocaust Memorials” blogart project http://futureholocaustmemorials.blogspot.com  to prevent a second Holocaust before Islamists worldwide from Tehran to Gaza execute their plans to wipe Israel off the map with the acquiescence of the EU and UN.  As a wake-up call to those nations that cried crocodile tears as they built Holocaust memorials, I offer to double the size of their memorials in advance to the extermination of the other 6,000,000 Jews living in Israel today.  Never again?

70 years after Holocaust #1, Germany was quick to sign off on a deal with Iran so that it can profit from Holocaust #2.  It leads the EU that passed a resulution to boycott Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria choosing to forget that the Holocaust began with the boycott of Jewish businesses in Germany.  The EU resolution was passed at the time when Kristallnacht was publicly remembered.   On the ‘night of broken glass’ Germany upgraded its boycott in 1938 to murder Jews, destroy Jewish businesses, demolish thousands of Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools, burn down 1,000 synagogues, and ship 30,000 Jews off to Nazi concentration camps. 

My “Future Holocaust Memorials” blogart project that I began a decade ago follows in the tradition of Picasso’s Guernica crying out against the bombing practice by Hitler’s burgeoning war machine killing hundreds in a little Basque village in northern Spain in 1937.  Just as the world’s acquiescence to Hitler’s raining bombs on the village of Guernica gave him the license to proceed with preparing for WW II and exterminating the Jews of Europe on his way to global conquest, the world’s indifference to the thousands of rockets launched against Israel by Iran’s proxy armies, Hamas and Hezbollah, are empowering Iran to annihilate the Jews of Israel as a prelude to global conquest.  

As Germany joins in mourning the victims of Islamic jihadist’s terrorist rampage in Paris, Arabs in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority celebrate.  Although more Jews have been murdered per capita by Arab terrorists in the past month in Israel, no one put the Israeli flag on their Facebook pages like the French tricolors splashed everywhere.           

I propose upgrading the Berlin monument that Germany commissioned to commemorate their having exterminated the first 6,000,000 Jews.  It is a sprawling field of 2,700 stone slabs. I propose doubling its size by adding 2,700 more stone slabs as a future memorial to the six million Jews of Israel incinerated by an Iranian nuclear bomb. 5,400 stone slabs for twelve million Jews murdered.

70 years of Holocaust #1, Germany was quick to sign off on a deal with Iran so that it can profit from Holocaust #2. As Iran’s major European trading partner today, German businessmen are whetting at the bit to end sanctions.   Even before the agreement was ratified, and sanctions lifted, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel flew to Teheran to be the first in line to make billions through renewed trade with Iran.  The Germans were there two weeks after the virulent anti-Semitic al-Quds parade lead by President Rouhani celebrating Iran’s intention to destroy the Jewish state. 

Instead of telling the Iranians to end their Holocaust denial, support for terrorism, genocidal threats, the Germans are busy arranging to reach ten billion worth of business per year, including the sale of dual-use technologies to boost Iran’s nuclear and missile development. 

Nurenberg Trial Testimony: Grand Mufti encouraged Hitler to exterminate Jews as solution to Palestine problem

Palestinian leaders from Fatah to Hamas are the heirs of the Grand Mufti who joined the Nazis in anti-Jewish attacks

According to my own opinion, the Grand Mufti [Hajj Amin al Husseini], who has been in Berlin since 1941, played a role in the decision of the German Government to exterminate the European Jews, the importance of which must not be disregarded. He had repeatedly suggested to the various authorities with whom he has been in contact, above all before Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He considered this as a comfortable solution of the Palestine problem. In his messages broadcast from Berlin, he surpassed us in anti-Jewish attacks. He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and has constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber at Auschwitz.
—Nuremberg trial testimony of  SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dieter Wisliceny (Adolf Eichmann’s right-hand man)
 

In the last election for a Palestinian parliament, the majority in both the West Bank and Gaza elected Hamas whose charter reads:  

“Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims…. Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma introducing fundamental changes in educational curricula: 'I swear by that who holds in His Hands the Soul of Muhammad! I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill.'”