Just a few days ago, the Israeli government approved a bill that would “impose penalties of up to six months in jail and a $25,000 fine for using the word ‘Nazi’ or Holocaust symbols for purposes other than teaching, documentation or research.”
This wonderful infringement on my freedom of expression gave me the urge to write a quick note to my 120 public representatives in the Knesset.
13 January, 2012
Knesset
Kiryat Ben Gurion
Jerusalem 91950
Dear Members of Knesset,
Before you turn the bill which prohibits using the word “Nazi” into law, I just wanted to get a few things of my chest:
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!! Nazis!!!
Thanks for listening, and I appreciate all your hard work,
Ami Kaufman
Bat YamCitizen who wonders when this nightmare will be over
January 13, 2012
5:26 am
Well done, Ami!
January 13, 2012
5:38 am
This made me lol
and what’s the justification behind banning the word nazi again? Are we still going to pretend taht Israel is a liberal democratic state in this case?
January 13, 2012
5:52 am
Hmm… Good start… Rambling middle and a sincere ending.
Not a booker prize but one for the comedy awards. Very funny!
What about raiders of the lost ark – serious question – will that still be shown?
“I hate nazis” – he says…
January 13, 2012
6:25 am
Next: the Israeli Knesset will seek to ban the word Apartheid, and then it will make it illegal to draw attention to the similarities between what is going on in Israel now and what happened in other regimes where the specter of fascism not only hovered above the heads of the citizenry but also enveloped their society… Argentina, Chile, Spain, etc. etc. etc…
January 13, 2012
7:28 am
Is it sure this is forbidden in future? Is not the purpose of this post to teach the Knesset a lesson and educate them in civil rights?
January 13, 2012
8:50 am
Just to let you know i think your great and so lucky to be able to do that.israei is such a boring country it makes me wonder why anyone would ever want to live there.GOD bless you
January 13, 2012
8:53 am
Very funny
Although if this law is passed it will have very serious ramifications. Aside from the loss of the right to make Holocaust jokes in poor taste (a very Israeli thing to do) this will render control over the narrative of the Holocaust entirely in official hands.
I have come to find the discussion of the Holocaust within the mainstream Israeli education curriculum to be very problematic. The focus is entirely on the modus operandi of the extermination. There is no discussion of Jewish life before this catastrophic and traumatic event except as a build-up to the Holocaust; anti-Semitism, Dreyfuss Affair and so on. Israelis sadly have absolutely no idea of the vast Jewish civilization that was destroyed by the Nazis. The Jewish intellectual role in the 1848 revolutions, their active participation in the formation of Czech, Polish, German and Hungarian nationalities. The fact that the Holocaust didn’t happen overnight; it took four-years of constant Nazi propaganda in Czechoslovakia, for example, before a large segment of the populace there turned their backs on the Jewish fellows.
My suspicion is that teach about Jewish life (just as teaching Mizrachi history is absent) before the Holocaust ontologically challenges the very bases of Zionist ideology. Without the Holocaust, without Nazism, it is doubtful that European Jews would have abandoned their culturally rich and integrated lives in Europe or the Middle East. Just as we are witnessing now Israel turning its back on the Diaspora in North America, Zionism as an ideology can not deal with empirical evidence of thriving Jewish civilization outside Israel. This is without even going into the complicated debate about how Israeli efforts at “Zionist assimilation” contributed to the destruction on Jewish civilization in Europe and elsewhere (e.g., Indian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Moroccan Jews, et al).
January 13, 2012
11:15 am
The only article of yours that I endorse 100 percent.
January 13, 2012
1:43 pm
There is one spelling error–but the message does not seem to be particularily impeded by it.
January 13, 2012
3:03 pm
Goodness….. how many words are going to be banned? “Nazi” doesn’t have the sting it had previously. Folks use it all the time. I prefer to use word facist.
Would Israeli people with the last name with Nazi in it be forced to change it?
Too many questions as to how to enforce this. LOL
January 13, 2012
3:39 pm
Will it still be OK to call Ahmadinejad Hitler?
January 13, 2012
6:31 pm
Like other crimes in Israel, this one will be enforced on the basis of who you are, not what you’ve done.
January 13, 2012
10:25 pm
Ami–Aaron agrees. There’s an extra point here, I think.
February 17, 2012
12:44 pm
At 250 violations in the above letter (I’m not counting the “Nazi” in the intro paragraph, since it was in quotation marks), Ami Kaufman will have to pay a $6,250,000 fine, and serve 125 years in prison.
You would’ve gotten off cheaper and easier if you’d been a mass murderer.
GL