Eugenics in Israel: Did Jews try to improve the human race too?

This article was published by Israeli daily Haaretz. I am very disturbed by its content and the topic.

Last update - 06:08 15/05/2009

Eugenics in Israel: Did Jews try to improve the human race too?

By Yotam Feldman

In 1944, psychiatrist Kurt Levinstein gave a lecture at a Tel Aviv conference, where he advocated preventing people with various mental and neurological disorders - such as alcoholism, manic depression and epilepsy - from bringing children into the world.

The means he proposed - prohibition of marriage, contraception, abortion and sterilization - were acceptable in Europe and the United States in the first decades of the 20th century, within the framework of eugenics: the science aimed at improving the human race.

In the 1930s, the Nazis used these same methods in the early stages of their plan to strengthen the Aryan race. Levinstein was aware, of course, of the dubious political connotations implicit in his recommendations, but believed the solid and salutary principles of eugenics could be isolated from their use by the Nazis.

Recent research by historian Rakefet Zalashik on the history of psychiatry in Palestine during the Mandate period and following the founding of the state shows that Levinstein was far from a lone voice. Indeed, she claims in her 2008 book, "Ad Nefesh: Refugees, Immigrants, Newcomers and the Israeli Psychiatric Establishment" (Hakibbutz Hameuchad; in Hebrew), that the eugenics-based concept of "social engineering" was part of the psychiatric mainstream here from the 1930s through the 1950s.

Jewish psychiatrists in Israel were not the only ones who tried to distinguish between the science of eugenics, which they held to be useful, and the Nazis' application of it. What set the local experts apart was that they actually studied the foundations of the theory in Germany before immigrating to Palestine, directly from the scientists who supported using eugenics to forcibly sterilize mentally ill and physically disabled Germans - and subsequently to justify their murder. Within a few years, the German scientists were using the same justification for killing Jews.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1085596.html

I remember seeing one show on the History channel (years ago, before they turned into the bigfoot and UFO channel) where they showed how 28 states (I think) had enacted mandatory sterilization laws even before Nazi Germany did. It wouldn't surprise me if eugenics had adherents in Israel, even though anybody there who clung to that belief should have doubly known better.

(Edit: Fix typo)

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Mandatory government sterilization is very different. Apples and oranges, and your implications suck too. No group is without sins.

Your attempt to smear a poster based upon an article from a reputable source, coupled with the fact you obviously did not read the entire article, shows a somewhat shallow intellect.

That's eugenics too, based on the idea that a life with Down's isn't worth living.

I saw plenty that criticized her exploitation of the child, and what appeared to many parents of special needs children to be a disregard for that child's needs. I have known several people with Down's syndrome, none of thier parents used them as props for political gain, not one.
So although I find such requests tiresome, a link would be in order, for you say 'a lot of DUers' said she should not have had that child. Prove your claim.

:rofl:



Will read post and links now.