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

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

Is that the point of this thread?

There actually was a 'British Eugenics Society' in the early 20th century. The movement was not confined to Nazis, though obviously they took it to particularly horrifying extremes.

Why is it important now accept to liken Israelis to Nazis.

I don't think Israelis, Americans or Brits are like Nazis.

I don't compare anyone to Nazis, except Nazis and neo-Nazis.

The OP and this thread topic were designed to conflate Jews and Nazis once again. When any two Jews do something it tends the become "the Jews".

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Is the Israeli author, Yotam Feldman and Israel's newspaper of record, Haaretz attempting to say Israelis are no different than the Nazis?

I would tend to doubt it.

author's intent. Nice try though. Since this is an I/P forum, I doubt the poster is interested in posting just any old article in an Israeli newspaper and his feeling vis a vis Israel are well known.

...yet can't get her gender correct (when it's right there in her profile).

"..his feeling vis a vis Israel are well known."

Kudos genius.

I can't wait for your brilliant explanation .

"Welcome to the Democratic Underground Israeli/Palestinian Affairs discussion forum. As you know, this is where you may discuss issues surrounding the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians"

The article has NOTHING to do with I/P conflict but it DOES put Israel and Nazi in the same arena. The intent is clear and there is NOTHING you can say that will change that simple, obvious fact.

OTOH the OP COULD say if there was some other intent or if she didn't get the DU guidelines. Perhaps this was moved from one of the more appropriate health topics forums and I somehow missed that.

...y'know, like ones about honour killings, about Israeli advances in science, etc. Just a tad hypocritical that yr getting all stringent now....

Here's a fact as opposed to yr ill-founded but much repeated mantra: the article does NOT put Israel and the Nazis in the same arena at all. What's abundantly clear is that yr one of those folk like the online antichoicers who thinks that eugenics = Nazi and have no understanding or interest in the history of eugenics and the impact its left in most countries...

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Not too long ago there was one on advances in Israeli science regarding diagnosing skin cancer. Will you be needing a link to it before you apologise?

on edit: Here's the link. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x269836

Now, surely you aren't trying to claim there haven't been quite a few threads here in this forum that have nothing to do with the I/P conflict, but are to do with internal Israeli or Palestinian issues?

Maybe some of them are reporters. Maybe ....well, you get the idea.

Actually anyone who knows Israel at all would never ask that question in the first place.

The reaction to reading nothing but the article title reminds me of the online anti-choicers who carried on hysterically calling Margaret Sanger a Nazi because she was an advocate of eugenics. Back in those days eugenics was considered to be a legitimate field of science, and the article points out that psychiatrists tried to separate it from the Nazis extreme application of it, and that psychiatry in Israel was ten to twenty years behind that in the West, which explains why it was clung to while it was being dropped elsewhere...

"Zalashik asserts that traces of the eugenic viewpoint are still to be found within the Israeli medical system.

"Israel is a superpower in terms of pre-pregnancy tests and abortions," she says. "Abortions are performed here on the slightest pretext, including aesthetic flaws such as a cleft palate. The notion that there are some babies that shouldn't be born is part of the eugenic philosophy."

Furthermore, is it wacko for Israel's leading newspaper to examine with a critical mind, Israel's own history, even the parts that don't necessarily sound so nice?

alas, the usual suspects seem reluctant to move beyond their simple minded Post modern drivel.

alas, the usual suspects seem reluctant to move beyond their simple minded 'OMG! OMG! He/She/It/They said Israel = Nazis!!!" drivel...

Ha'aretz has about 1/8th the circulation of Yedioth Ahronoth which is Israel's leading newspaper, and about 1/3rd the circulation of Ma'ariv, Israel's second most widely read newspaper.

Although with the decline of newspapers, who knows how this landscape will change.

Israel experts on this forum. I admire your stamina in correcting them; almost a full time job. :applause:

"Zalashik asserts that traces of the eugenic viewpoint are still to be found within the Israeli medical system.

"Israel is a superpower in terms of pre-pregnancy tests and abortions," she says. "Abortions are performed here on the slightest pretext, including aesthetic flaws such as a cleft palate. The notion that there are some babies that shouldn't be born is part of the eugenic philosophy."

TRANSLATION......those nasty Israelis are STILL acting like their Nazi mentors!!!!!

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this reminds me of Republicans who criticize Democrats who oppose torture by saying that they hate America and support Al Qaeda.

previous stances on many things. But I know postmodernist deconstructionists hate it when the deconstruction is turned on them. Sorry about your luck.

most people take me as an old fashioned and moralistic prude.

I don't know whether I'm suppose to be insulted or flattered.

But I really do think you should consider chilling out just a bit, learn to listen to others and think before jumping to conclusions.

Palestinian solidarity work and involved in the general cause of seeking reconciliation between Jews, Christians and Muslims and reconciliation between the West and the Arab and Islamic world are actually fairly socially-conservative people, at least in their own personal lives.

This coalition includes lots of people involved with church groups and religious groups of all sorts. There is a whole range of people of all walks of life who are concerned about these issues.

My own recent interest was aroused when back in late 2001 I learned about a talk given by a couple who were actually Evangelical-Christians who had worked in the West Bank.

If you think this cause is dominated by a coalition of anti-Semites and 60's era moral relevist - you are making assumptions about people that simply are outside of reality.

This movement includes people of all sorts who support a just and lasting peace based on old-fashioned fairness - hardly a value limited to "post modernist reconstructionist" - whatever on earth that means. "Postmodernist Reconstructionist" sounds like the kind of nonsense wacko right-wing extremist Republicans like William Bork or William Bennett or the National Review or the Weekly standard would cook up.

All of that aside this article posted above was written by an Israeli and for the Israeli public. If anything the article calls upon Israelis to question the relevist ethics of "post modernist reconstructionism".

bullshit baffles brains. Quite simply it is a belief that the old truths are false because there ARE no truths, merely "narratives." So, anytyhing presented as a truth (also known as a FACT)is to be deconstructed (torn into lil bits) and reconstituted as new narratives. Thus, the lil FACTS of apartheid, or Holocaust, or genocide or Nazism can bloom into the full fledged version of these things in hithereto inappropriate comparisons made kosher by the deconstruction and new narrative. And, no, it's not relegated to one ideology altho it is rampant in the far left and far right.

The opposite of it is critical thinking relying on rational facts and truths rather than analogies and narratives which are after all only made up stories. One of my favorite examples of the trick is the statement that history is written by the victor. You see, there is a logic in that statement and a certain truth as well but when taken to extremes one gets revisionist history which is of course not a good thing. Those of us looking for the truth might become like, say, ethical new historians where the old narrative is questioned but ONLY where it is false or emotionally drawn and then we would hesitate to then replace it with just another false or emotionally based narrative.

Since I consider you a pretty bright guy who too often unfortunately gets drawn into these canards, I would humbly suggest you research the concept a bit especially since you once made a reference to "junk science," which leads me to believe you have an inkling about these canards and tropes.

And BTW it is not always one's fault that they get duped by these methods since it has become the hallmark of much of what constitutes education and journalism these days IMHO. I suspect that the discovery of the quantum world has also contributed to the allure of these methods.

to overcome racial, ethnic and religious prejudices about other peoples.

Another step would be not to make assumptions about people and groups of people you don't know anything about.

step. Pity. From here on in I will recognize its futile to reach out to someone who seems to think I harbour "racial, ethnic and religious prejudices about other peoples."


:banghead:

I was having a similar discussion the other day.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x274567#274872

basically the same response there as you're getting here. IOW, they have a right to rant and scream in their righteous indignation and accuse their opponents of bigotry. Meanwhile they don't need to defend their views (probably b/c they realize they're incapable of doing so). "My narrative trumps yours" for reasons that do not need to be explained. This is not progressive/liberal talk.

meme came to be seen as the new truth. A narrative is after all, like a painting, representative of something but not the real thing. They are simply someone's stories. MY "left," use to be smart enough to know this and avoid falling for charlatans and carnie barkers.

Israelis are the same as Nazis or anything of the sort. I did find one post where she suggested supporters of California Proposition 8 were comparable to NEO - Nazis. I find that a bit hyperbolic myself. But I am sure she has her reasons to feel that way.

IG (who I understand is Jewish) does sometimes use stronger language than I would chose. But I cannot find ANYWHERE IG has EVER suggested Israelis are the same as Nazis or anything remotely like that.

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Lack of reading comprehension is a standard thing at places like FR, but in this forum it's assumed that most folk have the intelligence to read an article before commenting on it...

"Zalashik asserts that traces of the eugenic viewpoint are still to be found within the Israeli medical system.

"Israel is a superpower in terms of pre-pregnancy tests and abortions," she says. "Abortions are performed here on the slightest pretext, including aesthetic flaws such as a cleft palate. The notion that there are some babies that shouldn't be born is part of the eugenic philosophy."

How on earth do you manage to twist anything in that article into Israel = Nazis?

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"Israel is no better then Nazi Germany!" I don't see how this impacts anything today.

embraced by some here. You know; just being critical of Israeli policies and all.

:sarcasm:

To them it seems to say a bad word about Israel and as such its antisemitism and not worth reading *eye rolls*

I agree with you tho, i wish they and other people on other threads would start actually reading the proper articles before starting to throw accusations at everybody(and specifically the creator of those topics)

"Zalashik asserts that traces of the eugenic viewpoint are still to be found within the Israeli medical system.

"Israel is a superpower in terms of pre-pregnancy tests and abortions," she says. "Abortions are performed here on the slightest pretext, including aesthetic flaws such as a cleft palate. The notion that there are some babies that shouldn't be born is part of the eugenic philosophy."

TRANSLATION....Those damn Israelis are STILL acting like NAZIS.

Pardon the repetition but I feel some of you reading Kings are not really all that swift after all.

Is she correct in her statement on abortions or is her claims a lie?

Since I'm not in Israel nor do i feel like starting to study its medical practices i can't really debate those two statements.

And i see nothing supporting that translation, i see a claim that there are still some traces of Eugenics(which there might be since there will almost always be some traces left of most things in anything people do or have done). If i were to do something weird, others looking at it and comparing it to 'whatever' would likely find some traces that could support that view, besides Eugenics is not the same things as Nazis

So WHY are the Nazis brought up in relation to the history of Israel. The postmodern explanation is that since there are no REAL truths, then it is quite possible, maybe even likely that early Israelis were quite capable of acting like Nazis and, as you suggest, some still ARE with "traces," and such.

The Israel=Nazi meme is well known. This is just another wolf in sheeps clothing

It has something to do with the way they took it to the far extremes, and it's ridiculous and ignorant to claim that any article about the history of eugenics in Israel that mentions the Nazis is saying Israel=Nazis. Then again, you've claimed in the past that criticism of the IDF = blood libel, so yr performance in this thread is pretty predictable...

one must also admit that an ungodly amount of medical knowledge that is used everywhere these days would likely never have been discovered if they hadn't done it(or have been delayed large number of decades).

This obviously does not excuse their excesses but the benefits do deserve to be mentioned alongside all the evil that was done.


Totally unrelated tho,I must admit there are days i wish i basically had an 'earth' simulator where i could load up any situation that have happened in our history and basically just see what would have happened if 'this' or 'that' had not happened or if actually had, but then I've always loved the 'what if' scenarios.

It was an article about psychiatrists attitudes towards eugenics, and how psychiatrists tried to separate eugenics from the Nazis extreme use of it. I found the article interesting coz I learnt about eugenics from being interested in Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), but the likes of Sezu don't have the vaguest understanding of the history of eugenics and aren't interested in anything but slapping antisemitism labels on anything it thinks doesn't show Israel in a glowing light....

but a way of saying, "Israel's no better than anybody else is so there's no reason to consider yourself better--as liberals living in Country X , we know this to be true, and in our humility we're better than our political foes who consider Country X to be superior to others because of things we don't approve of or want to admit are good traits because, well, they're espoused by our political foes."

It's not saying something bad, per se, but denies one's foe the ability to say something good in sersvice to the interests of jingoism or patriotism differently construed.

"Lots of people have been bad in this way, we're not free of the taint either in our past or in our present, so who are we to talk?"

It is bound to add to the tensions in this forum - although I understand that it may well have been moved here or locked if posted elsewhere :(

www.eugenicsarchive.org

Includes a lot on the history of eugencics - mostly in America, but also with mention of other countries.