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David Swindle 🟦's avatar

Sounds interesting. Tell me more.

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The FOJ 449331's avatar

Right now? Okay! I admire your mission and value your personal attention. So let me begin with saying I once had a genius for a student. As an 8th grader (in 2010) he came from a prestigious family of artists. I told the story of this man in question and he brought his stories home. One day, he came to me during lunch-time and said ‘okay my father (who was a teacher himself at an elite private school) said 'if you can link this man to Vietnam, I will believe you that he was the most powerful man of the twentieth century.’) My student’s father had been a medical officer during the Vietnam war. I took up the challenge gladly and said ‘Before the Ho Chi Minh Trail was called thus, it was known as the “Averell Harriman Highway.” Both my student and his father verified what I had said and I rested contentedly that I had educated a couple of fellow humans. Incidentally, this man is key to understanding Anglo-American antisemitism.

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David Swindle 🟦's avatar

Thank you for your kindness. What does he have to do with antisemitism?

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The FOJ 449331's avatar

He had a lot to do with Hitler's ascendancy to power and started a private Wall St. Bank in 1930 that didn't hire a Jewish partner until after his death (in the 1980's) - he also was in a position during WWII to alert America that the Holocaust was happening but didn't, and indirectly stopped the Allies from bombing the train tracks that they knew led to concentration camps. Overall, though, I think antisemitism is a tricky topic - I don't think there's direct evidence of him saying anything against Judaism. And, for instance, I think Arthur Balfour was an enemy of the Jews, but I've found many Jewish people disagree. I'm not Jewish and I realized my perspective is often not credited.

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David Swindle 🟦's avatar

That’s very interesting, thank you for sharing. I will research further.

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