In memory of Hedy Epstein

I'm deeply saddened to tell you that our dear friend Hedy Epstein passed away yesterday. She was 91.
Hedy, a holocaust survivor, was a courageous fighter for justice for all. I thought I'd share a few personal memories of Hedy.
I first met Hedy about a dozen years ago when I gave a talk in St. Louis. Hedy, who had already been working for Palestinian rights for many years, came up to me after my talk and was wonderfully encouraging and supportive.
A few years later I was making a short video (youtu.be/LIBDUChaizQ) exposing Israel's practice of strip-searching Palestinian women and children. Hedy, who had also endured a particularly cruel example of this treatment, agreed to tell her story on camera.
I travelled to Hedy's home, where she recounted her painful and powerful story. At the end of her narrative, Hedy described her deep outrage and feeling that she would never again return to Israel.
However, Israeli officials had taken on the wrong person when they thought that their perverse treatment of Hedy would diminish her activism. She returned to Palestine many times to take part in the nonviolence resistance movement.
The next time I saw Hedy was in France in 2007, where I was visiting longtime Palestine activist Greta Berlin. (Greta was in the process of founding what turned into the flotilla movement.) Greta said that Hedy was going to be visiting soon, as was Mary Hughes-Thompson, another longtime activist for Palestine and flotilla founder.
Greta suddenly came up with the idea that since random circumstances had caused us to converge, we should take the opportunity to travel to Palestine together. Greta, who did a great deal of traveling for her job, said she would use her airline miles to get us all tickets.
Before going to Palestine, however, we all visited a Nazi camp where Hedy's mother had been imprisoned after Hedy's parents had sent 14-year-old Hedy on a kindertransport to safety in England. Hedy, who had never seen her parents again, had determined to visit each of the camps in which they had been held. I believe this was the only one she hadn't yet visited. This was an intensely sad experience, but it also seemed to give Hedy some sense of closure. I was glad that Greta had made this possible.
We then began our trip to Palestine. We were a somewhat unusual team: I was 61, Hedy was 83, and Greta and Mary were in between. Like virtually all trips to the Occupied Territories, we saw tragedy and beauty, violence and courage, joy and grief. We cried and laughed together.
(I sent some of my photos from this trip to Mary and Greta last month to upload on a special Facebook page honoring Hedy, @Hedy Epstein: We Love you)
I remember one time Hedy was almost arrested by Israeli soldiers. They wouldn't let her through the checkpoint out of Hebron with Palestinians and the rest of us, because Hedy was Jewish. The soldiers insisted that Hedy take the Israeli settlers' route, which Hedy adamantly refused to do. The soldiers finally gave up, and Hedy, who was about 5 feet tall, triumphantly passed through the Palestinian route.
The last time I saw Hedy was a few months ago.
After the JVP-USCEIO attacks on me, Hedy signed the Open Letter supporting me and calling for an end to such destructive and divisive attacks (stopdivisiveattacks.wordpress.com). I was truly honored that Hedy chose to do this, and saddened that she then came under attack herself when she refused to give in to pressure by USCEIO leaders to remove her name. In fact, rather than bend to their demands, Hedy arranged an official library talk for me at the St. Louis Main Library, and the room was full.
When the attacks on Hedy continued, California activist Jane Jewell, outraged at the way Hedy was being treated, invited Hedy for an extended visit, and held a delightful party for Hedy where a variety of San Francisco Bay Area activists came to honor Hedy. Some of us also took turns driving Hedy to various events and activities, and I was the fortunate one to take Hedy to a demonstration in downtown San Francisco that Hedy wished to join. At 91.
I'm just one of numerous people around the world who have such memories of Hedy. Hedy stood up for the underdog, opposed abuse of power, and worked valiantly and consistently for a kinder, more just world. And in so doing she inspired multitudes. She was brave, funny, intelligent, and committed. For her, "never again" meant Never Again.
When justice for Palestinians eventually comes, history will show that Hedy helped bring it about.
I miss her.
—Alison Weir



Absolutely wonderful women, fighting for right up to the end.   RIP Hedy, you earned it.

Rest in peace Hedy after a long and courageously-lived life X

TY for sharing this human interest story about Hedy with us, Sassy.  What a glorious little woman with a heart of a lion ...would have loved to hear her relate those personal stories first hand, so much humanity within that petite little woman frame! AMAZING!

Epstein spoke about the situation in the occupied territories, and about her own life and experiences, for audiences in the United States. Prior to a talk at Stanford University on October 20, 2004, fliers promoting her presentation "juxtaposed an image of Jews in Nazi Germany with an image of Palestinians at Israeli checkpoints", according to a news article in The Stanford Daily. After an "appalled" reaction from members of Stanford's Jewish community, event organizers stated that no "direct comparison" was intended by the posters, or would be heard in Epstein's remarks. Epstein echoed these sentiments, avoided comparisons between Nazis and Israelis, and spent little time discussing her background in Nazi Germany, wrote The Daily. However, throughout the speech, audience members, many associated with off-campus Jewish organizations, interrupted her talk with shouts of outrage, and extra campus security quietly moved in.^[9]
Reactions to the talk were sharply divided. Adina Danzig, president of Stanford's Hillel organization called the lecture "an abuse of history" and hoped that "this event and the isolated interruptions by a few individuals were an aberration". While acknowledging Epstein's general statement about avoiding comparison, Danzig stated that the "disclaimer did not undo the damage" and that "[Epstein] made several remarks drawing the [Israeli-Nazi] parallel".^[10]
Nathan Mintz, vice-president of the Stanford Israel Alliance, condemned "Epstein's rhetoric of drawing comparisons of the initial stages of the Holocaust to the current situation in Gaza and the West Bank" as "outright demonization of Jews" representing "only one piece of what is a much larger trend of anti-Semitism on college campuses today." He added that Epstein's ISM colleagues have "direct ties to terrorist organizations," and that "The atmosphere currently on campuses is not one in which a constructive dialogue about the conflict can legitimately take place."^[11]


In contrast, a supporter of Epstein condemned these as "misrepresentations and false charges", citing off-campus activists who, "with the intention of disrupting the event", handed out fliers "demonizing" Epstein and "frequently yelled at and interrupted" her. "At one point, he wrote a man suddenly jumped up while Epstein was talking and recited what appeared to be a prepared statement informing her of pending legal actions against her." He asked why Mintz "failed to mention any of the egregious events" of this sort and "submitted his op-ed before actually seeing the event."^[12]


In response to controversy over the paper's initial coverage of the story,^[3] "an issue that has come to define more than one volume of the paper," The Stanford Daily's reader editor Jennifer Graham acknowledged that "plenty — if not unfairly too much" coverage was given to the claims of Epstein's critics. She also apologized for the "wrong" and "misleading" decision to run Mintz's op-ed criticizing Epstein's speech before it had happened. "There are claims, that I can neither confirm nor deny, that Mintz's column factually misrepresents the substance of Epstein's speech", she wrote.^[13]
As a "constructive response" to Epstein's presentation, members of several campus Jewish organizations invited Harvard professor Ruth Wisse to speak at Stanford. "While her audience ate Challah bread and drank champagne for the Kiddush", wrote The Stanford Daily, Wisse placed sole blame for Palestinian suffering on the Arab world and on Palestinian politics, and argued that since opposition to the Jews was the only thing that the Arab world had in common, the center of Arab politics became anti-Semitism.^[14] Stanford student Ahmed Ashraf responded with an op-ed contrasting the "pro-Israelis (sic) outraged by Epstein's support for the Palestinians" to the "perfectly respectful" behavior of Arab and Muslim attendees to Wisse's talk, "even as the acidic torrent of hate rained down on them." ^[15]


An Anti-Defamation League report from the next year characterized Epstein's talk as an "example of anti-Israel campus activism" which "would meet both the United States government's and [Israeli cabinet] Minister Nathan Sharansky's definitions of anti-Semitism," for "comparing Nazi treatment of Jews to Israeli treatment of Palestinians."^[16]


An online publication of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs cited Epstein's talk on the same subject at the University of California, Santa Cruz among "activities that spill over into various forms of hate-speech demonizing both Israelis and Jews" [which] "compared Israel to a Nazi state and Israeli soldiers to Nazis."^[17]


In 2008, the Missouri regional director for the Anti-Defamation League noted, "For someone like Hedy, who came out of the Jewish community at a very difficult time, to criticize Israel ... well, it's difficult. Some people perceive it as disloyal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Epstein


She seems like a left wing idiot to me. She may well have been a survivor, but that does not then make it alright to make such vile falsified claims as she did
Another one making unfounded comparrisons to Nazism
That is using the same tactis of the nazi's, to dehumanize people.
Having said that, may she RIP

4EVER2 wrote:TY for sharing this human interest story about Hedy with us, Sassy.  What a glorious little woman with a heart of a lion ...would have loved to hear her relate those personal stories first hand, so much humanity within that petite little woman frame! AMAZING!

It always amazes me how some of the strongest, wisest and feistiest people come in small female packages lol

sassy wrote:

4EVER2 wrote:TY for sharing this human interest story about Hedy with us, Sassy.  What a glorious little woman with a heart of a lion ...would have loved to hear her relate those personal stories first hand, so much humanity within that petite little woman frame! AMAZING!

It always amazes me how some of the strongest, wisest and feistiest people come in small female packages lol

I hardly think she was strong when she succumbed to unfounded lies being made.
That is being weak and being led by others.
A person strong knows that such views that have no right to be made, should never be said as it insults the memory of those who suffered under the Nazi's
Today we see the likes of ISIS and Boko Haram commit some of the worst attrocities possible and yet Israel is vilified as nation as a whole based on costantly defending itself against naked aggression and from people who wish to eraze their very existance
A person who truely advocates peace does not use methods to dehumanize and deligitimize people through lies
They look instead to reconcile people, not make the problem far worse by using the worst hate speech possible

Awwww, ain't that sweet ...some one trying to STINK up a nice thread
Seems your has missed you, Sassy ...now he's back to doubling down on your every topic! 

4EVER2 wrote:Awwww, ain't that sweet ...some one trying to STINK up a nice thread
Seems your has missed you, Sassy ...now he's back to doubling down on your every topic! 

Awwww, bless him, has he been bored lol

4EVER2 wrote:Awwww, ain't that sweet ...some one trying to STINK up a nice thread
Seems your has missed you, Sassy ...now he's back to doubling down on your every topic! 

No its about showing what is wrong when people do not advocate peace, as o do so calls for reconsilliation.
Please explain to me how you reconcile people by inventing lies and dishonouring those who did suffer in the holocaust by making unfounded comparrisons?
If again all you can do is talk about me, it shows again what is wrong with the mindset of the left

There you go, she states apartheid.
Its this form of dehumanizing that is wrong and is simply the same methods used by the Nazi's against the Jews.
Tell me Sassy, how many Muslim majority nations have better rights for women, the LGBT, religious minorities and ethnic minorities, than Israel?
Then tell me why you are being so disingenious and castigating only Jews?