Review: The Avatar of Evil, by Andria Spindel
Diane Bederman has developed a new literary genre, surprisingly lyrical for an uncomfortable topic—age old Jew-hatred. In her latest book, author, chaplain and blogger, Bederman develops the theme of antisemitism traversing time, using the imagery of a serpent that wraps its slippery smooth, suffocating body around the Amaleks of history, delivering the red thread of hatred to an evil persona in every era. Shockingly, there is an evil person, political movement, culture or religion that pervades every era of human history, and turns its wrath on the Jew.
The Serpent and the Red Thread, in only 98 pages including an Afterword, draws together well researched historical information, Biblical references, and personal narrative, invoking an ever present avatar of evil. One doesn’t have to ask if the “embodiment of evil” is the idea or the person, as the serpent slithers through history, across continents and through cultures and religions. It has been the same throughout time, since human’s populated the earth and the notion of one eternal God was given to the world by the Jews, along with the concepts of “hope,” “justice,” “equality. There is no antecedent to Jew hatred, no identifiable `cause` or rational explanation. Once the thread is passed to the next avatar, it permeates the place, the people, religion or political movement, and spreads its infectious, deceitful lies. The result is often deadly.
Jew hatred has many incarnations, from daily thrusts of word daggers, to the denigration and dislocation of a community, to the total dehumanization of the Jewish people. From localized pogroms in Eastern Europe to those in Mesopotamia, from forced conversions to expulsions and genocides, and the most destructive and terrible tragedy ever perpetrated on a people, the Holocaust. The `red thread` travelled to Germany and found fertile soil within adolf hitler, whose name is never capitalized by Bederman. Hitler is the persona of evil, who would sacrifice even the economy of Germany in his pursuit of the total destruction of Jewish life. He intended not just to eliminate anyone he deemed had `Jewish blood,`but to also eliminate all of Jewish memory, history and contribution. The disease caught on and the serpent slithered on with the red thread in its mouth, even after the master of fallacious claims of race science, hitler, was dead. The work of the Nazis continued under the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al-husseini, a confrer of hitler and co-conspirator, who was given the latter`s blanket approval to murder the Jews in Palestine and those coming from Europe to Palestine.
In allegorical style, invoking magical moments that recount Biblical characters, Bederman shines light on a story of darkness. Juxtaposed with what might have been, how much more light the Jews might have shone on the world, had they survived, Bederman, asks the toughest question: Where was God? If the Jews gave the world God, why did God not protect the Jews, and if the sons and daughters of Abraham (Christian and Muslim) accepted one God, then why did they also murder God?
In this powerful composite of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, which Diane Bederman has so-well crafted, we see her love for her Jewish heritage; she takes courageous action to name and shame the current avatar of evil. Islam! It is through the Muslim Brotherhood and all of its incarnations, be they associations, charities, mosques, movements, or just political messaging, whether nationalist or localized in nature, in covert operations claiming justice or peace, they are a fraud. They are demonstrably part of a greater plan, to reduce Western civilization to a shell of itself, eliminate democracy, freedom of choice, speech and religion. The choice for freedom lovers, for Jews, and other minorities, is no choice—it’s the age-old battle to right the wrong, crush the hatred with truth, with justice, with laws, and with compassion for humanity.