Berkeley fellowship of unitarian universalists sponsors Holocaust denier : AZ IMC

The Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists is sponsoring notorious anti- Semite and holocaust denier Gilad Atzom on June 8 . According to their website, BFUU is model of social justice activism and economic diversity within the Unitarian Universalist movement.

Atzmon is a former Israeli Jew who has renounced his membership in the Jewish people and now supports the far right where it meets up with the extreme left-- at the intersection of paranoid schizophrenia and Jew-hatred known as Holocaust denial.

It's not enough that Atzmon has come up with his own gems such as “American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy” ; “There is no such thing as anti-Semitism”; and
“Why is it that the Jews who repeatedly demand that the Christian world should apologize for its involvement in previous persecutions, have never thought that it is about time that they apologized for killing Jesus?” He also is a strong supporter of the Swedish fascist who goes by the pen name of Israel Shamir. Shamir has written that “we need the voices of David Duke…and Pat Buchanan”, and has claimed that Jews have indeed slaughtered Christian children for their blood (the infamous “blood libel” now being vigorously promoted in some Arab countries), and claimed that “Auschwitz was an internment facility, attended by the Red Cross”. Shamir is so toxic that even extremist Israel-haters such as Ali Abuminah, Sue Blackwell and Jeff Halper dissociate themselves from him in their embarrassment at sharing the same agenda. But Atzmon consistently defends Shamir and calls him "a unique and advanced thinker".

Atzmon is also a fan of one Paul Eisen, a far right ideologue in the UK who wrote an article promoting the Holocaust denial revisionism of Ernst Zundel. Atzmon circulated and promoted the article. Atzmon defended his decision on his own website as follows (T is Tony Greenstein, a Marxist anti-Zionist from the UK-- Atzmon is also too far off the grid for him):

"T: By your own admission you are distributing Eisen’s holocaust denial text.
G: Holocaust Denial is in itself a Zionist terminology and I refuse to accept it or to use it.
T: I understand that you have been distributing Paul Eisen's most recent The Holocaust Wars which denies, in the course of defending Ernest Zundel, that there ever was a holocaust or extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis.
G: Mr Greenstein, True, I circulated Paul Eisen's paper. I do believe that argumentative texts must be circulated as widely as possible."

The Unitarians guiding principle is

Let love be the spirit of this congregation
And service its goal.
This is our living covenant:
To dwell together in peace,
to seek the truths in life,
and to help one another.

Can someone please explain to me how sponsoring a holocaust denier and racist is keeping with that goal?

Please email or call the Berkeley fellowship of unitarian universalists and tell them that hate speech is not free speech.

510-841-4824
office@bfuu.org

Could you please provide more information regarding what the role of the Berkeley Unitarian*Universalist Church is in this controversy? How exactly are they "sponsoring" Gilad Atzom on June 8th? Have representatives of the Berkeley Unitarians made any comment about this matter?

For the record this matter only just came to my attention as a result of someone posting an anonymous comment to The Emerson Avenger blog which exposes and denounces U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy. If I am convinced that U*Us are behaving in a manner that warrants some exposing and denouncing I will do so. Strangely enough this is the second time this week that I have been made aware of Unitarian*Universalists hosting or sponsoring a similarly controversial event. It came to my attention yesterday that the Philadelphia Unitarian Church is (indirectly) hosting a White Supremacist punk rock group or something along those lines.

The original information came from a post at:

http://www.bluetruth.net/2009/05/bay-area-women-in-black-they-hate.html

The Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (BFUU) is neither sponsoring nor hosting nor co-sponsoring nor endorsing Gilad Atzmon. Publicity saying that BFUU's Social Justice Committee is sponsoring the event was not put out by anyone at BFUU and was in error. BFUU members were unaware of Atzmon's probs and are sensitive to those hurt by him. However, the concert is happening in the BFUU Hall, sponsored by other non-profit orgs. The building use contract is being honored. (1st amendment right and unlikely to cave in to very ugly, unfair bullying even were it possible to achieve a summertime emergency quorum.)

The above double post was by Andrew, a mentally defective Scientologist.

Not quite there
by Just say no to anti-Semitism Tuesday, Jun. 09, 2009 at 8:35 AM

The other two organizations who sponsored the event are Bay Area Women in Black and the International Solidarity Movement. Both are known for being viciously anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. They most certainly were aware of Gilad Atzmon's track record of hate and classical anti-Semitism. Atzmon has made comments about how burning down synagogues is a "rational act" and about how Jews should apologize for the death of Christ. He expresses beliefs that American Jews "rule the world by proxy" and is an ardent Holocaust denier.

BFUU was made aware of this and they rudely claim that there is "insufficient evidence" of Atzmon's hate. Quite the contrary, his quotes are easy to find on the internet. BFUU claimed that they were simply letting Atzmon rent space at their building.

The moral, appropriate thing to do would have been to cancel this event. Renting out space to David Duke would be viewed as despicable by rational, thinking people; no tolerant, loving souls would ever help out such a hateful piece of slime. Simply because Atzmon is not as well-known as Duke does not make what BFUU chose to do any less despicable. Very hypocritical for an organization that claims to promote love and tolerance.

Let's hope that is limited to BFUU and not characteristic of Unitarian Universalists as a whole.