Henry Herskovitz is a retired engineer, anti-Jewish activist, Holocaust denier, and Nazi sympathizer residing in Ann Arbor, MI. Henry is a native of Pittsburgh, PA. He holds an engineering degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Activism
Herskovitz is the founder of Witness for Peace, a group that sees their mission as putting an end to what they perceive as “Jewish supremacism in Palestine” and the total dismantlement of the state of Israel, chiefly by means of boycotts, divestments and sanctions, coupled with a termination of all US aid to Israel. The group has staged a silent vigil and protested on the public sidewalk adjoining Beth Israel Congregation since September 13, 2003 and has also protested outside the Jewish Federation and whenever movies are presented sympathetic to Jewish victims of Nazi genocide. The group says the protests will end when the Board of Directors of the congregation publicly states its full support for: full civil and political equality of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel within Israel; prompt implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees of 1947-8 and 1967 to return to their homes and properties in Israel and Palestine as stipulated in UN resolution 194; and, prompt end of Israeli occupation and colonization of all lands seized by Israel in 1967. Herskovitz himself said that he would stop protesting when the Congregation takes down the Israeli flag. Herskovitz has made regular appearances at Ann Arbor City Council meetings to discuss his group's views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and religiously attends the Sabbath Vigil of the JWPf. Herskovitz publishes vigil reports on a blog that generally consists of fervent denunciation of Jews as a group and that regularly describes animosity to Jews and violent attacks upon them including the Nazi Holocaust and the Pittsburgh synagogue bombing as a fully justified reaction to "bad Jewish behavior".
Herskovitz is on the Board of Advisors and Directors of Deir Yassin Remembered, an organization that was founded to “educate the public about the 1948 massacre of more than 100 Palestinian civilians by Jewish terrorists at the village of Deir Yassin and to seek justice to the victims of the massacre”, and that strives to “heighten awareness, particularly on the part of the American public concerning Palestinian grievances, and thus enhance support for a just and durable resolution to the conflict.” In response to its relentless apologetics seeking to justify the Nazi extermination of Jews during the Second World War and its ongoing championing of violent racial hatred targeting Jews, Deir Yassin Remembered has been declared a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a leading anti-racist organization in the U.S. particularly known for its legal battles against the Ku Klux Klan and other violent white supremacist groups. The Executive Director of Deir Yassin Remembered responded to SPLC's declaration, "Castigated by the Southern Poverty Law Center".
Herskovitz is a member of Jews for Justice for Germans (JFJFG), an group who sees Germans as the true victims of World War II and whose aims and objectives, therefore, include calling on Elie Weisel to apologize for his statement calling on Jews to “set apart a zone of hate -- healthy virile hate” for Germans, to open the discussion of the history of “interactions between Germans and Jews 1933-1945” (which he believes largely justifies Nazi treatment of Jews) and to repeal all Holocaust denial laws, to end German reparation payments to Israel and Jewish survivors of Holocaust, to discuss the possible repayment of reparations back to Germany, and to “ begin discussions about the role of Jews in the suffering inflicted on Germans since 1945 and, if appropriate, to make arrangements for apology, reparation and compensation." He has also stated that he believes that no more than 300,000 Jews died during World War II and that was due entirely to Typhus in the concentration camps as well as the toll of Allied bombings.
Herskovitz is widely considered a hardcore anti-semite by most others in the anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian communities most of whom refuse to collaborate with him due to his open denunciation of Jews as a group as well as his pro-Hitler perspective. Herskovitz shares the views ofErnst Zundel, a German publisher known for promoting Holocaust revisionism and author of the "Hitler we Loved and Why" who was jailed for "spreading false news" but whose conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada when the law criminalizing reporting false news was ruled unconstitutional. Following his visit, Herskovitz wrote, "Ernst Zundel, the reputed anti-Semitic devil, did not merely shake hands with me; he held mine in his. Eight years later the memory remains strong." On his blog, Herskovitz published a test to distinguish “a peace and justice activist” from a “Zionist pretender”.
Quotes:
"I’d like to focus on this alleged Jewish innocence. The innocence that is programmed into our minds by Hollywood, the media, campus statues and museums throughout America. We are taught that the National Socialists of Germany wished to exterminate the Jews for no other reason than that they were Jews. We are taught that Jews did nothing to deserve this extermination and were like innocent lambs being led to slaughter.
But maybe Jews in 1933 were not as innocent as we were led to believe. The headline of the March 24th edition of London’s Daily Express read “Judea declares war on Germany, Jews in all the world unite in action”. https://zionistsout.blogspot.com/2023/02/report-on-beth-israel-vigil-02-18-23.html (signed by "Henry Herskovitz, Witness for Peace")
"Has the world indeed been duped into believing that the National Socialist government of Germany were the all-time perpetrators of ultimate evil in the world, or has the fabric of the standard Holocaust narrative been ripped substantially by Hilberg’s admission, now thirty years old?" http://blog.deiryassin.org/2015/08/05/re...
"Haven’t the German people – seventy years after the real or alleged crimes of WWII – suffered sufficiently?" … "the German people get tossed under the wheels of the Jewish Power bus." http://blog.deiryassin.org/2015/06/24/re...
"Jews know hatred, and they also know manipulation. How to conceal the obvious hatred their religion and culture promote, while in true Orwellian fashion accuse others of what they do best."http://blog.deiryassin.org/2015/04/26/re...
"I already knew the term 'nazi' originated from a country bumpkin reference to Germans, a slur, based on the common farmboy or simpleton name 'ignatius' and the shortening of that name to 'nazi'. [...] People in groups should be referred to as they deem fit. How would our Black community react to being referred to by the n-word? How would our Jewish community appreciate being called the k-word? I doubt either group would appreciate it. It wouldn't be right. Second takeaway, perhaps this successful name-calling technique was the reason why German Jews were found in disfavor by their countrymen." Ann Arbor City Council meeting, June 5, 2023.
In the news
Beth Israel congregants reflect on 10 years of protests at synagogue: 'We certainly didn't ask for this', AnnArbor.com, August 25, 2013
Herskovitz in his own words. From a Letter to the Editor of the Ann Arbor News. February 25, 2004.
