By: Kerry Jefferson

There was an article in yesterday’s (11.12.08) Wall Street Journal entitled “Battle for Holocaust Assets Roils Israel.”  The article explained, as it relates to Israel, that “Many big banks and the government itself have resisted efforts to claim hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for bank deposits, land, corporate shares, art and other assets that investigators say once belonged to Jews killed by the Nazis and their allies.”

As the recently retired chairman of the Company for Location and Restitution of Holocaust Victims Assets Ltd (an entity established by Israel’s Parliament) Avraham Roet said, “I cannot say that the Israeli establishment has been, or is happy, about the return of properties.”  Furthermore, Mr. Roet (among others) claims these Israeli institutions privately argue that they should be treated “more gently than their European counterparts because they are in a different position than banks and governments that actively assisted the Nazis.”  Apparently, the Israeli government and the private banking establishment don’t feel as though they are cheating Holocaust victims out of their assets because they were used for the public good and aided in the creation of building a Jewish Homeland.  But, as Mr. Roet points out “It’s not [their] money.”

To be clear, I am not Jewish and therefore I don’t feel comfortable debating the various merits of either side’s position on this matter.  However, I was a bit offended by the notion of treating the Israeli establishment different than their European counterparts because these institutions did not actively assist the Nazis.  I agree with Mr. Roet.  To the extent traceable, unclaimed assets should be returned to their rightful owners (or their descendants).  I would think that the Israeli establishment would be hyper-sensitive to the issues surrounding Holocaust survivors and their families.  In fact, I know they are.  This is why this article struck me as a bit odd.  I hope the powers that be recognize the moral imperative to do what is right and return the property that was taken from their brothers and sisters.

By: Rutger van Boxtel

Why do people read books like Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi, or Night by Elie Wiesel?
Is it because they want to know how cruel the world can be, or do we want to know how lucky we are for not being in a situation like that? The Dutch author Sem Dresden once wrote in his book Persecution, Extermination, Literature that: “the reader of literature, just like a tourist hastes himself from one thing to the other and is under the impression he just experienced the most important and impressive thing in his life. Just like a tourist, the reader is open-ended, he feels like he is a guest, is assured he plays a part in it, without actually being in it. It feels like a vacation, they have no obligations at all and can enjoy in all innocence.”

This could mean that a reader of camp/holocaust literature can enjoy reading this, just like a tourist enjoys a walk in the park or climbing a dangerous mountain. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t want to do harm to the special character of camp literature. But isn’t it true people like to hear, see, read about horrible things because they are or at least think they are sure they will never experience these things?

Why do people make pictures in Auschwitz, smiling and/or making a peace sign? They act like some kind of a disaster tourist. They think they now know what people in the camps have been through, but people like us, people that have never experienced it, will never even come close to experiencing how it was to be in a camp. We can see as many movies, read as many books by survivors as we could, but we will never ever come close to the actual truth.

I think the most important thing for people who read camp or holocaust literature is the affirmation that they will never experience the atrocities people went through in the extermination camps.
By trying to get as close as possible to the atrocities, people behave like disaster tourists. I am definitely not saying those people do an awful deed, because we should never forget what happened  in the extermination camps, but making (smiling) pictures in an extermination camp doesn’t do any good to the remembrance of those who either got killed or survived the camps. To me those people don’t show any respect to what has happened there.
They seem to loose their shame and might not truly enjoy being there, but apparently the get some kind of satisfaction in being there. That ‘satisfaction’ might come from the fact that they know they’ll never experience anything like this, and it is because of this feeling I would like to think of those people as disaster tourists.

By: Shella Sadovnik

I am a Republican.  I am some strange, yet not all too uncommon mixture of a neo-con, a libertarian and an Ayn Rand fanatic.  Obama was clearly not my choice.  Not only was he not my pick for President, he also embodied the opposite of what I wanted for America in this tumultuous time and I genuinely feared his populism.  He, with his yes-we-can chanting supporters, was going to raise taxes on the most productive members of our society (pushing us further into depression), force the collapse of the coal industry (causing prices for consumer energy to go up) and negotiate with terrorists (after all, his middle name is Hussein).

But then I listened to his victory speech.  At first with disgust at the fawning fans, then with reluctant interest, and finally (and I am ashamed to say this) with some inkling of hope for America’s future.  The emphasis of his speech revolved around the idea that makes America great and an icon of liberty and self-realization to the rest of the world: democracy.  Thinking back on Professor Rosenbaum’s class, the question is: what is democracy?  Democracy is having your story heard.  Part of the frustration with the Bush Administration was not just his policies (after all, he was elected by half of the American voters) but with the public’s powerlessness in having their concerns, struggles, worries and fears heard.  Bush had a vision and he pushed forward with that vision regardless of public opinion or international approval.  I liked his cowboy attitude and I agree with his world view.  But if I didn’t, what would be most upsetting to me would be to live in a country where the country was not only NOT following my world view, but was not even stopping to consider my opposition and discontent.

So here is what I heard Tuesday night: Americans came out to the polls and their voices were heard.  And the tears in the eyes of the supporters watching Obama’s speech were not just there because of his oratory skills, but because of the relief, appreciation and empowerment of telling their story.

Each person went into their polling center, and while each story was not individually blared across a loudspeaker for all across the country to hear, a united voice was heard and was given the opportunity to change its destiny.  I love America and Americans enough to cheer on the majority who was dying for their voice to be heard even though my own individual voice got lost in the cheer.

By: Marc Kraus

Every year, the liberation of the Concentration Camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is being remembered during the Holocaust Memorial Day. This internationally recognized day takes usually place around the 27th of January, the day Auschwitz was liberated.
The main theme during these days of remembrance is “Never Again”. Never again may those unimaginable things happen to any race, at any place in the world.
Some important questions such as how to prevent genocide, how to inform people about the Holocaust and via which way Art (in it’s broadest sense) can contribute to avoid any other Holocaust/Genocide, are playing a central role when we think of the words “Never Again”.

Knowledge of the Holocaust is one of the most important ways via which people at least will be able to try to understand a very small part of what really has happened.
Documentaries based on factual information and research, are of course a primary source to inform people. The problem is that documentaries of good quality are rare and not always very accessible to everyone. Not only documentaries and movies from the New York School of Filmmaking (non sugar-coated/realistic movies) should be the only source to inform people about genocide in the 20th century. Of course on the one hand, movies such as Schindler’s list, Defiance and Der Untergang can cause the effect of changing, generalizing and even sometimes manipulating the Holocaust. But on the other hand, these movies can at least partly help in connecting young and older people to one of the worst periods in the History. Any attempt in trying to identify younger generations with the Holocaust will help to increase awareness of the Holocaust.

The first generation of Holocaust survivors has almost all died. Younger generations do learn very little about the Holocaust. Anyone who is a direct or indirect victim of the Holocaust should be treated with the greatest respect. But creating any level of knowledge of the SHOA is better than making the Holocaust an elite subject for researchers. Art and atrocity can be combined. Most probably Hollywood is as an important example of this idea.

By: Christelle Dorcil

I am your average middle-class suburban girl.  Raised in a quiet community in Maryland, I learned in kindergarten that “Policemen Are Our Pals” and by fifth-grade was quite convinced that all lawbreakers were simply social deviants who were rightly punished by our infallible justice system. As I grew older and particularly as a law student, I quickly came to realize that this is not the case. Yet, I often still find myself thinking, “well, that was your fault for making a dumb decision,” when I read about people who get into trouble with the law.  Such was my reaction when I read about rapper Clifford Harris aka “T.I.” who was arrested last October for having his bodyguard purchase three machine guns and two silencers for him.  This was a federal offense because T.I. is a convicted felon, having been convicted of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act in 1998.

Why would anybody need one machine gun, much less three? And as a high-profile celebrity figure that’s been in trouble with the law before, wouldn’t common sense dictate that you should walk the straight and narrow path?  In my mind, it was an open and shut case. Any objective, reasonable man wouldn’t have done what he did and therefore he deserved whatever the justice system decided to throw at him.  After all, that’s the standard we make our laws by right? As a person who considers herself pretty reasonable, I compared his actions to what I would have done and mentally convicted him.

This past weekend however, I stumbled across his latest album and the song “Ready for Whatever”, which made me rethink the entire situation.  The song is T.I.’s explanation for his actions, beginning with the first verse, his attempt to rationalize seemingly irrational behavior.

“…If ya life is in jeopardy
Everyday is you telling me
You wouldn’t need weaponry
Just because of your felonies
Consider this at least I got everybody sweating me
Homies, streets and people who won’t rest unless I rest in peace
Killed my folk a year ago still in my sleep they threaten me
Paranoia stressing me
Ain’t nobody protecting me
I’m dealing with the pressure from my partner dying next to me
Thinking no ones arrested they coming for me eventually
This all the things that I was goin’ through mentally
This could be the reason I ignored the penitentiary”

Talk about emotional complexity.  Here is a man who has seen his friends and relatives killed around him, and has his life threatened on a daily basis for reasons beyond my comprehension. The fear, paranoia and stress he mentions are all emotions I can understand, but not at the level of somebody who has their life threatened continuously.

He goes on to point out traits that would seem to mitigate his actions.

I’m a father to my sons, asset to my community
Look all that I have done, my good outweigh the negativity
Mentally I was focused on not letting history repeat itself
that’s why heat was kept in that vicinity
Yes officially I broke the law,  but not maliciously

Listening to him, I wonder how I would react to such statements if I were hearing them in a jury box. After all, wouldn’t I just see some egotistical rapper who thought he was above the law and could justify being involved with drugs, street violence and all sorts of other sordid behavior that seems light-years away from my tree-lined cul-de-sac? Wouldn’t I react the same way if I eventually ascended to the position of a judge or a lawmaker? For all my purported reason and objectivity, I realize that I also am emotionally skewed.  The circumstances and emotions he thinks should be considered when determining his culpability are completely foreign to me, so how can I take them into account when judging him? In my mind certain things are black and white. Guns are bad. Drugs are bad. Thus, if you’re involved with guns and drugs, it logically follows that you too must be bad…right?

Now is it that hard to understand if you listen,
Either die or go to prison that’s a hell of decision
But I’m wrong and I know it, my excuses unimportant
I’m just tryna let you know that I didn’t think I had a choice, foreal…
In order to understand my train of thoughts
You’ll have to put yourself in my position
You can’t expect me to think like you cuz my life ain’t like yours
You know what I’m sayin?

Yes, T.I. actually, I do know what you’re saying. Because I certainly wouldn’t expect you to think like me or understand my life.  But what I know and what you know doesn’t matter now does it? Because in the end, it’s what the legal system decides that counts.  My life may not be like yours, but an accident of jury selection could render me your “peer”, fit to sit in judgment of your actions.  When I sit down someday to draft a law that I believe is necessary for the protection of our communities, I will be thinking of children playing on lawns as the people that need protection, not celebrity rappers facing daily death threats.  I suppose that puts you at quite the disadvantage now doesn’t it? And you’re not the only one.  Welcome to the ranks of Tom Robinson and Billy Budd, victims of their own idiosyncrasy.  You can rap about it, you can testify to it, you can even break down in tears at my feet and I will still remain unable to comprehend what you were feeling or thinking when you decided to purchase three machine guns and two silencers to protect yourself from the threats you perceived around you.  Shouldn’t that make me unfit to judge you as you point out in your song? Maybe, but our legal system doesn’t see it that way. And until it does…either die or go to prison…that’s the choice you have to make.

By: Shira Arnow

The thing about K. is that he is constantly in the dark. He wakes up one morning to be unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents for an unspecified crime. The arrest, the interrogation, the litigation, the trial, the execution, all of it without a thing explained to the accused. Kafka’s law is unrelenting, incomprehensible, and aggressive; K.’s response is exasperated, outrageous, and submissive. The absurdist in Kafka shows us a bent law of sorts, where the accused is muted and the state has power to inflict the law at whim. But is Kafka’s portrayal really limited to his fiction? Could it be that the absurdity is actually the norm? Could you or I ever be a K.?

On a recent NPR episode of This American Life, called “Settling the Score,” a storyteller recounts a true tale of the time that he was arrested off of a plane in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. While the plane sat on the tarmac after landing, a flight attendant announced over the intercom that our storyteller should remain in his seat while the other passengers disembarked. After the plane cleared, two police officers boarded the aircraft, approached him, and told him to go with them. With no more conversation to it, the officers arrested him, read him Miranda rights, and handcuffed him. The storyteller asked the officers why he was being arrested, and the officers replied, “We don’t know, there’s a warrant for your arrest.” Our storyteller spends the night in a squad car, a police precinct, and a holding cell, passes the hours talking to other detainees and to himself, inquires again as to what he was arrested for, and again is told, “We don’t know.” The day and night pass. The second day and night pass too, and it is not until the following afternoon that the storyteller is allowed to receive a visitor—his sister—and only then does he learn the reason for his arrest.

Here was the real-time, non-fiction, abridged version of Kafka’s novel. Neither K. nor our radio storyteller know why they have been arrested. Neither of them are given a sincere opportunity to ask or to enrage or to do anything other than comply. So, is Kafka the absurdist, or is it the system? How long do arrestees wait in an arraignment holding cell before a lawyer comes to explain the criminal charges against them? Even more broadly: how long have Guantanamo detainees waited in limbo for Habeas proceedings to explain why they are incarcerated? Could it be the case that any government-authorized detention runs the risk of turning Kafka-esque?

In a system that overwhelms the typical person and fails to adjust itself accordingly, the absurdity of the law reverberates loudly. Kafka and our radio storyteller point out the danger of the law’s unrestrained power. Both K. and our radio storyteller are baffled at the bizarreness of a system in which police can arrest inexplicably, without prompt obligation or care to account for the action. The absurdist twists reality into an artistic representation that highlights quirks. But here, Kafka’s absurdism is not all that absurd, because the absurd, it seems, is very tangible, and is not just left for the artist to capture in print. Some people actually live it.

By: Krystyn Tendy

There are certain tenets of the legal profession that are so engrained
and intertwined into the fabric of the legal community that we often
don’t stop to question them.  We all know the rules exist, we know we
have to play by them, and we simply don’t argue.  However, it’s easy to
forget that the rest of the world may see our rules as completely
arbitrary, unfair, and prejudicial.

My roommate (who is also a law student) and I were directly confronted
with this reality at our local bar a few nights ago.  We were talking
with a local firefighter, and when he found out we were in law school
and preparing for a trial competition, he immediately started making fun
of us.  Although I’ll attribute part of it to his slightly intoxicated
state, he scoffed at the idea of needing credentials in order to speak
in a court room.  For example, he found it ridiculous that anyone would
be required to go to law school to become a defense attorney, because he
thought that the best defense “attorneys” would be people who knew the
defendant well, and could speak to his or her character.

The biggest battle, however, was over the right to a jury of your peers
at trial.  Our fireman friend insisted that the concept was ridiculous,
because we don’t actually pick peers.  He believed that a jury of his
peers would be 12 guys from his firehouse, because they would understand
how he acted, what his thought process was, and what really happened.
THAT’s how he felt he would get a fair trial.

What do you think?  Are the rules that require so much legal training
necessary?  What actually comprises a jury of our peers?  Why can’t we
have a jury of “12 guys from the firehouse?”

By: Karine Altmann

Since two months now, I am listening to Professor Thane Rosenbaum speech, which resounded deeply in me.

According to Thane Rosenbaum, Legal Justice hardly never takes in consideration, the saoul and the moral justice never wins. I wish he will be wrong, but I have to admit , after having been a lawyer for many years, that I do not think that Justice can, in any way ,  bring relief to a victim.

Even us, actual or future actors of the legal system, we are not looking to the interests of our clients as a victime, but more in terms of settlements, billable hours, plea bargains. The Legal system do not allow us to really take the time to listen to what they have to say about their pain, how they cope every day with it. When a victim explains his pain, we try to find a connection with punitive damages, compensation, and whatever legal solution, which just prevent our client to express how they suffer.

The movie “The Accused “ from the lawmaker Jonathan Kaplan shows in a very realistic way this total failure of our system.

When Jodie Foster , a victim of a collective rape, is searching for a moral recognition of her pain and trauma, the legal system just offered her a plea bargain, because she is not the perfect witness ( a lot of people in the bar, saw her before the rape, having fun with the authors of the rape, and drunk beer with them).Instead of showing respect for the victim, the legal systems worries that she will be hard to believe by a jury. In the movie, Jodie Foster refused the deal, after a violent discussion with the prosecutor, where she reminded her that she is the victim. The movie closed with the sentencing of the authors, and the fact that the prosecutor acknowledged she was going in a wrong direction.

However, if the end is often fiction, the process of denying the pain of the victim occurred every day, through our legal system.

In our western materialistic word ( I included here USA and Europe), where everything has to be efficient and go fast, we should always think of ourselves as potential victims, before put real ones in such a situation.

By:  Julia Gaffin

This past week I attended a panel discussion, hosted by both the Domestic Violence Awareness Center and the Fordham Outlaws, which discussed the support of the LGBT community in New York State as related to domestic violence.  The panel mainly discussed the past failure of the legal system to properly embrace the LGBT community in its protection of domestic violence.  This made me think topics I have learned from my Law and Literature class.   The panel shed light on the world of emotional complexity for LGBT domestic violence victims, which has prevented such victims from fully a) extricating themselves from the abusive situation or b) seeking judgment against their abuser through our judicial system.

A very typical reaction of someone in an abusive relationship is to seek shelter, go to a friend’s home, go to a parent’s house, or call the police.  First, seeking shelter may be problematic for someone who doesn’t identify with one particular gender.  They may not be able to have access to a strictly female or male shelter.  Second, for someone who has not declared themselves as “out” in their communities or to their family, a domestic violence victim may not feel they have an outlet from their abusive relationship without the risk of revealing their sexual preferences.  Last, domestic violence victims in LGBT relationships are not always the “typical” domestic violence victim.  They are not always a weak woman, and the abuser is not always a strong man.  The “victim” can be the larger of the two partners, and the abuser can be a woman.  The police are not always sensitive to these dynamics.  As a result, when an LGBT domestic violence victim calls the police, many times the police arrest the wrong partner or don’t believe the victim is capable of being victimized.  Unfortunately, this frequently results in the victim being returned back to their abusive environment.  Moreover, depending on the acceptance level in a town or community, an LGBT domestic violence victim may be hesitant to even call the police for fear of further abuse or discrimination.

The above mentioned emotional complexities of LGBT domestic violence demonstrate that these victims carry a severe handicap because of the nature of their romantic relationships.  These complexities prevent them from always acting like the “typical” domestic violence victim.  Much like being black in the deep south in To Kill a Mockingbird, or being in shock after a mother’s death in The Stranger, the issue of being open about ones sexuality or feeling safe in ones community may be something that prevents an LGBT domestic violence victim from seeking help as a reasonable victim would.   Because law enforcement and society have typically ignored the handicaps of LGBT domestic violence victims, victims have been failed by our system to be properly protected.

Until recently, LGBT domestic violence victims were also restrained by the laws of entry into family court when trying to seek legal redress against their abusers.  In the past, New York State family court did not hear cases outside of “members of the same household,” which was limited to people who were a) married; b) had a blood relationship; or c) have children in common.  This excluded same-sex couples, teenagers, and any unmarried partners without children from their relationship.  Thus, there was a severe barrier for LGBT couples to seek justice through the system.  This again put LGBT domestic violence victims at a disadvantage.  By refusing access to aid through the legal system, these domestic violence victims were going unnoticed in the eyes of the law.

Luckily, the panel was also there to discuss the Fair Access Amendment, which expanded the definition of “members of the same family or household” to include “persons who are or have been in an intimate relationship regardless of whether such persons have lived together at any time.”  Many more people, particularly those in the LGBT community, will now be able to bring their abusers to court.  This is a step in the right direction from a Law and Literature perspective.  While the amendment does not redress many of the issues LGBT domestic violence victims face in removing themselves from an abusive relationship, it will grant them access to an avenue of justice previously denied to them.  The amendment will result in more moral accountability, more truth seeking, and has created one less barrier for those “handicapped” victims to be noticed and treated fairly by the law.  Their idiosyncratic statuses are no longer going unacknowledged, and they will not see similar fate’s to those Law and Literature characters whose courts fail them due to a legal ignorance of emotional complexity.

By:  Noah Liben

Last week, Fordham’s Domestic Violence Awareness Center (DVAC), along with the OUTLaws – Fordham’s LGBT Law Student Association – co-sponsored an event in honor of October being Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Our guest speakers were Andrew Sta. Ana from the organization Sanctuary for Families, and Fareen Ramji from the Anti-Violence Project.  The main topic of conversation was how the recent changes in NY law with regards to the definition of a “family offense” affected the LGBT community.

Some of the speakers’ comments reinforced the themes we have learned in Professor Rosenbaum’s class (both Law & Literature, as well as Human Rights, Holocaust, and the Law).  In particular, the divide between physical and spiritual crimes was evident.  For example, in the realm of domestic violence, the American legal justice system generally only criminalizes physically violent behavior.  Only in those circumstances – punching, kicking, beating, strangulating, throwing objects at another person – can a victim of d.v. file a criminal charge against his/her abuser if s/he chooses.  In contrast, verbally harassing another person does not rise to the level of a crime in most cases, even though the potential for spiritual harm is immense.  In my own work on behalf of victims of domestic violence, I have heard stories of victims who were verbally threatened, taunted, debased and insulted in the vilest manner.  In some instances, victims sustain this type of abuse for many years.  Sometimes the harangues get progressively worse.  The speakers at our event noted that in the LGBT community in particular, the threat of being outed – to one’s family, friends, co-workers – is another form of non-physical abuse that can have a tremendous psychological impact.  The result is that the victims will remain in these abusive and damaging relationships, living in fear and with decreased self-esteem.  But in all these cases, without any physical scars to demonstrate bodily harm, the victim can expect little redress from the criminal justice system.  After all, American justice is concerned more with the body than the spirit.

On the other hand, one should note the positive side of the American legal system in the following regard.  Though it is true that the criminal justice system elevates the body over the mind and criminalizes physically violent behavior though not (or not often) emotionally vicious conduct, there are other outlets within the American legal system for victims of spiritual crimes.  At least this is the case in New York City, though I do not know about other places.  As the speakers at our event noted, victims of domestic violence who have experienced non-physical abuse may still petition Family Court for civil orders of protection against their abusers.  The speakers reassured us that this is not only theoretically possible, but also actually happens in reality: victims appear before Family Court judges, seeking redress from the spiritual harms committed by their abusers, and are granted temporary orders of protection.  This avenue – civil rather than criminal remedy – may even be preferable for the victims, who may not want to put their abusers behind bars, or who may want to retain active involvement in their own cases (becoming a Petitioner in Family Court as opposed to a mere witness for the People in a criminal proceeding), or who may harbor resentment for or distrust of the police.  Call this a glimmer of hope for the justice system.