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M.S. Arnoni in 1971

Menachem Samuel Arnoni (February 1, 1922 – February 10, 1985), known as M.S. Arnoni, was a political activist, journalist, and philosopher. He was best known for editing and creating the left-wing magazine The Minority of One.

Early life

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Arnoni was born in Łódź, Poland in 1922.[1] He was born as Meniek Sztajer, the son of an engineer.[2] In 1944, Arnoni and his family were held in the Łódź Ghetto. In August of that year, he was sent to Auschwitz before he was liberated in May 1945.[2] He later wrote a memoir about his time in the Łódź Ghetto and Auschwitz, called Moeder was niet thuis voor haar begrafenis (Mother was Not at Home for Her Funeral).[3]

Political activism and journalism

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Arnoni moved to the United States in 1954.[4] In 1959, Arnoni founded the monthly magazine The Minority of One,[5] which he described as an independent journal "dedicated to the eradication of all restrictions on thought."[6] The magazine's Board of Sponsors included Bertrand Russell, Albert Schweitzer, and Linus Pauling.[7] It was known for its articles on the peace movement, civil liberties, and criticism of both American and Soviet foreign policy.[8] By 1967, the magazine had a circulation of 26,000.[9] Oleg Kalugin alleged that Arnoni unknowingly accepted articles on foreign policy for publication that had been prepared by the KGB.[10]

Arnoni was one of the first journalists to criticize the Vietnam War.[11] In 1965 he called for the organization of a war crimes tribunal, modeled on the Nuremberg trials, to judge American war crimes in Vietnam.[12] Arnoni proposed this idea to Bertrand Russell who initially rejected the idea but Russell later used it as inspiration for his International War Crimes Tribunal in 1966.[13] In May 1965, Arnoni gave a speech at the 35-hour protest at University of California, Berkeley arranged by the Vietnam Day Committee, where he advocated for volunteers to join the North Vietnamese and fight against the American army.[14] At another anti-war protest in October 1965, he wore his concentration camp uniform and told the crowd that the victims of the Holocaust would implore them "not to be silent in the face of the genocidal atrocities committed on the people of Vietnam".[15] He engaged in a debate with Sidney Hook about the war, through a series of letters to the editor, published in the September 25 and October 23, 1967 editions of The New Leader.[16]

The Minority of One was also critical of the Warren Commission and published articles by prominent critics of the government's investigation into the Kennedy assassination.[17] In March 1964 Arnoni published an advertisement in The New York Times in the form of an open letter to Earl Warren, arguing that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy, since "whenever a head of state is assassinated there is a strong likelihood of a political plot behind the act".[18]

Arnoni was critical of negative leftist attitudes towards Israel, arguing in support of the country in his article, later expanded into a book, Rights and Wrongs in the Arab-Israeli Conflict.[19] In 1969, in response to his frustrations with these critics, as well as American involvement in the Vietnam War, Arnoni left the United States and moved to Israel.[6] In 1971 he moved to the Netherlands, where he published the newsletter In Search of Facts, Ideas, and Challenges.[20]

Personal life

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Arnoni married Dutch composer Tera de Marez Oyens in 1976.[21] He was the namesake of the M.S. Arnoni Award, presented by the magazine Jewish Currents.[22]

References

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  1. ^ "M.S. Arnoni". The Detroit Jewish News. February 22, 1985. p. 78. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  2. ^ a b van den Berghe, Gie (1987). Met de dood voor ogen: Begrip en onbegrip tussen overlevenden van nazi-kampen en buitenstaanders. Antwerp: EPO. p. 497. ISBN 9789064456947.
  3. ^ Dresden, Samuel; Dresden, Samuel (1995). Persecution, extermination, literature. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-8020-7668-7.
  4. ^ Lewis, Fulton (November 7, 1962). "Washington Report". The Punxsutawney Spirit. p. 4.
  5. ^ Currents on the Left: An Annotated Bibliography of Radical and Left-wing Journals. California State University. 1974. p. 10.
  6. ^ a b Fischbach, Michael R. (2019). The Movement and the Middle East: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Divided the American Left. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9781503611078.
  7. ^ Feinberg, Barry (2013). Bertrand Russell's America: His Transatlantic Travels and Writings. Taylor & Francis. p. 198. ISBN 9781135099480.
  8. ^ "U.S. puts the heat on an editor". National Guardian. December 4, 1961. p. 5. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  9. ^ Goodman, Roger (January 19, 1967). "Arnoni Hits Viet Policy" (PDF). California Tech. p. 3.
  10. ^ Kalugin, Oleg (1994). The First Directorate : My 32 years in intelligence and espionage against the West. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 53.
  11. ^ Rid, Thomas (2020). Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374718657.
  12. ^ Klinghoffer, A. (2002). International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights. Palgrave MacMillan. p. 106. ISBN 9780312299163.
  13. ^ Andersson, Stefan (Winter 2011). "A Secondary Bibliography of the International War Crimes Tribunal: London, Stockholm and Roskilde". Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. 31 (2): 167–187. doi:10.1353/rss.2011.0003. ISSN 1913-8032.
  14. ^ De Groot, Gerard J., ed. (2014). Student Protest: The Sixties and After. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781317880486.
  15. ^ Brightman, Carol (1999). Sweet Chaos: The Grateful Dead's American Adventure. Gallery Books. p. 27. ISBN 9780671011178.
  16. ^ Shapiro, Edward S., ed. (2015). Letters of Sidney Hook: Democracy, Communism and the Cold War. Taylor & Francis. p. 293. ISBN 9781317466192.
  17. ^ Talbot, David (2008). Brothers : the hidden history of the Kennedy years. London: Pocket Books. p. 267.
  18. ^ Kelin, John (2007). Praise from a Future Generation: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy and the First Generation Critics of the Warren Report. Wings Press. p. 155. ISBN 9781609403386.
  19. ^ Elazar, Daniel J. (1969). "The Rediscovered Polity: Selections from the Literature of Jewish Public Affairs, 1967-1968". American Jewish Yearbook. 70: 175.
  20. ^ Haag, Jaap. “Guide to the International Archives and Collections at the IISH: Supplement over 1993.” International Review of Social History, vol. 39, no. 3, 1994, pp. 518. JSTOR, JSTOR 44583333. Accessed 15 Jan. 2024.
  21. ^ Baars, Michael (February 20, 2018). "Wansink, Woltera Gerharda (1932-1996)". Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland. Retrieved January 10, 2024.
  22. ^ Harap, Louis (2003). The image of the Jew in American literature : from early republic to mass immigration. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. pp. xii. ISBN 0815629915.
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