(Part 2) Best jewish history books according to redditors
We found 354 Reddit comments discussing the best jewish history books. We ranked the 163 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.
“You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find warm food
And friendly faces when you return home.
Consider if this is a man
Who works in mud,
Who knows no peace,
Who fights for a crust of bread,
Who dies by a yes or no.
Consider if this is a woman
Without hair, without name,
Without the strength to remember,
Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,
Like a frog in winter.
Never forget that this has happened.
Remember these words.
Engrave them in your hearts,
When at home or in the street,
When lying down, when getting up.
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your houses be destroyed,
May illness strike you down,
May your offspring turn their faces from you.”
-- Primo Levi, Survival In Auschwitz
Only if you believe (as some do) that criticism of Israel = antisemitism. Find me one genuine example of antisemitism from Mondoweiss?
It's not as if any of the now dead people who were in the camps left behind evidence of things one way or another either. None of them wrote books, articles, or spoke about their experiences in the camps either. And nobody ever checked out the Nazi-German records to see if they mention the Holocaust either.
Nope, there is no evidence about what happened at all. Anywhere.
Someday I am sure somebody will look into it. But first.... what is that thing that keeps speeding by me in the road? One of those things might hit somebody. People could get hurt. I'm going to need to write my Congressman.
Some things you may or may not like:
I encourage you to read about the books as parts of them might interest in you if not the entirety of the text. Please consider writing a book review in the event that you read something of note!
Anybody interested in deeper reading on the topic should read None is Too Many
https://www.amazon.ca/None-too-Many-Canada-1933-1948/dp/155263289X
Well, if you're looking for controversial, you probably could get somewhere with The Open Orthodox Haggadah.
Possibly check out A Passover Haggadah: Go Forth and Learn. There's A Night to Remember: The Haggadah of Contemporary Voices, The Holistic Haggadah, Carlebach Haggadah, and the Koren Ethiopian Haggadah as a few more suggestions.
Of the books I've read about her, I liked "The Cosmic Shekinah" best as it explores her archetype in several cultures, including the Jewish culture:
https://www.amazon.com/Cosmic-Shekinah-History-Testament-manifestations-ebook/dp/B006SP1EH4/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=asherah&qid=1570658034&sr=8-8
Another book, "The Hebrew Goddess", is a little dry but very well-researched and focuses only on Asherah in a Hebrew context:
https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Goddess-3rd-Enlarged/dp/0814322719/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=asherah&qid=1570658092&sr=8-5
On Women and Judaism was highly recommended to me. It's on my list to read but I can't speak about it personally.
Raziel is probably most famous for the book he gave to Adam. There are many versions of the story, including one where angels steal the book back from Adam out of jealousy. It supposedly passed through the hands of Enoch, Noah, and Solomon, inspiring the Book of Enoch, teaching Noah how to build the Ark, and granting Solomon great knowledge and power in magic respectively. Source
The origin of this story is pretty interesting: "The myth of the Book of Raziel grows out of a midrash attempting to explain the verse, This is the book of the generations of Adam (Gen. 5:1)." Source, also a good read
Raziel is mentioned in Targum Ecclesiastes 10:20 - "Do not speak evil of the king in thy conscience, nor in the secret of thy heart, nor in the most hidden place in thy house, curse not a wise man; for Raziel calls daily from heaven upon Mount Horeb, and his voice goes through the whole world; and Elijah, the great priest, goes, flying through the air like a winged eagle, and publishes the words which are spoken in secret by all the inhabitants of the earth." The Targumim are pretty old - they date back to the 1st to 7th centuries. This page offers an interesting theory about Raziel's early role in Jewish mysticism - not as the keeper of secrets but rather the revealer.
According to Maimonides (1135-1204) in his Mishneh Torah, Raziel is the chief of the order of Erelim, also the herald of God and preceptor of Adam.
Now, there is a 13th century medieval grimoire known as "Sefer Raziel HaMalakh". The true author is unknown, but it's commonly attributed to Eleazer of Worms or Isaac the Blind, medieval writers of the time. It draws heavily on Sefer Yetzirah and Sefer Ha-Razim, the former being the oldest and probably the most important Qabalistic text.
As for the Sefer Raziel itself, you can read it online here. Steve Savedow's translation is unfortunately not great, the amazon reviews sort of speak for themselves, but it's better than nothing. You may find something interesting there.
tl;dr Raziel is a very old and important angel, considering he derives from Genesis 5:1. If you are trying to connect to angels in a Qabalistic context, I'd highly recommend starting with the books they originated from, like Sefer Raziel and its predecessors. Hope this helps.
Well... You should totally read this book. It's available on that site for free. The book is a scholarly study of magical thinking among (primarily) a Jewish community in Europe. It's pretty fascinating. There's a whole chapter dedicated to name magic if that's what you're really looking for. Just glance through it, there's probably something in it for you. Honestly, this is the best book I have for you and what it presents is most similar to modern Judaism.
A great book on influential Jewish stories, myths, and legends is Tree of Souls. I'm honestly in love with this book. If you need to add some mythic Jewish characters or fables, this book has it. Many of the stories come from sources still used among Jews, so a lot of them have some relation (however marginal) to modern Judaism.
There's also a book called "Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls" by Shaul Shaked, James Ford, and Siam Bhayro which is has some pretty awesome curses and what not. You can access it here. Not sure how much use it'd be for you. Everything discussed in this book has little resemblance to anything in modern Judaism.
There's also book called Sepher Ha-Razim which was supposedly given to Noah by Raziel, an angel of secrets. Sepher Ha-Razim is... Well... Really weird. I think that's the best term to describe it. Like, we aren't talking about cute, little spells from Charmed or whatever; we're talking about killing lions, bathing in their blood, and hiding lion hearts in the middle of the city. You can buy it here, but it's probably not worth it unless your goal is to repeatedly say, "What in the world?" Sepher Ha-Razim (like the Aramaic bowl spells) has little resemblance to anything in modern Judaism.
You should also totally include golems. Maybe also Lilith and dybbuks. These concepts are discussed in the first book I've mentioned here.
Anyway, half of what I've presented here is outdated or heretical, and the other half is folklore. But it's all still probably fun to mess around with in a fantasy setting! Especially the first book.
Funny you should ask
but more seriously. Have you asked your local Chabad Rabbi this quesiton? have you said you want more a personal relationship with G-d?
If you haven't read Born to Kvetch, I recommend giving it a try. It's quite a strange and entertaining read. I donated a bit to this new translation project on that basis..
I have a few. In order from most popular and general to most academic and specific. All of these are great. Probably the second is my favorite.
Yiddish Civilization
The Golden Age Shtetl
Yankel's Tavern
The Lord's Jews
This is a good book
Sharing the Journey is what I'm trying this year. I also bought a Passover Haggadah: Go Forth and Learn by Rabbi David Silber and Rachel Furst, which I'm using for commentaries, in addition to my reliable Velveteen rabbi.
This observation is both astute and formally examined in the well regarded book The Japanese and The Jews. I recommend it as an interesting read for anyone curious about the solidarity between these seemingly disparate groups of people.
These Redditors help explain how things like this happened: https://www.amazon.com/None-Too-Many-Canada-1933-1948/dp/155263289X/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
>I do not struggle with the prohibition on homosexual relations because this is who I am and nothing is going to change that
It's not contrary to halakha to believe that conversion therapy and other attempts to "change" don't work. IIRC Rabbi Chaim Rapoport says something like this. This is also found in the 2010 Statement of Principles.
L'havdil, think of someone with a disability. (It's offensive and inaccurate to call homosexuality a "disability", but there are certain similarities; for example, it means an inability to be yotzei for pru urvu in the normative way.) This person might say, "Sometimes people with my condition are thought of as damaged or defective, but Hashem made me and I am who Hashem intended me to be. This to me is a source of pride."
I recommend The Drowned And the Saved by Primo Levi.
Here's a pdf of the first two chapters (link).
It's a fairly excellent examination of how and why people in the camps behaved they way they did, among many other things. I recommend it as a companion to his more famous memoir, Survival in Auschwitz.
>If we extend the topic of discussion outside of MK there are plenty of quotes attributed to Hitler that shows he didnt plan on peacefully solving what he considered a Jewish problem.
Please show us these quotes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haavara_Agreement
>The Haavara Agreement was signed on 25 August 1933 after three months of talks by the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany. The agreement was designed to help facilitate the emigration of German Jews to Palestine. While it helped Jews emigrate, it forced them to temporarily give up possessions to Germany before departing. Those possessions could later be re-obtained by transferring them to Palestine as German export goods.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan
>Rademacher recommended on 3 June 1940 that Madagascar should be made available as a destination for the Jews of Europe. With Adolf Hitler's approval, Adolf Eichmann released a memorandum on 15 August 1940 calling for the resettlement of a million Jews per year for four years, with the island governed as a police state under the SS.
Lenni Brenner stated in his famous book "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" (which is very much cherished by the left). the following in chapter 7:
>By 1934 the SS had become the most pro-Zionist element in the Nazi Party. Other Nazis were even calling them “soft” on the Jews. Baron von Mildenstein had returned from his six-month visit to Palestine as an ardent Zionist sympathiser. Now as the head of the Jewish Department of the SS’s Security Service, he started studying Hebrew and collecting Hebrew records; when his former companion and guide, Kurt Tuchler, visited his office in 1934, he was greeted by the strains of familiar Jewish folk tunes. [16] There were maps on the walls showing the rapidly increasing strength of Zionism inside Germany. [17] Von Mildenstein was as good as his word: he not only wrote favourably about what he saw in the Zionist colonies in Palestine; he also persuaded Goebbels to run the report as a massive twelve-part series in his own Der Angriff (The Assault), the leading Nazi propaganda organ (26 September to 9 October 1934). His stay among the Zionists had shown the SS man “the way to curing a centuries-long wound on the body of the world: the Jewish question”. It was really amazing how some good Jewish boden under his feet could enliven the Jew: “The soil has reformed him and his kind in a decade. This new Jew will be a new people.” [18] To commemorate the Baron’s expedition, Goebbels had a medal struck: on one side the swastika, on the other the Zionist star. [19]
>In May 1935 Reinhardt Heydrich, who was then the chief of the SS Security Service, later the infamous “Protector” of the Czech lands incorporated into the Reich, wrote an article, The Visible Enemy, for Das Schwarze Korps, the official organ of the SS. In it Heydrich assessed the various tendencies among the Jews, comparing the assimilationists quite invidiously with the Zionists. His partiality towards Zionism could not have been expressed in more unmistakable terms:
>After the Nazi seizure of power our racial laws did in fact curtail considerably the immediate influence of Jews. But ... the question as he sees it is still: How can we win back our old position ... We must separate Jewry into two categories... the Zionists and those who favor being assimilated. The Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine they are helping to build their own Jewish state.
>Heydrich wished them a fond farewell: “The time cannot be far distant when Palestine will again be able to accept its sons who have been lost to it for over a thousand years. Our good wishes together with our official good will go with them.”
One of the most insightful books that I have read was a personal account written by a diarist in WWI named Ernst Junger http://m.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-wwi-diary-of-ernst-juenger-newly-published-memoir-recalls-horror-of-western-front-a-726672.html
I think a good way to understand war, any war, is to approach it via personal accounts written by those who lived through it.
When it comes to WWI, there is not a whole lot of emotional accounts or eyewitness stories due to the fact that the war was suffered by a generation that was trained to not express their feelings. Shell shock was something they never saw before and they did not know how to deal with those afflicted by the trauma of war.
As far as WWII, if you are a music fan, anything by Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) would make for a good starting point. He lost his father at a young age to the war and so much of his music is an emotional reaction to that. Watch the movie, The Wall' and listen to his album, The Final Cut.'
Also, the story about surviving Auschwitz as told by Primo Levi leaves the reader forever haunted : https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Auschwitz-Primo-Levi/dp/1492942588
Additionally, watch the original film, 'triumph of the will' if you want to learn about how propaganda works on the populace mind https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_of_the_Will If you have Netflix the series called Nazi Megastructures presents a heck of a lot of interesting information
From my current residence, I offer you this book.
Jeez louise how many of the same title are there?
Not that one either, rather this one. :-)
>What are the ways the holy book of Judaism differs from the Old Testament of the Bible, if any?
I'm not sure what you call the OT consists of, but the first three sections here comprise the Tanakh. The books you mentioned are the first section which was dictated to Moshe by Hashem. Jews also believe that we were given an Oral component of the law at Sinai that was later codified in the Talmud.
>Also I know that Jewish people have a different concept of Heaven and Hell that is not present in the Christian religion and if you could offer any insight into that, I’d be appreciatory.
Judaism is a bit foggy on the details of the afterlife, since no one has come back to tell us about it. The main understanding is that after death we are first punished for that which we did wrong in a process that rectifies the soul of those wrongs and lasts no more than 11 months for usual cases, and then proceed on to be rewarded for that which we have done right. There is also a concept of reincarnation for those that did not accomplish what they were supposed to in this world, and bodily resurrection in the time when moshiach comes.
>As far as debate goes, one thing that comes to mind is why the concept of circumcision is so important in the Hebrew faith. It seems wrong to cut baby’s foreskin off before they understand what’s going on and can make a decision for themselves. I realize many Christian faiths practice this too, I was circumcised as a baby, but I know this practice is less optional in the Jewish lifestyle and carries some sort of spiritual weight to it.
What seems wrong about it? The primary argument against deals with bodily autonomy, but this is a weak argument at best. A parent is always vested with the care of their child and no child has real bodily autonomy.
There are plenty of reasons why it is positive from medical standpoint, (I'll point you toward someone else's recent post here,) but ultimately that has nothing to do with why we do it. Hashem commanded us as part of our covenant with him, and that's really all there is to it.
>Also what is your stance on the way women are treated in your faith, I’m least educated in Judaism when compared to the other major Abrahamic Religions, but I know sexism in Christianity and Islam is a massive issue.
Men and women have separate roles. We are not egalitarian in that sense, but we also don't consider one better than the other, just different. There are certainly those that would call it sexist, but most of them don't have any real understanding of what it means to be an Orthodox woman. Unlike some other religions, the home is ultimately the center of Judaism, not the shul. This gives them a tremendous amount of influence. While women do not generally take on public leadership roles, they are often the ones influencing things from behind the scenes. I would point you toward this book for a more in depth conversation on the topic.
If you can find it for cheap (I did on Book Outlet), this book is great: How to Run a Jewish Household.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Run-Traditional-Jewish-Household/dp/0671602705
>What is it about us humans that religion of any form can have this effect of removing, or alleviating mental blocks?
I don't think this is limited to religion. It happens within all sorts on non-religious contexts as well. The military, Nazi's, gangs, Soviets, Strait Edgers, sports fans (i.e. that tragic incident involving Dodgers fans and the soccer riots after every other English footbal match), Stanford prison experiment, the other experiment where researchers told subjects to admister what they thought lethal electric shocks and they did, large corporations, highschool cliques, etc.
Numerous books have been written on this question. It is an interesting and important question, to be sure. I don't think there is a simple answer.
This just hit my door. I didn't know it was 1,000 pages! It's like a Pynchon novel -- that really happened:
"There are certain magisterial works of the human mind that alter ordinary comprehension so unpredictably and on so prodigious a scale that culture itself is set awry, and nothing can ever be seen again except in the strange light of that new knowledge. Obviously it is not possible to “review” such a work, any more than one can review a mountain range: an accretion of fundamental insight takes on the power of a natural force. Gershom Scholem's oeuvre has such a force, and its massive keystone, “Sabbatai Sevi,” presses down on the gasping consciousness with the strength not simply of its invulnerable, almost tidal, scholarship, but of its singular instruction in the nature of man.
“Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah is a titanic investigation into the substance and effect of illusion. It explores the rise, in the years 1665 and 1666 of a messianic movement among a profoundly oppressed people only just recovering from the Inquisition and the Iberian expulsion, thrown into yet another holocaust—the catastrophic massacres of the Jews of Poland that began in 1648 and continued until 1655. ...
"But he was, above all, a man of afflictions, subject to periods of “darkness,” which then gave way to phases of “illumination.” In short, a classic manic‐depressive; and, worn and perplexed by his suffering during the cycle, of bleakness, he traveled from Jerusalem, where he was tolerated as peculiar though harmless, to Gaza, to receive a healing penance from a 20‐year‐old Kabbalist named Nathan. Nathan was a young man of genius—a natural theologian, given to bending Kabbalah with the craft of a chessmaster plying new openings. Sabbatai Sevi confessed that now and then, in moments of exaltation, he conceived himself to be the messiah—and Nathan, all at once, irradiated, confirmed him as exactly that, conferred on him his mission, and theologized his madness."
​
Nathan, too, cited Isaiah 53. The story of the Exile out-Pynchons Pynchon and makes Cormac McCarthy seem tame.
Who Was Shabbetai Tsvi? by Dr. Henry Abramson
> Oh, and he also patented the use of tetrasilver tetraoxide as a supposed cure for cancer and AIDS.
Well this certainly raises questions about him. I did not trust each of his claims at face value anyway, but I will say his books are meticulously researched, and much of what he says is documented elsewhere either by Scholem, or in Perfidy I believe is the book, and other sources much more reputable than Rabbi Antelman appears. His work is completely sourced. I will have to go over the sources soon. Even with the internet, acquiring knowledge can still be work....
Anyway, Antelman's modern day theories may be questionable, but this is documented history and I am hoping someone on this sub has read that book, or knows about it, and can answer my questions about the historical aspect. As I said in another comment, we can leave modern-day Antelman's conspiracy theories to the conspiracy sub, but the Sabbatean-Frankist movement was a real thing that Scholem, a much more reputable source, documented.
Also - does anyone know if this is good?
https://www.amazon.com/Zionism-in-the-Age-of-the-Dictators/dp/0985890991/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8
>In 1933 the German Zionist Federation sought Hitler s patronage: "Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews. . . . Boycott propaganda . . . currently being carried on against Germany . . . is in essence un-Zionist." Zionism became the only other legal political movement in the Nazi Reich. That same year, the World Zionist Organization (WZO) made the Ha'avara (Transfer) Agreement, undermining the boycott against Nazi Germany. German Jewish emigrants to Palestine had to buy Nazi goods that the WZO sold in the Middle East. In 1937 the Haganah (later the Israeli army) sent an agent to Berlin. They would provide spy intelligence if the Nazis further eased the monetary regulations for emigrants to Palestine. The Zionist-Revisionist movement (today the ruling Likud Party) set up a detachment at Mussolini's naval academy. He personally reviewed them in 1936. They wanted him to replace Britain as Zionism s patron. In 1941, the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel (later Likudniks) told the Nazis that they wanted a "Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich," and offered "to actively take part in the war on Germany s side." This is the sordid history documented in Lenni Brenner's Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. This updated edition features a new afterword by the author.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-Jewish_common_ancestry_theory
see also
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Jews-Translated-Richard-Gage/dp/0834801582
As a history student with an interest in WWI (among many other subjects), I can tell you right now that I don't believe our role in that war was necessarily legitimate. Does that mean we should have completely stayed out of it? Probably not, but that's one of the great historiographic debates about WWI.
I don't think there is a historian alive that believes the Versailles Treaty had little or no impact on the rise of Hitler, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
>None of our wars have been justified.
You just made a point about Hitler. Take a closer look into Nazi ideology and rethink that position. I recommend War and Genocide by Doris Bergen for a concise look into National Socialist ideology and German war aims in WWII.
War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust
I highly recommend this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Judaism-Homosexuality-Authentic-Orthodox-View/dp/0853034524
I asked a similar question recently and got some great comments and book recommendations. Based off those recommendations, I bought this book. I've only read the intro and Shabbat portions so far (it arrived yesterday) but I'm really enjoying it, particularly because she includes personal anecdotes.
In addition to what other users have written, there is also the case of the Jews of China, (most of whom had arrived overland as traders from Persia/Central Asia) eventually lost contact with Jewish communities in the outside world. We don't have an exact date for when this happened because documentation of Chinese Jews has always been somewhat poor and most of what we do know is of the largest community in Kaifeng (although there were Jews in many other cities including Nanjing, Hangzhou and Beijing). The wider world only learned of them again when Matteo Ricci and his Jesuit missionaries found them mistakenly thinking they were Christians. The missionaries quickly realized their mistake and by the end of the 19th century they had established regular contact with other Jewish communities. Unfortunately by that time assimilation and the destruction of Kaifeng in 1642 had taken their toll and the Kaifeng Jews largely assimilated thereafter although amongst some of their descendants today there has been something of a revival of interest. If you're interested in books I can recommend The Jews of Kaifeng, China by Xu Xin and, if you can get your hands on it, The Jews of China v.1 edited by Jonathan Goldstein and Benjamin Schwartz.
Edit: Spelling
No, he's addressing the phenomena of the new anti-semitism. And Finkelstein isn't repeating anything, he's citing the internationally respected historian Ben-Ami, why are you being dishonest? It's an illustrative point saying that this major call that there's a new rise in anti semitism is neither new or accurate.
If you gave a shit, just google new anti-semitism and you'll find countless articles. Here's what a 30 second google search found:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Is-the-new-antisemitism-gaining-a-foothold-in-Europe-and-America-508035
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n01/neve-gordon/the-new-anti-semitism
https://www.amazon.ca/New-Anti-Semitism-Phyllis-Chesler/dp/9652298093
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/02/is-anti-zionism-really-a-new-antisemitism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-new-anti-semitism-rising-in-france/2014/06/19/1da8ae34-1a71-4f50-893a-9842af51e3ce_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8019993c0286
https://www.thedailybeast.com/germanys-new-anti-semitism-is-not-just-about-muslim-immigrants-versus-jews
Sort of. :D
http://analogicalplanet.com/Pages/ContentPages/Sidebars/BurneyRelief.html
Innana, Ishtar, or Lilith, fine woman all the same. ;)
https://www.amazon.com/Inanna-Queen-Heaven-Earth-Stories/dp/0060908548
https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Goddess-3rd-Enlarged/dp/0814322719
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Goddess-Evolution-Image/dp/0140192921
http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/descent-inanna-underworld-5500-year-old-literary-masterpiece-007296
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna
She's not quite yet forgotten by history. Transformed, twisted and turned, but always around in one form or another. One eras angel, anothers demon, and so it goes.
But the ones who strike down the malignant of those with the will to power.. Just shadows in the darkness. Eaters of tainted souls. Sometimes they get mixed up with various demon/devil myths.
The Erinyes live in Erebus and are more ancient deities than any of the Olympians. Their task is to hear complaints brought by mortals against the insolence of the young to the aged, of children to parents, of hosts to guests, and of householders or city councils to suppliants - and to punish such crimes by hounding culprits relentlessly. The Erinyes are crones and, depending upon authors, described as having snakes for hair, dog's heads, coal black bodies, bat's wings, and blood-shot eyes. In their hands they carry brass-studded scourges, and their victims die in torment
Colorful certainly, not always 100% accurate, but good campfire stories rarely are.
Take the ending of one particularly rotten pair of apples.
He says he promised the leader each day that he and his wife would be moved to Bucharest for a proper trial.
But his superiors had other plans. They hastily arranged a military trial at the base that was video-recorded.
The museum director says the day before, a Romanian official came from Bucharest and told his colleagues: "We'll do them here." Carstina says it proves the decision to execute the Ceausescus was made beforehand.
Kemenici was also bothered by the lack of any evidence during the trial. "The only thing on the table were the glasses of the chief judge," he says.
He adds that Ceausescu didn't believe he was getting due process either, calling it a conspiracy by Kemenici's superiors and other opponents. To this day, some Romanians still think the entire revolution was a planned coup d'etat, especially since many members of the communist regime became part of the new government.
"He didn't believe they were doing this on their own," Kemenici says. "He told me that the Americans and Russians got together to do this."
The trial, which began on Christmas Day, lasted less than an hour, Carstina says, adding that the chief military judge, Gica Popa, delivered the verdict after only minutes of deliberation.
He declared both Ceausescus guilty of genocide and sentenced them to death.
Video footage shows it wasn't until paratroopers assigned to carry out the execution arrived that the couple finally grasped what was about to happen.
Nicolae Ceausescu shouted: "I have the right to do what I want!"
His wife, Elena, struggled and cursed at the soldiers. She shouted: "Don't tie us up!" and "Don't offend us!"
They were hauled outside, lined up against a wall and shot dead by one of the paratroopers. Carstina says it happened before the camera could be turned on.
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/12/24/369593135/25-years-after-death-a-dictator-still-casts-a-shadow-in-romania
Perhaps a bit rushed, but sometimes its best to hit the delete key rather than risk tainting things even further. Such is life. ;)