Dr. Levin spoke on: "the role of the psychiatrist in eugenics and genetics with reference to the condition of the Jewish people".
-----------Throughout the 1930s - beginning in 1924, the official journal of the Hebrew Medical Association (HMA) in Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel) served as a propaganda mouthpiece for the ideas and proposals of the proponents of the German doctrine of racial improvement. While HMA was protesting against the persecution of Jewish doctors in Germany and Austria, under the racist ideas of the Nazi administration, concomitantly it was propounding the same ideas and schemes concerning "mental patients" in Eretz Israel. A story of hypocrisy and evil is hereby disclosed for the first time. -----------The HMA was founded in the beginning of 1912 as an exclusively Hebrew - i.e. Jewish - association and numbered 19 members in this country, 9 of which in Tel Aviv ('Harefua' journal vol 12, 1936, pp. 23-34. All references in this article are from 'Harefua'). The number of physicians in the early 20th century was small for the growing population: in 1921 there were 17 "Jewish" physicians in Haifa (12, 1936, 47) at the end of 1932 there were 658 physicians in this country (7, 1933, 164). In 1935 the population of Tel Aviv in addition to the Jews of Jaffa amounted to about 85,000 people. In addition to the Sharon settlements - about 115,000 people. "For the needs of this entire region there is only one public hospital, the Tel Aviv hospital containing only 130 beds. If we add to this the number of beds for infectious diseases in the Jaffa governmental hospital and the Tel Aviv private hospitals, it turns out that for every 1000 inhabitants of this region there are about 2 hospital beds." (6, 1933, 299). A general census of the Jewish population in the coastal plain in 1935 states that "in this region that now contains 250,000 inhabitants there are 2 public hospitals, the Tel Aviv municipal hospital and the Haifa Jewish community hospital, containing a little more than 250 beds, that is one bed to one thousand inhabitants." (9, 1938, 404). The ascent of the Nazi to power and the beginning of biological-racist sanctions against the Jews in Germany brought a large wave of immigrant physicians to this country. The number of physicians increased from 450 in January 1938 to 850 in December 1938, that is, almost double. The population increased by about 40,000 people only. "Undoubtedly this will bring about undesirable competition among physicians". (8, 1934, 96-7). -----------The wave of immigrant physicians caused friction and criticism by local physicians by their arrogant patronizing of the physicians in the country! "Undoubtedly the majority of new immigrants are welcome here, however, as in every large group, there are a few isolated individuals that are unwelcome for several reasons: some hurt the feelings of our colleagues who carry the burden of the work in this country over the years by stupid bragging and expressing views that are offensive to all of us, namely that we are not up to the required scientific standards, as are they, that only the new immigrants possess true medical science, that we should aspire to reach their standards, etc." (8, 1934, 53).
-----------The relationship of the physicians of this country with Germany were complex. On the one hand most of the physicians in Eretz Israel came from central Europe - and saw there the model of modern medicine: "We brought knowledge and education from far away, mostly from German-speaking countries. That is what befell us in this century when countries with the largest Jewish population closed the doors of learning institutions before us and we were forced to seek professional education mostly in German-speaking countries, and despite the misfortunes and persecutions we cannot deny our debt to the German medical culture". (9, 1935, 869). Actually, all the medical establishment in Eretz Israel relied on the German medical industry. According to medical import data to this country over the years 1932 - 1937, Germany steadily increased its share of the import and in 1937 its share amounted to 42,5% of all pharmaceutical imports. (14, 1938, 326). On the other hand, the biology based (= racist) sanctions implemented by the third Reich against the Jews hung as a cloud over this collaboration: "As we know, until October 1 1938 all the Jewish doctors in Germany were fired from all the public positions manned by them in hospitals, municipalities and other institutions. Likewise, most Jews were fired from Sick Funds and only few of them - among those taking part in the war effort - were allowed to pursue their work as Sick Fund doctors". (7, 1933, 502). "Lately, the papers bring us daily news by the hour of the appalling fate befalling our medical colleagues in Austria and particularly in Vienna". (14, 1938, 195). -----------As mentioned above, most physicians came to this country from central Europe and the sphere of German culture, which they perceived as their growing ground. Inter alia they brought to this country the principles of the German doctrine of racial improvement. As we will see later, the journal 'Harefuah' served as a consistent and clear mouthpiece calling for the implementation and promotion of the principles of the German doctrine of racial improvement in Eretz Israel, as far as 'mental patients' were concerned. As can be expected, this trend began to be expressed in the thirties with the legal and administrative backing of the implementation of racial ideas among the doctors' and scientists' community in Germany and it did not come to a complete halt even after 1939. A perusal of the titles of articles published in 'Harefuah' from its establishment till 1931 reveals that only one article on psychiatry had been published and that there is no article propounding racist beliefs and ideas (8, 1938, 4), while a report from 1938 on 50 issues of 'Harefuah" published from 1920 to 1935 states that in them 13 articles deal with "neurological and mental diseases" (9, 1938, 342). Psychiatric
Racial Improvement 1) Reporting about regulations and actions by the psychiatric and governmental establishment in Germany and in the sphere of German culture concerning "mental patients". Notice that the reporting in the articles in 'Harefua', that is entirely uncritical and devoid of any condemnation or protest, fits the definition of "a crime against humanity" under the 1950 Act of judgement of Nazis and their collaborators, 1950. Medical
literature / Termination of pregnancy according to psychiatric indications.
Conrad Bruner, Helv. Med. Acts, Apr. 1937. 2) A call to implement in this country the laws of the German doctrine of racial improvement concerning "mental patients": discriminatory legislation; ban of marriage; sterilization and/or 'euthanasia'. Notice who are the German psychiatrists quoted by psychiatrists in Eretz Israel as authority and model for imitation. Health
certificate for marriage.
Public
Health/ comments on the article by Halperin: mental disease among Jews
in Eretz Israell" by Arie Kochinsky, Tel Aviv. The estimated schizophrenia morbidity numbers according to the Bruner study come to 0.38%, according to Halperin's count a rate of about 0,1% is obtained. While Bruner's results are based on a first-hand count, the more recent studies carried out by Rudin, Luxenburger and others, intended to carry out an average population morbidity count. This count should have served as comparative data for biological - genetic research. The figures concerning the estimated schizophrenia morbidity are 0,85%, concerning manic-depressive disorder - 0,41%. According to the censuses on the incidence of these psychoses among Jews, we don't see that the figures are lower among Jews. In order to obtain flawless figures it is necessary to perform without delay the sum-total of the biological-genetic status. Its purpose is the careful study of the patient's near and distant family concerning neurological and mental diseases. It should include the pathological genealogies from the genetic point of view, since establishing the overt and the concealed mentally deranged is of great practical importance. Contemporary Land of Israel is ready to sacrifice anything for the sake of its youth. For the sake of a sound and far-sighted public control of the development of the young, and for a healthy population policy, we should use means for racial improvement in order to prevent excessive proliferation of the mentally deranged and the worthless who are also unfit for social life". (14, 1938, 223-6). -----------Not even the beginning of the German genocide process, based on medicine and psychiatry in 1939 made Jewish psychiatrists in Eretz Israel change the direction of their actions! The
second national convention of neurologists and psychiatrists in Eretz
Israel, Tel Aviv, April 17-18, 1942. Arie Kochinsky (Tel Aviv) talks
on "The demographic policy and psychopathology". Occupation and psychopathology - we found there numerous disorders, mainly feelings of occupational dissatisfaction and dysfunction. Sexual disorders - these were represented to a large extent and prominently. Especially noticeable are the relatively numerous cases of homosexuality and sexual frigidity. Hereditary disorders - these were detected in 48% of the cases. Concerning questions of eugenics: it is necessary to carry out in this country a census of genetic-biological tests. We shall mention briefly the value and importance of the method and its implementation. The examination should start from individual symptoms. We have to give up for the time being the application of the laws of Mendel, especially on the transmission of mental traits. Our goal is to carry out a census checking mental tendencies, talents, disease, etc. Care should be taken to avoid the shallow belief that eugenics strives to create a normal man. Our goal is to preserve a tradition that is valuable to civilization and people. The final goal of the study is to find the biological-genetic disease-units. Concerning genetic prognosis: the body type is important. Certain characteristics - that are hereditary - enable far-reaching conclusions concerning the regularity of the emergence of new traits of character and hereditary mental disease. Likewise they enable genetic prognosis. A biological-genetic population census is feasible despite the numerous difficulties. About method: the ideal goal is to include the whole population by creating a card-index, in which the individual and his genealogy will be recorded. The mental and physical examination should be performed according to schedule that enables comparison. The census is justified both from the national and the economic point of view. By means of developing eugenic measures and social treatment we will be able to reduce medical and welfare expenses. Our proposal is: to appoint a committee that shall approach the authorities concerning the preparation of a biological-genetic census in this country. Discussion: Isserlin expressed his full consent to the principles of this lecture. In the discussion also took part the members Max Levy (Tel Aviv), Mordechai Brachiau (Jerusalem), Ziegfried Lowental (Ramat Hashavim). A resolution was passed to appoint a committee for the study of the problems of demographic policy (biological, eugenic and hygienic problems). (28, 1943, 14). 3) The model imitated by Jewish doctors in Eretz Israel in the 1930s was Germany, where the principles of racism and racial improvement were not only developed and implemented but also received legal support. Microscopic
examination of capillaries and the psychopathic personality / by Harcabi-Katz,
Tel Aviv. Finally, I would like to quote the opinion of the associate professor Litzenburger from 1929 in his comprehensive work "Constitution, race and heredity" to the effect: "The future will teach us whether capillary microscopy is valuable to psychiatric research. The interest in capillary microscopy is on the rise, and genetic scholars cannot overlook it without a thorough examination. In this sense we have to consider the work of Jaensch and his associates as progress". (6, 1932, 140-3). 4) The collaboration of the psychiatrists in this country with German psychiatry.
Their metabolism, miscellaneous bio-serological tests such as blood group determination; types of reaction related to perception (behavior), socialization. Intelligence test only is not sufficient. This is the function of biological research. When we want to establish the biological quality of a person the only way is to analyze the systems of the whole body. Bionormal is a person whose biological signs do not deviate much from the habitual measurements found in the average person. To the extent a person deviates from the arithmetical average, his biological quality decreases". (5, 1931, 91-2).
5) The dark side of human rights denial of the doctrine of racial improvement emerges from innocent-looking articles. Undescended
testicles in childhood / by Mordechai Brachiau Jerusalem, Hadassah department
of school hygiene in this country. Lecture delivered at the fifth congress
of Kupat Holim Amamit doctors in the settlements. There is another reason for the importance of this illness in childhood. If the affected testicle produces not only fewer sperm cell (oligospermia) but also weak sperm cells (asthenospermia), the affected child may produce a weak and defective progeny. Like in the alcoholic who is susceptible of producing defective progeny due to the poisoning of the testicular epithelium, so in the person in which this tissue has degenerated due to high temperature in the abdominal cavity: next generation's resistance to external factors will be compromised. The obligatory preliminary examination is important for another reason as well. Doubtless, one may find among people affected with undescended testicles other signs of impaired development. It is a regression in the way of development - delay at an animal stage. Other physical defects found in the patients of this disease: epispadias, hypospadias, idiocy, epilepsy, severe neurasthenia, hysteria etc. undescended testes is also found in animals - it is known that a horse thus affected is "nervous". It bites, stamps its feet, disobeys, in brief it is maladjusted. We may say that undescended testes serves as a warning sign that there is a developmental defect, that the affected person may react to environmental stimuli in a nervous manner, that he will be maladjusted, of "a nervous temper" even when there are no signs of severe neurasthenia or melancholia. With the relationship between undescended testes in childhood and mental disorders of the affected person and his parents we will deal in a special article". (14, 1938, 289 - 92). About
the activities of scientific associations / a report of the meeting
of the neurologists and psychiatrists association in Tel Aviv for the
year 1936/1937. The impression is that in Eretz Israel the diagnosis of schizophrenia is made too often. The lecturer points out the difficulties of diagnosis in the period preceding the illness, in the period of the illness and period after the illness. The lecturer points out errors of diagnosis. Sometimes a normal personality is revealed when the child is taken away from his environment. There is pseudoschizoid during adolescence, which is a period of negation in general. There are external and hereditary factors. Perhaps genetic research will clarify all these questions. In Germany there is a strong tendency towards racial improvement (eugenics) and marriage regulation by law". (14, 1938, 345). 6) A basic assumption concerning the validity of the theory of racism and its implementation in Eretz Israel. The
character and course of neuroses in the various types of body build
/ by Shimon Fleishman, Tel Aviv / from a lecture before the association
of neurologists and psychiatrists in Tel Aviv. The works of Kretchmer revealed a new factor in the development of neural and mental disease. According to Birnboem a disease is not caused by the pathogenic factor but receives from it its specific form. Following the publication of Kretchmer's doctrine I saw in my observations that the borderlines between the various types of body build correspond not only to the borderlines of the various psychoses, as Kretcmer claims, but also the differences of the same disease are related to a great extent to the differences in body build. In order to reach clear conclusions I chose one type of neurosis. I chose cases that are usually named neurasthenia. The patients were mostly men. I chose to use in my study only men because belonging to a certain type of body build is more prominent in men than in women. Of the Kretchmer's types I chose three only, that are the most prominent and frequent: The pyknic type, i.e. people with narrow extremities and shoulders, whose body is nevertheless solid, their face wide, their neck short and strong, their skull big, round and deep. Despite the apparent harmony between the parts of the body they tend to obesity, manifested especially by the formation of a potbelly. The asthenic or leptosomic type - mostly lean, thin and pale persons, with narrow shoulders, elongated narrow and shallow chest. Characteristically their width is small in relation to their longitudinal growth; The athletic type - people of high or average stature, broad shoulders, coarse bones and big extremities. I chose 66 suitable patients, 23 pyknic and 43 leptosomic and athletic. Apparently leptosomes make the majority of neurasthenics. Patients of the two types also differ in their conduct towards people in their environment. In the one type as in the second, patients are so absorbed in themselves and their illness that they disregard their relatives. Yet, this apathy is of an acute, transient nature in the first type. On the contrary, this apathy has a chronic nature in patients of the second type. Sexual perversions do not occupy an important place in our material. Type A patients complain of sexual exhaustion. On the other hand, we found in type B some cases of sexual perversions. If we pay attention not only to the complaints of the neurasthenic and not only to the familiar signs, but also to the body build, we will find first of all a drive to further study of the patient's mood and a more thorough examination of the nature of the disease. I tried to study hereditary relations but was not successful in it, due to lack of interest by a great part of the patients who were mostly Jewish. Remarkable are the few cases in which psychoses set on after many years. In type A we found 4 melancholias or manic-depressive disease among 28 patients, while in type B 2 schizophrenias among 43 patients. A few more words on the composition of my material. When I determined the differences between these two types, the question that arose was, aren't they dependent on their particular conditions of life or on racial differences or on specific periods in life. Most patients were Jewish but there also were "pure" Russians, Ukrainians and Germans. In general it is remarkable that the divides between the various body builds are much stronger than those produced by the various conditions of life and also - within certain limits - between various races. This is clear in this case as it is even clearer in the relations between members of different blood groups. What divide can be stronger than the divide between members of different blood groups, when the blood of one of them can kill his fellow from another group, but both belong to the same people and the same race". (14, 1938, 153-61). Chronicle
/ among neurologists and psychiatrists in Jerusalem. -----------The following articles from 'Harefua' demonstrate how under the influence of racist doctrine, Jewish doctors tried to harness it to the needs of the improvement of the Jewish image: The
origin of blond Jews/ by S. Churtkover -----------According
to the principles of the racial and racial improvement doctrine, appropriate
arguments were invented for the explanation of any phenomenon, on the
borderline between the ridiculous and the pathetic:
From
the medical literature / serology: from serological studies among the
tribes of Israel / Rina Unovitz.
These numbers indicated that the number of the O group is very high, which shows beyond doubt the relative purity of the race. The number of the A group is higher than the B group. (6, 1933, 26-7) Cancer
among Jews / Schachter , Progres med. No. 1931 -----------Notice the hypocrisy of the HMA position: on the one hand complete support for the German doctrine of racial improvement and concern for the fate of Jewish doctors in Europe. A hypocrisy fully expressed in public statements on the occasion of international congresses and conventions, quoted below. In these statements, in nearly consecutive sentences, the HMA supports the doctrine of racial improvement (when "mental patients" are concerned as we saw in previous articles published in 'Harefua') and condemns it (when "Jews" are concerned): Towards
the international congress of Jewish doctors - an appeal. Summary
of the proceedings of the Eretz Israel committee for the international
congress of Jewish doctors until November 22, 1935. -----------The picture that emerges from the journal 'Harefua' can be summed up by stating that Jewish doctors in Eretz Israel supported/ promoted /acted according to the principles of the German doctrine of race and improvement of the race. The problem against which they protested and complained was their inclusion - as a biological group - in the degrading and injurious criteria of this doctrine. In 1943 'Harefuah' published an article by the Tel Aviv psychiatrist Fishel Shneorson "Facing the extermination epidemic in Europe and the psychopathology of national and mass madness". And thus it says: "For the first time in history the madness of mass extermination broke out, in which there are definitely elements of a global epidemic. These atrocities are not natural to any normal creature, but this is a pathological manifestation of aggressive madness of the masses, possessed by the passion for murder like an epileptic seizure, and propagating like a storm as a mental epidemic. The picture we see in Europe is as if from jails and mental asylums desperate lunatics and criminal offenders have emerged out of their minds, broken the doors of closed institutions, and taken control of the state mechanism of a large country, conquered European countries and dragging it fatefully systematically to the abyss of perdition and degradation of human nature". (24, 1943, 189). That is, the "the mentally ill" psychiatric inmates, who were the first victims of the German doctrine of race and racial improvement, for the persecution and extermination of whom the racist law was passed in Germany on July 1933 - "the bill of the genetic health tribunal" - two years before the ignominious 'Neurenberg Laws'. The first to be exterminated in the gas chambers by the German psychiatrists - the initiators and the executioners of the idea of genocide based on German medicine and psychiatry, are those presented by the Tel Aviv psychiatrist as responsible and guilty of the system's madness that the doctrine of racism and racial improvement brought to the world. This is the same psychiatrist who according to a report in 'Harefuah" published a learned article in a German psychiatric periodical. A story of hypocrisy and evil. Epilogue
- neo-Nazi racial improvement -----------The Nazis are no more and Nazism that made a law of the land out of the racist medical-psychiatric doctrine is dead indeed. Biological psychiatry and genetic psychiatry (the two doctrines that served Nazism as a governing tool for the execution of their biological purification plans) are still alive, existing and prospering. Jews and homosexuals achieved political power against their persecutors. The schizophrenics remain. -----------Again a scientific argument based on prejudice is raised, hatred and persecution by means of medical defamation - such is genetic psychiatry. And as in the 1930s Jewish psychiatrists from Israel collaborate with this doctrines. Do you know that the psychiatrist Yossef Zoar from 'Sheba' hospital in Tel Hashomer officiates in the executive committee of the world federation of societies for biological psychiatry, and that the Jerusalem psychiatrist Richard Ebstein of the 'Herzog' psychiatric institution planned to bring to this country - in Jerusalem to boot - the world congress of genetic psychiatry in 2004? These are the names of Israeli biological and genetic psychiatrists: the
Jerusalem Hadassah Ein Kerem department of biological psychiatry: the
Jerusalem 'Herzog' psychiatric institution: The
Petach Tikva 'Geha' psychiatric detention facility: The
faculty of health sciences, the Stanley center for bipolar research
at the Ben Gurion University in the Negev: The
Weizmann Institute for science, department of molecular genetics: The
Afula 'Haemek' hospital, department of psychiatry: The way of the German / Nazi genetics led to Auschwitz - the way of the psychiatric genetics leads to persecution, to the torture of forced psychiatric intervention and to murder in the disguise of pre-natal psychiatric assessment. And therefore: neo-nazi racial improvement. In the
name of human dignity and freedom stop these genetic psychiatrists! |
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2009, The Israeli newspaper 
The '30s
Mental
disease among immigrants by Kurt Blumenthal (Haifa)
Around
the world / the fifth congress of medical pedagogy (a participant's
impressions) / by Mordechai Brachiau.
Information
from the literature / Fishel Shneorson, Tel Aviv. Published in Zeitschrift
f. Kinderpsychiatrie, N 6, 1938 article: 
On
the racial immunity to tuberculosis among Jews / by Dr. A. Ben Gefen,
head of the "Bilu" sanatorium.
"Literary
News"