Fred Ferber - September 11 & 25, 2001
Religion
Fundamentalist.
Fundamentalist in any religion and let, it's, it's, it's be...then they don't eh, the morality loses its contact, context. Because all of a sudden they're willing to kill for religion. They're willing to kill for religion and the whole world has got a problem. I'll tell you our Jewish problems. We spend so much money eh, so much money fighting anti-Semitism. Different organizations that eh, that fight anti-Semitism all over the world and we're not getting anywhere. We, we're eh, we spe...we're working on the wrong cause. We're spending money on the wrong cause. It, it will never end. Why? I'll tell you why. These people who we fight, anti-Semites, we can't blame them. Once again. It's, it's pretty re...it's truly not their fault. We can correct them, we will open their mind. We're very lucky in the United States and worldwide now, you know why? People who watch television who have access to all communications. All of a sudden they have access to another point of view. All of a sudden they may not be so--if they only listen they have a potential information which they begin to question, you know. But in many places of the world and even in America sometimes we don't take advantage of it. But in many places of the world they don't have a second point of view. Now let, let me say one more thing before I get, no let me finish this here. Eh, no, I'll tell you how strong this is. In 1945, I don't think I said that before, 1945 a Russian soldier would never--stated--listen to this, in 1945, a Russian soldier and American soldiers were brother, brothers after the war. They fought the Nazis together. They, they lost lives. When the war was over, they were brothers. Now maybe high up, people had differences. But the plain soldiers, they had certain closeness because they, they won the war. Two years later, three years later, not much longer, the Russians were ready to kill the Americans. To give their lives. What happened? For two, three years every house in Russia every little house in Russia, you may not know, has a speaker. And that speaker is controlled by the government radio. And all day long they were taught the Americans are taking our bread, they're taking our butter, they're taking our land, they're taking our Berlin, they're going to destroy us, whatever they were. The prop...the propaganda, twenty-four hours a day. These people, these Russians became enemies to the Americans. Became genuine enemies. Goes to show you the, the power of, of, of propaganda, of, of, of, of seeing one point of view all the time. Now the same thing is with religion. We fighting people who are genuinely not at fault. We should put all the money that we gather and fight anti-Semitism, we should begin to apply pressure on Vatican. Vatican with one letter can do more good worldwide than all the money spent all over the world, on, on anti-Semitism. The power--not the Pope, the Pope is a wonderful man right now. I happen to know the Pope better than most. Why? I tell you. My uncle, Yanek Ferber, played soccer with him on Wolnice Street before the war in Poland, okay. Because eh, Pope was eh, living like eh, two hundred feet away. In ??? Gazowa was the name of this particular street and, and that's, in this particular church where he was learning and preaching and, when he was very young man. A lot of Jewish people know him, I don't know if you know, he got tremendous amount of Jewish friends from Krakow...
I know.
...people that I know that went to visit him. So he's a good man. But there's only so much the Pope can do. There's only so much a president can do without a congress, okay?
I think Pope I...John Paul ha...has issued such a statement.
He issued such a statement. John Pope did tremendous--well, the problem is, worldwide those statements are not heard. It's only heard by the people that want to hear it; by us mostly. In Poland, ah, they don't hear about it. If it was in the paper once, they don't hear about it. Now the pl...pressure ought to be applied through governments, through good governments, democratic governments worldwide on Vatican on the fifty cardinals. These fifty cardinals survive the Pope, the Pope, and they have tremendous power. And they allow the Pope only so much. What...whatever, the Pope actually, according to their thesis, according to Catholism--Catholicism, the Pope is got all the power in the world. I don't know if you know. He has got the final word, you know that.
Yeah.
Total.
Infallible.
Infallible. But this is only true in theory. In practice, he's got these fifty cardinals or whatever that eh, uh, are watching his every move. So our pressure should be applied on Rome, on Vatican. And a number of years things would change for the benefit for everyone in the world.
[interruption in interview]
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