Adam Fischer gives humanity prize to George Soros

Adam Fischer gives humanity prize to George Soros

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norman lebrecht

February 23, 2018

The  Tonhalle Düsseldorf has given this year’s human rights award to the controversial Hungarian-born investor George Soros.

Music director Adam Fischer, likewise Hungarian born, said he wanted ‘to draw attention to the growing danger of xenophobia, racism and restrictions of freedom in Europe.’

The last comment appears to be aimed at certain central and east European regimes.

Comments

  • Another Hasbeen says:

    Applies to the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail too with their nasty anti-Semitic and xenophobic attacks on Mr Soros. Hardly surprising in the Mail’s case given its history.

    • Norman D Landings says:

      Oh dear. Are you a Remoaner, by any chance? Anyway, criticising a foreign national for trying to interfere with domestic British politics isn’t being “anti-Semitic” or “xenophobic”, in the same way that criticising Margaret Thatcher’s policies isn’t being misogynistic and being concerned about growing Chinese influence in Africa isn’t being Sinophobic.

    • Dandan says:

      Sorros was born a jew but has not claimed his jewishness, during ww2 he and his father collaborated with Nazis rounding up Jews hiding as Christians.
      Since then he has been involved in the politics of various nations, Netanyahu does not recognise sorros as a friend because of his funding pro immigration groups in israel(Israel operates an apartheid system).
      Sorros is not religious and does not see himself as Jewish and he does not need defending, he may look old and frail but is a dangerous individual. Ask any hungarian jew circa 1944. Crying anti semitism is completely misguided in this example.

      • Been Here Before says:

        This is absolutely not true! Please see below:

        According to Michael Kaufman, the author of the biography Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire, Soros “collaborated with no one” during the Holocaust and was simply adopting a secret identity to protect himself while living with a Hungarian government official who was forced to confiscate property from a Jewish aristocrat. From Kaufman’s book:

        While he was living with Baumbach as Sandor Kiss, an event occurred that more than a half a century later would become the basis of charges that George Soros, the international financier and billionaire, had somehow collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of his homeland and had exploited his fellow Jews. The issue was raised in a bizarre television profile and interview of Soros aired on the CBS television program 60 Minutes in December of 1998. In the segment, Steve Kroft, the interviewer, noted with prosecutorial gusto that George’s father had “bribed a government official to swear that you were his godson,” and added that this survival strategy “carried a heavy price tag.” For, he continued, “as hundreds of thousands of Jews were being shipped off to the Nazi death camps, a thirteen-year-old George Soros accompanied his phony godfather on his rounds, confiscating property from the Jews.” Visibly dumbfounded by the line of questioning, Soros could only manage to say that he had no role in the seizure of property and was merely a spectator. To underscore Kroft’s point, film footage showed masses of Hungarian Jews being led away at gunpoint.

        This is what actually happened. Shortly after George went to live with Baumbach, the man was assigned to take inventory on the vast estate of Mor Kornfeld, an extremely wealthy aristocrat of Jewish origin. The Kornfeld family had the wealth, wisdom, and connections to be able to leave some of its belongings behind in exchange for permission to make their way to Lisbon. Baumbach was ordered to go to the Kornfeld estate and inventory the artworks, furnishings, and other property. Rather than leave his “godson” behind in Budapest for three days, he took the boy with him. As Baumbach itemized the material, George walked around the grounds and spent time with Kornfeld’s staff. It was his first visit to such a mansion, and the first time he rode a horse. He collaborated with no one and he paid attention to what he understood to be his primary responsibility: making sure that no one doubted that he was Sandor Kiss. Among his practical concerns was to make sure that no one saw him pee. [Media Matters, 12/8/10]

    • Roger says:

      The Guardian too of course. Especially when Seumas Milne was there but it continues.

    • Anon says:

      Not every criticism of a person with a Jewish background is directed at their Jewishness, but simply maybe at what they do or did. But if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

    • Olassus says:

      Xenophobia — wrongly defined by dictionaries.

      Merriam: “fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia)

      Oxford: “dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/xenophobia)

      Xenophobia in fact means fear of strangers. The definitions above imply that xenophobia is wrong. But how can fear be wrong? Our feelings are not to be judged.

      Tens if not hundreds of millions of Europeans feel their continent is being invaded — no other word will do — with the acquiescence of their commercially pandering politicians and against their wishes, wholly without consultation.

      This is coming to a head, and the results will be violent. Watch Italy on March 4, in case a group of political parties under Matteo Salvini gains strength.

  • V.Lind says:

    Seems well-aimed, then. Though there is no shortage of “growing danger of xenophobia, racism and restrictions of freedom” west of the old Iron Curtain as well.

  • Doug says:

    The parasite lauds its host.

    • Sue says:

      “Citizen Soros”. I’m waiting for the movie about this meddling tyrant who has his finger in the affairs of many nations and uses his influence to pedal his infantile ideas about utopia. Now, where have I head that before? (Finger on temple; thinks). As Jordan Peterson says, “anger and resentment masking as compassion”.

      Adam Fischer just went down 100% in my estimation.

  • Mark says:

    Humanity ? Sure Was this repulsive creature Soros wearing his Arrow Cross badge, too ? And did the proceedings conclude with the singing of “Ebredj, Magyar !” ?

    • steven holloway says:

      Hmmm. You call Soros a “repulsive creature”, which is interesting wording. You think a Hungarian Jew who was born in 1930 and left Hungary for England when he was 17 belonged to Hungary’s version of the Nazis. And, it seems, you think he still belongs to it and that he and Adam Fischer and people at the award in Dusseldorf sing its party song. You are undoubtedly demented.

      • Mark says:

        Do some research before commenting, dummy. As a teenager, Soros participated in the confiscation of the property of his fellow Jews, wearing the Arrow Cross youth insignia. I don’t fault this POS for survival, but a man with even a shred of decency would have felt some sense of shame or remorse. But he just shrugs and says that somebody else would have done anyway.
        Watch this interview (at 8:50 mark)
        https://youtu.be/8ZhIrYxOQsI

        • Christopher Culver says:

          Actually, I did do some research when these accusations began to appear regularly, and it turns out that they are false and often made by people with an ulterior motive that is not especially concerned about Jewish suffering. See here for a useful overview. Worth noting is that Jewish organizations, such as the ADL have objected to these accusations.

        • steven holloway says:

          I must suppose you mean that part about how a man who protected the child George did nevertheless himself take the belongings of deported Jews? And Soros is to blame for that man’s actions how? Let us suppose that man was, just hypothetically, Soros’ father. Are you one who visits the sins of the father upon the son? As did Nazis. And as did Bolsheviks. Or did you, as I strongly suspect, not understand what was said at that point in the interview?

        • Been Here Before says:

          Absolutely not true! Please see my post with citations above.

  • Esfir Ross says:

    Congratulation! Well deserved appritiation.

  • Mike Schachter says:

    Since Soros funds NGOs that denigrate and defame Israel no wonder he is lauded by left-wing Jews.

    • steven holloway says:

      I take it that translates as organizations and individuals, Jewish or other, who have the temerity to disagree with any of the Israeli Government’s policies.

      • Mike Schachter says:

        No, who want to destroy the country, as you presumably do.

        • steven holloway says:

          Then you are mistaken in your presumption. But, then, if you were to take even a little care in reading, parsing, construing what people write or say, rather than just giving vent to presumptions and what smacks of obsessiveness, your comments would be more informed, more accurate, and of some small value as contributions to discussions.

          • Mike Schachter says:

            Anyone who supports BDS wants to destroy Israel, very little “parsing” required to grasp that. Of course it may be all to do with international law and Jewish values but you have to be pretty dumb to believe that.

        • steven holloway says:

          RE your comment below: The statement about BDS and destroying Israel is, of course, devoid of truth, and you know it. The sentence invoking international law and Jewish values is simply incomprehensible. But if you invoke international law in some way, we’re going to have to talk about the illegality of the West Bank settlements, aren’t we.

          • Mike Schachter says:

            The BDS movement. so called, is entirely about the destruction of the Jewish state. People like you have no problems about 50+ Islamic countries but one Jewish one is racist.

          • steven holloway says:

            Mike, I’ve already dealt with your first sentence — it’s a repeat. Your second comes right out of the blue, a ‘response’ to nothing I wrote. Perhaps you confused me with another commenter. Your “People like you” phraseology is unfortunate, but it doesn’t bother me — I’m a Jew, so it’s not as if I haven’t heard it before. But, if tempted, please don’t resort to ‘Jewish snowflake’. I received that one once, and it bugs me because I don’t have the foggiest idea what it’s supposed to mean. (–:

  • Who gives a toss says:

    So when it comes to FREE SPEECH,If the person OR people with money do t like it,or it goes against THEIR TWISTED W
    VALUES,That then becomes HATE SPEECH.this parasite wants an end to a christian civilised europe.

  • Mike Schachter says:

    I note that my post about his support for anti-Israel NGOs did not appear. I am sure Mr Soros would have approved of its disappearance. Like him I am a Jew from Budapest, a generation younger, who lost much of my family in the Holocaust. He meanwhile is flaunting his self-importance and wealth and hiding behind his phoney Jewishness. Vile.

    • steven holloway says:

      Mr. Soros makes no secret of the fact that, like many Jews, he has given support to the BDS movement. I do myself belong to two Jewish organizations that favour BDS and the establishment of a state for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. We are all attacked, of course, by right-wing nationalists in Israel and out of Israel, and Mr. Soros by nationalists in Hungary, Russia, and various other countries where he has sought to foster open societies and combat dictatorship. Indeed, when the Hungarian Government declared Mr. Soros an “enemy of the state”, the Israeli Ambassador was one of those who defended him, perceiving these attacks as anti-Semitic. However, the right-wingers on YouTube and right-wing trolls who roam through the blogs are likely more relentless than the Hungarian Government, noxious though it is.

      • Mike Schachter says:

        You can call me a troll if you like. In the old days we used to call people like you kapos

        • steven holloway says:

          Oh, Mike, do watch for that line over which you cross into the merely risible. Apart from the humorous desperation of your latest sally, you’ve already disclosed that you are not old enough to have encountered a kapo back “in the old days”. Pretending you were in a concentration camp demeans those who were in a fashion I must deem repugnant. But your offering may also be informative in a certain way. You just referred to as a ‘kapo’ a man who taught in a yeshiva. I think it may be that you have an agenda, strategy and tactics more subtle and very different from what is apparent in the views you express.

          • Mike Schachter says:

            I never pretended to be old enough to be in a concentration camp not have I attended a yeshiva, as I am sure you know. On the other hand I don’t it find it at all risible that Jews should support BDS and presumably support the harassment of Jewish students by your BDS friends in US colleges., and I am sure you are delighted that this has spread to the UK. Enemies of the Jews have always welcomed assistance from people like you.

        • steven holloway says:

          Mike, did you write, “In the old days, we called people like you kapos.” Then you pretended to be in a concentration camp. You wrote earlier that you’re a generation younger than Mr. Soros, so you are a baby boomer. Second, how could I have the foggiest idea whether you attended a yeshiva, and what is the relevance of that? It certainly doesn’t relate to what I wrote. And last, I have no BDS friends in U.S. colleges, though people in those colleges may belong to the same Jewish BDS organizations to which I belong. I am not at all delighted that harassment of Jewish students going about their business is occurring anywhere. You seem to think I am American, which is odd indeed. My spelling is enough of a tip-off for most people. I’m a Londoner born and bred, but now live in Canada. You fire a lot of bullets on the internet, but they all seem to miss the target.

          • Mike Schachter says:

            It is simply a disgusting lie that I pretended to be in a concentration camp. Consistent with the emanations of an anti-Semitic Jew.

          • steven holloway says:

            Thank you, Mike. I bet with a friend of mine that you’d pull the ‘anti-Semitic Jew’ stunt. I win!

  • Been Here Before says:

    I will not discuss his politics, but in his chosen profession, George Soros is one of the greatest financial speculators in history. Certainly the greatest trader of all time.

    As an example, an average market return for a 30 year period amounts between 8-12%. Only 30% of professional investors manage to beat the market average on a given year. Soros’ fund had an average 30% return over the same period of 30 years.

    This is simply defying gravity. George Soros is a Michael Jordan of professional investing! Hats off!

    • Anon says:

      It‘s parasitism, even though he was clever in that. THAT kind of investment banking and speculation creates NOTHING of substantial value. It rakes in paper money, printed by paper money presses. Mankind is worse off through it, not better.

      It is clever, but nothing great about it. It‘s a job for clever scum, moral bottom of society.

      • Been Here Before says:

        Not correct, Sir. Speculators greatly improve market efficiency. Both supply and demand are more flexible (there is always a counterparty for any trade), and prices reflect the value of the asset more accurately and faster. In a long term, market efficiency leads to better allocation of capital, which greatly benefits the economy and the society.

        For this reason, the U.S. markets are the most developed and robust in the world, allowing American companies to raise capital faster and at the lower cost than anywhere else in the world. You are able to write on your computer or smartphone and use fast internet exactly because of highly efficient markets, a phenomenon which would not be possible without speculators.

        I can deduce from your post that you are not able to distinguish between investment banking and trading, two completely different segments of high finance. Before making any additional uninformed statements, may I suggest that you first read a book or two about speculating by either George Soros or one of his most talented traders Victor Niederhoffer.

      • Been Here Before says:

        Just to give you another example of how successful George Soros really was (not merely clever) – a former hedge fund manager told me that the returns of his funds fall six standard deviations from the mean on a Bell curve. According to Eugene Fama’s Efficient Market Hypothesis (the current academic orthodoxy for which he received a Nobel Prize), George Soros should not exist. Truly gravity-defying – like Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff 3 with flat hands!

        • Anon says:

          likely Soros is actually laundring black budget money then big style. Would make sense considering his political meddling objectives. Wonders usually don‘t exist.
          And I know the difference between real investment banking and these crazy trading schemes roughly.

  • MacroV says:

    Soros has become a bogeyman in the U.S. largely for two reasons:

    1) He is a Democrat and has funded a lot of Democratic candidates and related causes, which makes him anathema to the Republicans;

    2) He doesn’t toe/tow the AIPAC line on U.S. policy to Israel, nor is he an uncritical supporter of the Israeli government, especially Netanyahu, which prompts a lot of Jews to call him a “self-hating Jew.” (a rather vile epithet, IMHO).

    Since the fall of communism, Soros has spent a lot of money promoting open societies and transition away from totalitarian/authoritarian governments, something one would think would be rather admirable. The increasingly authoritarian Orban government certainly sees him this way, thus they (and their sympathizers) accuse him of interference and manipulation, and are trying to force closure of Central European University, which is trying to bring western-oriented education to the region.

    It’s true that criticizing a person who happens to be Jewish does not amount to anti-semitism. But a few years ago the Malaysian President (Mathahir, IIRC) blamed all sorts of economic problems on Jewish financiers including Soros. So Soros is Jewish enough for some haters.

    I’m sure Soros is involved in some things with which I disagree, but this vilification of him is really lousy.

  • esfir ross says:

    Marc Shachter: Soros phoney Jewishness-the person that had both Jewish parents. According to you real Jew the one that support Israel unconditional, don’t criticize. I’m daughter of Holocaust so called survivor, a wife of man who suffer under German occupation 1942-43. I support BDS and what kind of Jew I am. My first spoken language was Yiddish.

    • steven holloway says:

      Schachter’s first name is Mike, not Marc. But apart from that understandable slip, your comment is right on target. However, I doubt if my efforts to drum a similar point home to Schachter have met with success. He smacks of fanaticism.

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