Rapper Kanye West has made anti-Semitic comments, threatening to go "Death Con 3 on Jewish people." The author, the son of Holocaust survivors, visited the Holocaust Museum where he had a vivid flashback after touching an actual cattle car used to transport Jews. That night, he developed a life-threatening infection in his neck that doctors could not explain. By morning, the infection disappeared. The author believes this was a supernatural experience connecting him to the trauma of the Holocaust and a message that he should continue fighting anti-Semitism.

1. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/death-con-never-again/ 1/6
THE BLOGS
Andy Blumenthal
Leadership With Heart
“Death Con” NEVER
AGAIN
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2. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/death-con-never-again/ 2/6
Adapted by author from public domain photo;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West#/media/File:Kanye_West_at_the_2009_Tribeca_Film_Festival_(cropped).jpg
In the last few weeks, rapper Kanye West has been on a disgusting anti-Semitic tear,
ripping the “Jewish Zionists” who he claims control the media, saying that greedy
Jewish record labels are a form of “modern day slavery,” and threatening to go
“Death Con 3 on Jewish People.” Additionally, Kanye is accused of having admired
the Nazis, along with having an “obsession” with Hitler, and that he even wanted to
name an album after him. He even mocked the Holocaust, where six million Jewish
men, women, and children were viciously murdered, by saying, “Let’s visit our
Holocaust Museum: Planned Parenthood.”
It’s truly unfortunate when a public figure like Kayne West spews such vile anti-
Semitic hatred. Furthermore, the spillover effects can be frightening, as evidenced
by a hate group raising a banner saying “Kayne is right about the Jews,” making
other anti-Semitic remarks, and giving the Nazi salute on a Los Angeles overpass
this week.

3. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/death-con-never-again/ 3/6
Certainly, as the son of Holocaust survivors, it is traumatic to have to listen to all
this, and for most Jews, I know it is deeply triggering. It brings us right back to the
horrible past.
All this brings to mind an incredible miracle that G-d performed in my life when I
visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
One of the museum’s exhibits is of an actual cattle car train used by the Nazis to
transport Jews to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. I remember how
startling and frightening it was to see that they had not just the likeness of a
transport train but the real thing. These trains were literally a death transport for
the million Jews herded like animals to their brutal deaths.
Credit Photo: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum;
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512989)

4. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/death-con-never-again/ 4/6
At the exhibit (pictured above), I’m not sure that I was supposed to do this, but
being a very tactile person, I reached out to touch the train car, maybe partly
because I could not believe this was the real thing where such unbelievable horrors
had occurred.
As soon as I touched it, something happened to me. For a moment, everything went
black, and I had a flashback to literally being there with the real people who had
been crammed into these cattle cars without food, water, toilets, or even enough air
to breathe. I could see their faces and hear them scream.
First, I thought maybe I had a vivid imagination and that all the studies I had done
on the Holocaust and my family being survivors had really had an impact on me. But
then something else happened. When I left the museum, I started to feel an
intensely sharp pain in the side of my neck! At first, I tried to ignore it, but over the
course of the day, it got worse and worse, and before I knew it, I was unable to
breath and was in distress. Basically, it felt like I was actually choking to death, and
it was clear that my life was literally in danger.
I ended up in the emergency room where the doctors weren’t sure what was
happening to me, so they started a whole battery of tests. Strangely enough, the
tests all revealed a very deep tissue infection right on the side of my neck, and based
on the immediate danger to my ability to both breathe and swallow, the doctors
came in to talk with me about the need to perform emergency surgery.
Obviously, this was all quite unbelievable to me: Just a few hours prior, I was at the
Holocaust museum and had simply reached out to touch history, and now my life
was hanging in the balance. They put me under observation overnight and even
prepped me for surgery, but again, bizarrely enough, by morning, the infection that
was literally choking me to death disappeared just as mysteriously as it started.
None of the doctors could explain it.

5. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/death-con-never-again/ 5/6
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Blumenthal is a dynamic, award-winning leader who writes frequently about Jewish life, culture,
and security. All opinions are his own.
Within a span of 24 hours, I had traveled back in time to the Holocaust both
emotionally and physically, and had been saved. I am left with this mysterious and
unexplained supernatural event in my life (and it’s certainly not the only one).
Honestly, it was a dangerous and frightening situation, and I am so grateful that
Hashem saved me. I know that G-d still has a mission for me, one of which is to fight
for good over evil, particularly anti-Semitism and all forms of Jew-hatred. What
Kanye West has been saying clearly falls into the rhetoric of the Holocaust. I can
only hope that he one day realizes that no matter how he “feels,” hate words have
consequences that he cannot control.
As for myself, I will say never again like a sheep to the slaughter on the cattle cars.
We must scream full-throated every day against hate and injustice.
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6. 10/29/22, 8:07 AM "Death Con" NEVER AGAIN | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
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