You occasionally come across people in academia who really make you ponder as to whether they are actually sane or simply an ideological hack. Jacob Kovalio of Carleton University in Canada is one such individual.
I will cover Kovalio's argumentation and how it firmly plops itself down in the insane realms of modern jewish supremacism in a separate article. In this article however I wished to specifically address Kovalio's claims in regards to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion in his recent-ish work: 'The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan'. (1)
I must own that when I read the work I was rather surprised that Peter Lang - a respected academic publisher - would deign to put their imprint to a work filled with an awful lot of (bad) rhetoric and but a thin slither of scholarship. Kovalio seems to have an extremely bad habit of making misstatements of fact and misrepresenting the literature as well as simply not doing his research.
To be sure Kovalio does provide some original research in the body of the work – although his non-technical arguments are poor and he extensively uses the selective reproduction of source material to fit his (apparently pre-conceived) thesis – but it is heavily marred by absurd chapters claiming that everybody and their aunt is 'anti-Semitic' (including Winston Churchill no less [contra Gilbert]), (2) that 'anti-Semitism has nothing to do with jews', (3) that jews who do not practice Judaism aren't jews (contra the relevant halakhah and rabbinic authors as well as contradicting himself on this later in said work) (4) and that he (Kovalio) understands the meaning of papal bulls and canon law better than the Pope in Rome. (5)
No more obvious is this Colonel Blimp-esque approach to academic writing than in Kovalio's comments on his erstwhile subject: the Protocols of Zion.
Since I am not an expert on the Japanese language or its literature; I won't comment on Kovalio's characterization of the intellectual and popular debates that surrounded the Protocols of Zion in Japan. I will confine my comments on the Protocols of Zion and not on how said text has been viewed in the land of the Rising Sun.
Now Kovalio – who claims to have read the literature on the Protocols of Zion (of which I have my doubts) – claims that the idea of a Parisian Okhrana origin for the document is the 'interpretative consensus'. (6) His source for this is Norman Cohn who originated the thesis, but failed to address refutations of his positions by Russian scholars among others. Cesare de Michelis has also refuted Cohn's assumptions and the evidence on which he based them, which leaves Kovalio in a difficult intellectual position. (7)
To address this Kovalio claims - without citing a source - that de Michelis' work was badly translated into English (by a specialist academic publisher no less) and seeks to imply that de Michelis agrees with Cohn's thesis when he does not. (8)
In a similarly dishonest vein Kovalio asserts that Jacobs and Weitzman's work supports his position. (9) In fact these two authors simply wrote a non-scholarly book that 'refutes' the Protocols text of Nilus translated into English by pseudo-Marsden, which is incidentally as nonsensical as refuting Homer by using the Homeric Hymns. Jacobs and Weitzman do not offer any detailed – let alone substantive - commentary or critique on the debate as to the origins of the Protocols of Zion. (10)
Kovalio's citation of Stephen Bronner's work is at least valid. (11) However he fails to inform the reader that Bronner's work is again not a detailed or substantive discussion of the 'origins debate' (like Kovalio he doesn't cite or discuss most of the literature or the points of contention), but simply declares for Cohn's Paris Okhrana thesis. Bronner's work ('A Rumor about the Jews') is nothing more than a scholarly (if at times irrational and pejorative) discussion of anti-Semitism and its links with the Protocols of Zion.
Another example of this... shall we say... cavalier attitude to interpreting the academic literature can be seen when Kovalio lists the 'experts' who 'agree' with his opinion that the Protocols were faked by the Russian Okhrana in Paris. (12) Most of whom - such as John Gwyer - I note are from the early twentieth century and are not even widely used or cited by scholars in the origins debate (unlike say Henri Rollin who Kovalio doesn't cite). Kovalio also fails to note the existence of major contributors in the debate around the origins of the Protocols of Zion who disagree with him such as Cesare de Michelis and Sergei Dudakov.
It is also worth noting that Kovalio happily cites the work of Michael Lepekhin as a scholarly authority in the 'Tsarist forgery' school of thought, but fails to mention other prominent Russian scholars on the Protocols who argue against this thesis (and that they are real) such as Yuri Begunov.
In the foregoing discussion I have already demonstrated the sloppy scholarship that characterizes Kovalio's work. However it only gets sloppier and more dishonest.
For example Kovalio is apparently (and hilariously) unaware that Leslie Fry was the pen name of Paquita Louise de Shishmareff (nee Louise Chandor), but yet deigns to comment on her work. (13)
Fry wrote 'Waters Flowing Eastwards' which covers the early origins debate from the 'Protocols are genuine' position. She was also a close associate of Monsignor Jouin, who published the 'Revue Internationale des Sociétés Secrètes' (aka R.I.S.S.) as well as four major works on the origins of the Protocols, and as such is an oft-cited source in the origins debate. Yet Kovalio doesn't seem to know even basic biographical details about her (despite them being well known to modern scholars of the Protocols), but that doesn't stop him citing her work!
Another instance of dire (and dare I say deliberate) misrepresentation is when Kovalio cites Princess Catherine Radziwill – who is incidentally Cohn's only documentary evidence for his thesis – as evidence for the Paris Okhrana thesis. (14) Kovalio describes her as a 'leading antisemitic Polish aristocrat' (15) when Radziwill was actually relatively philo-Semitic for the time as can be seen from actually reading her many publications.
Kovalio clearly intends these labels to lend authority to Radziwill's statements, but he forgets to inform the reader that Radziwill was also a convicted fraudster. (16) Oh and that her claims to have seen the Protocols in the possession of Tsarist officialdom amount to: 'I saw a piece of paper that had writing on it that I think might have been the Protocols about twenty years ago.' (17)
Sounds really credible: doesn't it?
Then we've got Kovalio's assertion that the man Phillip Graves - a journalist writing for the Times - met in Constantinople and allegedly told him that the Protocols of Zion were plagiarized from the work of an obscure French author named Maurice Joly was a 'Tsarist emigre' and 'former Okhrana agent'. (18)
Kovalio however simply forgets to mention that Graves never revealed the identity of the man he referred to as 'Mr. X'. Therefore referring to an unknown source as a 'Tsarist emigre' and 'former Okhrana agent' is simply disingenuous and the use of appeal to authority.
Thus we can see that Kovalio isn't exactly hot on factual accuracy or scholarly caution, but on the contrary rather cavalier about such matters in regards to the origins debate around the Protocols of Zion. In my follow up article this I will further demonstrate that this habitual misrepresentation likely derives from Kovalio's extreme Zionism and jewish nationalism as well as that it isn't just limited to the Protocols of Zion.
References
(1) Jacob Kovalio, 2009, 'The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish Peril Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s', 1st Edition, Peter Lang: New York
(2) Ibid., pp. 5, 21, 38; 68
(3) Ibid., pp. Xiv; 2-7
(4) Ibid., pp. 32, 69; Kovalio contradicts himself when he claims the Christian convert Jacob Brafman was an 'apostate jew' in Ibid., p. 10.
(5) Ibid., p. 77, n. 6
(6) Ibid., pp. 7-8
(7) Cesare de Michelis, 2004, 'The Non-Existent Manuscript: A Study of the Protocols of the Sages of Zion', 1st Edition, University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, pp. 23-37
(8) Kovalio, Op. Cit., p. 9
(9) Ibid., p. 80, n. 5
(10) As they themselves state in Steven Jacobs, Mark Weitzman, 2003, 'Dismantling the Big Lie: The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion', 1st Edition, Ktav: New York, pp. xii-xiv
(11) Kovalio, Op. Cit, p. 80, n. 5
(12) Ibid., p. 67
(13) Ibid., p. 24
(14) de Michelis, Op. Cit, p
(15) Kovalio, Op. Cit., p. 30
(16) Cf. Brian Roberts, 1969, 'Cecil Rhodes and the Princess', 1st Edition, Hamish Hamilton: London
(17) de Michelis, Op. Cit., pp. 27-30
(18) Kovalio, Op. Cit., p. 18