. . . "Of course, there???s precedent for his attitude: A certain elitist faction of American Jews pooh-poohed the pre-Holocaust warnings about Hitler???s exterminationist designs, and later refused to listen to reports of the death camps, from writers such as Ben Hecht, as the product of panicked alarmists. (They were so embarrassingly ???ethnic,??? to use Leon???s condescending term)." .