FAITH COMPLEX: Cyber Anti-Semitism

WmarkW wrote:

There've been posts on this board, some reasonable and some not, objecting to the term "antisemitism." There's a valid point there. Jewishness is both a religion (and hence a culture) and a race. Lumping all anti-Jewishness together as antisemitism implies that it is always a form of racism. The Nazis were antisemites, in that they defined Jewishness racially and executed them for their ethnicity.

The Talmud contains verses countenancing withholding payment from Gentiles for wages earned. And the Madoff and other financial scandals suggest that many Jews still regard cheating others as Kosher.

Posted by: WmarkW | June 14, 2009 7:31 AM
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Me: First, there are no "races"; the notion of "race" is christianist reification constructed in the nineteenth century from a materialist foundation begun in the Middle Ages. For the EuropChristian Nazis, a single grandparent meant, in this (the Christianist) sense that a person was of the (nonexistent) Jewish race. So said those of the Nazi race.
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WmarkW: Some of us could hardly care less where a person's ancestors came from, but still have some qualms about Jewish religion and culture.
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Me: By analogy, then, one might say some of us couldn't care less about a person's ancestors but remain with qualms about Christian religion and culture.
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WmarkW: The Talmud contains verses countenancing withholding payment from Gentiles for wages earned.

Me: Passages please, all commentaries, to include Rashi's (obviously), up to the present. (Btw., I've studied Talmud for many years. No one on the OnFaith blog is familiar with it. Delighted to have a Talmud scholar on board. Please post in Aramaic for me, in English for the other bloggers. This way if there are translation errors, and these abound, I'll be able to correct them.)
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WmarkW: And the Madoff and other financial scandals suggest that many Jews still regard cheating others as Kosher.

Me: By analogy, might one say the Senate healthcare scandal involving Senators Kennedy, Pelosi, Reid, Connell, MConnell, et al, along with the Senate real estate properties scandal involving Senators Reid, Connell, MConnell, et al, suggest that the Christians still think that stealing from an economically distressed nation is as wholesome as a mayonnaise sandwich. Harks back to the AIG scandal, the Enron Scandal, the Keating Savings and Loan, etc., etc. Suggests that cheating is as still as wholesome to some Christians as a mayonnaise sandwich and a Budweiser. As pure as a communion wafer and wine.

Continued
By analogy to posts on this blog that these elected thieves will never be indicted, never repay a cent, in fact, will go on stealing via their Senate seats suggests that for some Christians, taking care of one another is still like a mayonnaise sandwich. Good as a communion wafer. Holy water.

By analogy to posts on this blog, the fact that the Christian owned WaPo (Christian CEo Don Graham), first published and then REMOVED from the web an article by Paul Kane detailing the Catholic Senators' real estate fraud, it is fair to say that some among the Christian media owners still think that suppressing the truth is as pure as holy water.

WaPo removes article from web:

"U.S. Senators Release Their Financial Records."

The article beagan "Despite a global economic meltdown last year, the Senate's top leaders advanced their personal investments...."

WMarkW wrote:

"Jewishness is both a religion (and hence a culture) and a race. Lumping all anti-Jewishness together as antisemitism implies that it is always a form of racism."

Not quite. Judaism is a religion. 'Jewishness' is a culture. And Jews are NOT a race.

There've been posts on this board, some reasonable and some not, objecting to the term "antisemitism." There's a valid point there. Jewishness is both a religion (and hence a culture) and a race. Lumping all anti-Jewishness together as antisemitism implies that it is always a form of racism. The Nazis were antisemites, in that they defined Jewishness racially and executed them for their ethnicity.

Some of us could hardly care less where a person's ancestors came from, but still have some qualms about Jewish religion and culture. The Talmud contains verses countenancing withholding payment from Gentiles for wages earned. And the Madoff and other financial scandals suggest that many Jews still regard cheating others as Kosher.

ATTENTION JEW SCRUTINIZERS:

A blogger responds to similar loons like you blogging on another antisemitic thread. I thought you might use this inro. to protect yourselves from the upcoming Joo menace:

"People think the North Korean leadership is insane, but did any of you Jew-scrutinizers know that North Korea is thoroughly infiltrated by Zionist agents? The proof is clear to see. Go on Google Earth to map coordinates 39 deg 03'00:92" N and 125 deg 46'31.22" E. You will clearly see two Jew stars on the very roof of the Pyongyang First of May building. Pretty sneaky, huh? I thought the Jew-trackers on this thread might appreciate this addition to your paranoia collection."

ATTENTION ALL MUSLIMS: Both this posting and the one below should be of interest to you. You should read the one below first.

FACT ALERT: GOD'S PEOPLE

If you want to be among the Christian/Catholic "God's people," all you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

Jews do not believe this. They are strict monotheists. That is why they are doomed, damned. AND SO ARE YOU, ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIANS/CATHOLICS. If you don't wish to be, all you have to do is believe that Jesus Christ is the SON OF GOD.

That's up to you. Jews do not believe this, and we never will. "The Lord, the Lord is ONE" (Deuteronomy 6:4)

Attention Muslims and Interested Christians/Catholics, Others

THe "Old Testament" is a version of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Scriptures) translated from the Greek, which in turn, was translated from the Hebrew (the Tanakh also contains a few brief passages in Aramaic.) Jews read the Tanakh in the language in which it was written or, if necessary, translated directly from Hebrew and Aramaic into the target langauge. Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Protestants translations from the Greek vary; as well they include different books.

For instance, the Book of the Maccabees, included in many Christian Bibles ("OT") is not included in the Tanakh.

According to the Tanakh, and ALL versions of the "OT," the deity chose the Hebrews with which to establish a covenant, the Commandments, etc.

The "New Testament ("NT") scribes replaced that covenant with a "new" covenant, according to which ALL PERSONS WHO BELIEVED THAT JESUS CHRIST WAS THE SON OF GOD are "God's people." Those who believe this, regardless of what good or ill they have done will be "saved." Those who do not are damned. THE CHRISTIAN priests, ministers, et al, run around proclaiming themselves GOD's PEOPLE.

However, since Jews do not believe that Christ is the Son of God, continue to abide by the Tanakh ("OT"), the CHRISTIANS say we think we are the "chosen people."

If the Christians/Catholics simply stopped saying they "superseded" the Tanakh ("OT"), they could rid themselves of their insecurities.

In the meantime, if they have a problem, they are advised to take it up with their HOLY SPIRIT.

rwi1

I am really barfed out with the constant us of the term "Anti-Semitism" as it has been co opted by the Zionist community

The term "anti-Semite" was introduced in the nineteenth century by a one of your ancestors, a proto-nazi by the name of Wilhelm Marr (use google). Marr defined anti-Semite as one who opposed Jews and endowed it with positive connotations. In fact, originally, "semitic" was used to define a group of languages. It was Marr and his antisemitic ilk who reified it. (Use dictionary to look up "reify.")

Since then, less morally depleted persons, have used the term to mean anti-Jewish racism. Jews spell the word "antisemitism" since there is now nor were there ever a people "Semites." The fact that some dictionaries have acceded to racially motivated usages sans qualification is unfortunate.

If you object to the current of antisemitism, you would do well to take it up with the editors of Webster's International Dictionary, to begin with. (Keep us apprised of your progress.)

You write: "I am really barfed out with the constant us of the term "Anti-Semitism" "

A few weeks ago, a Weslayan College student, Jennifer Justin Jinich was murdered as she was working in the campus bookstore by a known antisemite, who'd written in his journal "Kill Jennifer." He killed her quite simply because she was Jewish. (Use google)

In her memory, I ask that next time someone "barf[s] [you] out," the barfer clean up the mess, depositing it in the garbage where it belongs so as to spare us the stench you have created here.

RWI1 wrote:
"As to the question of why Jews have been lightning rods for at least partially undeserved persecution,... "
and
"They are "chosen" by the one and only
god whom they and they alone have
anointed as such."

Interesting new expressions of bigotry. As to the first, what part of the persecution of the Jews IS "deserved", pray tell?. What other people "deserve" to be persecuted, in your opinion?

What do you suppose makes the Jews the "chosen" people? They certainly never made that claim for or of themselves. Not one mention is made, in Jewish religious texts, of being the "chosen" people. So, who "chose" them, and for what?

I am really barfed out with the constant us of the term "Anti-Semitism" as it has been co opted by the Zionist community. All people of the Middle East who are descended from Phoenicians and who have used Arabic based languages are lexicographically described as "Semites". So to be truly "anti-Semitic" one must decry the natures and behaviors of this entire group which clearly includes Jews, Palestinians etc.

As to the question of why Jews have been lightning rods for at least partially undeserved persecution, we ought to consider their posture relative to societies in which they have had to seek refuge after blaming everything and everybody but their negligent god "Yahweh" for their fugitive status.

1. They are "chosen" by the one and only
god whom they and they alone have
anointed as such.

2. They claim to have special rights among
all other "nations" based upon this
claim. The don't give a damn about the
eternal welfare of the rest of us and
rather than seek to convert others to
their religion they discourage any
increase in their numbers other than
by heredity.

3. They exhibit intellectual and socially
strategic skills which elevate them to
powerful positions in professions and
government and the accumulation of
wealth and show no reluctance to
unabashedly use these resources to
further their parochial causes such as
limiting public criticism of their
agenda and the promotion of neo-Israel
regardless of its cost to the rest of
us.

4. They demonstrate that they will
cheerfully abandon their host countries
upon return of their "Messiah" and his
summoning of them to neo-Israel, to
rule over us non-chosen "goyem".

I can't concoct a better platform to ensure rational opprobrium by the "non-chosen". Unfortunately the connection between Christianity and Judaism implies, in the "minds" of such believers (if they have minds) that Jews must be accorded their biblical perquisites while America gets dragged right along.

"Look, Anti-Semitism is a new form of McCarthyism that is used by Jewish groups- and fanatical right-wing Christians- to deflect attention from Jewish people and issues (e.g. Israel)."

Oh god, ANOTHER one.

Farnaz,
"discover how, according to Turkey, Jews organized the Crusades (I"m not kidding)"

Let's see now: all the Jews need to do is jerk a few mysterious strings and - presto - out roll a whole series of Frankish Catholic jihads, to slash and burn the gentle orientals. Ah those Jews. SO diabolically devious that they even arrange for their crusader minions to massacre them, so their cover won't be blown. No, wait, those massacres were all faked (the blood was beetroot juice), just to attract sympathy...yet another instance of abominable subterfuge to further The Great Plot.

The post below comes from an article, one of dozens among dozens of books on Turkish Islamicism, fundamentalist antisemitism. Unfortunately, it is too long to post, but reads quickly.

TO LEARN about the AZISK'S of this world, read this article and discover how, according to Turkey, Jews organized the Crusades (I"m not kidding), and are "bacteria" and "diseases." Does this sound familiar? Can you see the EuroChristian influences here, those of you who are familiar with EuroChristian antisemitism?

This is the opening paragraph. The link is below.

Turkish Antisemitism and Jewish Dhimmitude
By Andrew G. Bostom

On August 28, 2007, the same day that Abdullah Gul became Turkey's President -- replacing his secular predecessor, and further consolidating the ruling Islamic AK (Adalet ve Kalkınma) Party's (AKP) hold on power -- MEMRI published excerpts from a chilling interview given by former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan. The interview originally aired July 1, 2007, as part of Erbakan's campaign efforts in support of Islamic fundamentalist political causes before the general elections of July 22, 2007, and the AKP's resounding popular electoral victory over its closest "secularist" rival parties.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/09/turkish_antisemitism_and_jewis.html

Perhaps ceasing this disgraceful and delusional behavior starts by putting an end to the hagiography of Jewish life under Ottoman rule -- including Jews living within Istanbul's ghettoes, and Ottoman Palestine -- and using precise terms that describe this half-millennium of history, appropriately and accurately: jihad, surgun (forced population transfer), and chronic dhimmitude. There was nothing "humanitarian" whatsoever in the Ottomans accepting a relatively modest number of Jewish refugees from the Inquisition -- far greater numbers were accepted in other parts of Europe itself. Indeed the vacuum created for these skilled Jewish refugees whom the Ottomans re-settled in their burgeoning Empire was created by the Ottoman jihad conquest of Byzantine and Venetian territories and their Jewish populations, i.e., Jews who were subjected to the Ottoman jihad, including massacre, pillage, enslavement, forced conversion, and surgun deportation.

Also one cannot get lost in comforting happy talk and ignore the chronic, grinding Antisemitism, and vestiges of dhimmitude to which the Jews in Turkey have been subjected throughout the history of modern Republican Turkey-including the large, government organized Thracian pogroms of 1934, and the blatantly discriminatory, deliberately pauperizing varlik vergisi taxation scheme and subsequent deportations of Jewish business leaders to "Turkish Siberia," during World War II (WWII). This ongoing discrimination contributed to the rapid exodus of 40% of Turkey's Jews after WWII to Israel within 2 years of its creation, followed by the steady, continuous attrition of the Turkish Jewish population -- their departure accelerating again after the notorious Istanbul pogrom against Greeks, Armenians, and Jews in 1955-so that only 17,000 of Turkey's 77, 000 post-WWII Jews remain.

Joseph Hacker's seminal research highlights the 1523 book of the Talmudist Eliyah Kapsali (Seder Eliyah Zuta, composed in Crete), and its embellishment by the 17th century Egyptian chronicler Rabbi Yosef Sambari (in Sambari's Divrei Yosef)-rather crudely redacted narratives which became the version accepted by modern historiography of the history of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire:

...the sürgün [forced population transfer] phenomenon and all its attendant [discriminatory] features features was not considered at all. If the sürgün was mentioned at all in the writings of the [Jewish] scholars of the Empire, it was held to be an insignificant, indecisive episode in the history of the Jews. The relations between Jews and Ottomans were thus felt to be both idyllic and monotonous from their very inception, no distinction being made either between kinds of Jewish populations or between one period and another throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

continued

Kapsali conceals all criticism and tries to cover up and obliterate inconvenient facts...This is also apparently the reason for his utterly ignoring the Romaniot [Byzantine] Jews and their fate at the time of the conquest of Constantinople, and of the suffering of the others exiled there after the conquest.

The 16th century dhimmi Jewish leadership's deliberate misrepresentation of the actual plight of Ottoman Jewry was described by Hacker with obvious contempt. Tragically, and in our modern era, inexcusably, this pathological behavior persists five centuries later among contemporary Jewish leadership elites, who appear incapable of identifying, let alone adequately defending against, the resurgence of jihadist Islam in Turkey. Gifted writer Diana West's evocative language depicts the ultimate outcome if this self-destructive dhimmitude is not reversed: "in denial there is defeat."

But a liberating victory can still be achieved if the leadership of the Turkish Jewish community, Israel, and American Jewish advocacy groups simply muster the intellectual courage to overcome their own craven denial. Collectively galvanized, they could confront Erdogan's AKP government over the ugly living legacy of anti-dhimmi and Antisemitic discrimination against Turkey's Jews, and demand immediate efforts at amelioration of their plight: marginalization and legal punishment of Turkish politicians and public intellectuals whose discourse incites Jew-hatred, and potentially, anti-Jewish violence; the implementation of concrete reforms, ensuring in practice equal rights, opportunities, and public safety for Jews. And if all these measures were not implemented rapidly, with tangible evidence of success, Turkey's Jews would be allowed unfettered, mass emigration without any economic penalties.

Such bold, forthright action -- joint "anti-dhimmitude" -- would put an end to the ongoing phenomenon of a vestigial de facto dhimmi Jewish community of Turkey (via its dhimmi leadership) holding Israel, and American Jews hostage to the whims of an oppressive Turkish government, in the throes of a transformative fundamentalist Islamic revival.

"Look, Anti-Semitism is a new form of McCarthyism that is used by Jewish groups- and fanatical right-wing Christians- to deflect attention from Jewish people and issues (e.g. Israel)."
__________________
What?? What is anti-black racism deflecting us from? What is gay-bashing deflecting us from?
What are you talking about?

Azisk's post:

Azisk, the Turk, once again supports Prof. Berlinerblau. Aside from the obvious delusional racism in Azisk, the Turk's post, I would point out the following:

There is now nor was there ever an entity Canaanite Arab. There never were six million Palestinians for Israel to make languish, nor did Israel keep them in refugee camps.

Before the building of the wall Israelis suffered through 164 terrorist attacks per year. Last year, there were 4.

Azisk, the Turk, has a bigger problem, viz, Turkey's Kurd-killing, upon which I will be posting links, incrementally. For an introduction to the horror, and this is very scant, does not talk, for instance, of the kurd-killing Turks of the last few weeks, click on the link below. This site belongs to the Foundation of American Scientists.

http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/turkey_background_kurds.htm

Read the comments and I agree with Justtillthen completely.

Look, Anti-Semitism is a new form of McCarthyism that is used by Jewish groups- and fanatical right-wing Christians- to deflect attention from Jewish people and issues (e.g. Israel). It is a non-sensical term that is used to silence Israel's despicable and questinable activities- stealing Palestinian land, spying on others, profiting from wars, exerting ridiculous levels of incluence, etc.

The only people who take this crap seriously are white people in the West. Seriously, my neighbors are Blacks, Chinese, Pakistanis, Sikhs, Latins, etc. We all shrug our shoulders and roll our eyes at how many white people- especially the right-wing Christian types- fall for this term. It is pathetic because everyone else knows that the term is b-llsh-t! First, Jews are as rich and powerful as any group could imagine to be. Second, 99% of Semites are Arabs, so how can someone be Anti-Semitic for standing up or with 99% of a group? Why don't Jews call it 'racism' like all other groups?

Having said that, the biggest racists on the internet are right-wing Jewish and Christian groups. Go to any right-wing commentator from these groups and all you hear about "Muslim terrorists" this and "Muslim fanatics" that. Jews are quick to condemn others for hanging out with "Anti-Semites" but don't mind hanging out with right-wing Christian bigots who bash Islam, blacks and others. Especially groups like the ADL!!!! Shameful hypocrites!

The myth of the victimized jews is now history-it is a fabrication woven by jewish propaganda. It is a silly tactic to distract from the jewish victimization of the Palestinian People: occupation of their historic homeland Palestine for over sixty years-the longest in modern history, their ethnic cleansing by the jews in 1947/8 (over 70% of them),murdering them day and night by American supplied weapons-the treacherous 23 days barbaric onslaught on Gaza with over seven thousand murdered/and or maimed Palestinians including several hundred children, an onslaught led by jewish rabbis, is the latest example.

As we speak the jews occupy and impose a brutal militaristic racist apartheid regime on over five million Palestinians while over six million ethnically cleansed Palestinians still languish in refugee camps for the past sixty years and as we speak the jews are ethnically cleansing Palestinians from Jerusalem which was built by the Canaanite Arabs (Youbsites) five thousand years ago.

Jewish invaders/occupiers should depart Palestine sooner rather than later and the six million exiled Palestinians should return home.

Pals would commit national suicide if they accept the so called "2 state solution" on less than 8% of their historic Palestine: a mutilated patches of land dotted by cancerous jewish settlments,military posts,roads and an apartheid WALL of Shame and over 650 military check points.

"israel" is an artificial entity and would not survive for any length of time without an extracted US support thru a blackmailed and controlled America.

An American backlash at the grass roots is already in progress as a reaction to the control and abuse of less than 2% of America's population whose sworn loyalty is to "israel" and not America: Joe Lieberman, wolfwatiz, Ram Emanuel are to name but few.

"isrl" is a net strategic and moral liability on America

When people hate over religion, they denigrate their own religious beliefs in many cases.

Hatred says little for their visions of a deity to say the very least about it.

The whole "our way is the only right way" framework of religious exclusion, inclusion, and differentiation by strictly theistic believers ends up with the implication that their version of God is too stupid to figure out the intent and actions of other people who use similar deistic frameworks to interact with their religion.

Or, to put it another way, no God could possibly be as stupid as most of the people who follow It.

ONORFRIO,

WOULD have like to continue the discussion on idealism, materialism, dualism, monism, etc., with you Clearthinking1, and Persiflage. Clearthinking1's last lengthy post has given me a lot to think about.

For some reason, cannot post on Susan's thread right now, but there is much to say. Schopenhauer, even Kantian idealism, are fraught with dangers whose consequences have been evident throughout history. I wonder if we have a common vocabulary with which to discuss this....

Hopefully, we'll regroup soon.

Farnaz Q

Azisk, how many Kurds were killed in Turkey today?
Could you keep us apprised of the body count? You are no "semite" because there is no such thing. Read a book. You are, however, something else. Look in the mirror.

And how many Jewish extremists are there Uqba? How do they compare to the number of Muslim extremists, more precisely, Jew haters?

And the Qurayza Jews, Uqba?

Really, I'd thought more better of you, much better.
A Christian just went to the USHMM because, he said, "It's time to kill the Jews." This christian maniac could have killed hundreds of people.

He murdered a thirty-nine-year-old man in cold blood.

This thread is about the very real existence of murderous antisemitism. Did I expect that every racist and his/her Aunt Martha would surface?

Of course. Did I expect that it would be laid at the foot of this or that jounalist, who happens to be Jewish? Of course.

Interesting thing to note on this score. A lot in recent events is being laid (by the christians/catholics) at the feet of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al.

How come we don't hear how they are justification for hating Catholics? How come they don't develop into anti-Christianity?

NOW THIS IS MORE FOR OTHER THREADERS THAN FOR YOU:

ANY DESCRIPTIONS THAT ATTEMPT TO COVER AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE ARE STEREOTYPES.

ANY ATTEMPT TO BLAME ALL OF ONE GROUP OF PEOPLE FOR WHAT ONE OR TWO MIGHT DO, WHICH, BTW., MAY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR ETHNICITY IS "RACISM."

ANY ATTEMPT TO THEN BLAME THE TARGETS OF RACISM FOR YOUR DISAPPROVAL IS BLAMING THE VICTIM: RACISM.

ALL OF THE FOREGOING SAY MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER THAN THEY DO ABOUT THE SUBJECT.

THEY say NOTHING about the subject. NOTHING. They SAY EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SPEAKER.

Racism reveals nothing about the target, everything about the speaker.

We should go deeper, was the last and maybe next president of Iran or nor REALLY an Anti-Semite? As propaganda wants us to think. Look closer, what he said was within the usual playgfround of politics. He called Israel racist, is this allready racist? He attacked the UNSC for supporting (by ommission) Israels racist policy. To call Israel an Apartheit state etc should be ok. It is not a contradictio in adjecto.

The bigotry and hatred I see posted on videos on YouTube is just shocking to me. It takes my breath away sometimes. It's against Blacks, it's against gays, and a ridiculous share of Bible verses used to justify many of them. It's just crazy.

We hear a lot about anti-Semitism and how it should be exposed and fought. Hate for no reason is a disease. However Jewish racism should also be exposed. And there are a lot of them around. Take the example of rabi Manis Friedman:

“In a piece featuring several rabbis, Rabbi Manis Friedman of Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies in St. Paul responded to the question "How Should Jews Treat Their Arab Neighbors?" the dear rabi said:

“I don't believe in western morality, i.e. don't kill civilians or children, don't destroy holy sites, don't fight during holiday seasons, don't bomb cemeteries, don't shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.

“The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).

“The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East. First, the Arabs will stop using children as shields. Second, they will stop taking hostages knowing that we will not be intimidated. Third, with their holy sites destroyed, they will stop believing that G-d is on their side. Result: no civilian casualties, no children in the line of fire, no false sense of righteousness, in fact, no war.

Zero tolerance for stone throwing, for rockets, for kidnapping will mean that the state has achieved sovereignty. Living by Torah values will make us a light unto the nations who suffer defeat because of a disastrous morality of human invention.”

If a Rabi harbors such feelings, what do we expect the regular Israelis to think.

The Israelis on the street have too much to say as Max Blumenthal's piece shows which is titled: "Feeling the Hate In Jerusalem on the Eve of Obama’s Speech.”

http://maxblumenthal.com/2009/06/feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-the-eve-of-obamas-speech-in-cairo/

It is shocking and sick as the video demonstrates. It seems hate and racism has no borders:

I did not hear a peep out of the great David Friedman when Inquisitional style,
a Virginia senator was outed in a public forum as a cryptic Jew by Piggy Fox. The ADL has no credibility vis-a-vis anti-semitism.

The neo-fascist rightwing of Zionism will rejoice in the Holocaust Museum shooting. It will reinforce their erroneous claim that anti-Israeli sentiment equals anti-semitism. How wonderful to be able to make the rightwing government of Israel able to claim that every criticism of its outrageous policies is merely Jew hatred.

I dont think Anti-Semitism is a real problem today. The Holocaust was not the result of simple Anti-Semitism but of a decision by a state. The state did run the KZs and he did it in secret, it did hide it from public discussion.

Is Obama an Anti-Semite because he wants the settlements to be stopped? Thats what settlers say. He should be neutral....

Anti-Semitism is nothing to care about. Israel jumps itself into the sea.

to be anti-jewis is one thing;to be anti-semitic is another-because few jews are actually semitic.

Civility is necessary to preserve democracy. The alternative is anarchy. We are seeing another movement toward anarchy in the USA right now. Those moderate Republicans who saw this coming in their party have tried to warn us while trying to influence the powers to be in their own party. What we are seeing is a repudiation of moderate Republicans in the GOP. So much for the party of the big tent. What they say and what they are doing is oxymoronic.

Like it is time for moderate and liberal Muslims to take back their countries, it is time for moderate voices in the Republican camp to make a conserted effort to take back the Republican Party from a growing extemist element.

Hello Onofrio,

I like that you do not make excuses for what is for you, but state: This is that I am. Seemingly aside, you are clearly gifted of mind and of tongue, and are a insightful one.

Still, I am stuck. Stuck, that is, with the sense that you misunderstand me. It is why I said that I was disappointed before in dialogue with you, and certainly with the Farnaz, and I continue to be.

May I state again. I am neither anti-semitic nor *bored with the Jews*. I am bored with the endless stories of jewishness that comes out of hollywood, television, the media, the news... I feel cornered by a media biased toward jewishness, and there is noone that is honest that will say that has no merit. Honesty is not only important but is IN valuable in healthful life and growth.

I do not buy the concept that through centuries the Jewish people, or ANY people, are innocent of participation in the creation of their experiences. Innocence is a lovely, and sacred, thought, but is rare in it's pure sense but in individual cases. Even then, in an Eastern perspective, it is an illusion.

My inputs are not in support of anti-semitism at all, and any honest reading of what I said would bear that out. But it seems, in debate on THIS subject, there is not an honest reading in the offing.

I have more to say, again, but the timing for me does not allow more in the moment. May this then suffice, for it must, for now.

Peace to you, brother.

Of my own mind (itself of doubtful provenance), I will endorse your estimate of *seemingly* bright. So, correctamundo.

Nevertheless, on the question of *bored with the Jews*, I remain above-bored. If that proves me *conditioned*, so be it.

Hier stehe ich.

A very disappointing devil.

justillthen says:

"from two seemingly bright minds"

hmm...

keyword = "SEEMINGLY" = outwardly or superficially evident but not true or real

How utterly disappointing.

And from two seemingly bright minds. Conditioning rules over reason!

Onofrio,

"The stench I rued was my own."

Speaking for my own self, the one I own, I understood. But you had no stench to rue. Keep your sword sheathed, I counsel. You will need it still.

Ich ick!

The stench I rued was my own.

Again, me fails words.

Fall, fall on swords, word-failer me,

self-absurded.

Ach, so!

Onofrio,

Do you understand: Die Welt ist ihre Vorstellung.

Hopeless, without help, therefore, butchered Italian, notwithstanding.

Goodnight, Fundament(al) Friend.

Farnaz

Onofrio,

One further thing, distasteful for me but required by the same for reasons of self imposed requirements.

If you so misunderstand me and follow so poorly tuppence, and so perceive it as stench instead of a potential valid truth, then I would do better without the blessing of your attempt at righting me. I am not off keel. I am not the hate filled one here. I am not anti-semitic, even as I iterate an un PC stance.

I state what is true for me straight, and am judged falsely, though testimony is clear, and has been repeatedly clarified. Some ears cannot hear what frightens them.

What smells fishy may not be what first comes to the conditioned mind.

Onofrio,

Mein herr, e mio maestro. Do you mistake me again?

I am not bored of anti-semitism. Certainly not of the actual fact of it, the chilling bloodlessness of empty and cold souls that do that work. Or the maimed, of body and heart, stricken by the fact of hatred, or the fallen.

I am bored by the unending stream of and reiteration of All Things Jewish, told innumerable times in varying ways of the same stories, orchestrated and conducted, baton waving in the air to highlight the emotional ups and downs required, by the very storytellers themselves. I am bored of the endless PR campaign in support of the Jewish state or those of Jewish heritage that have the stage, via powerhouses of the media, to tell it.

I want some balance, and I am bored of hearing so much music from one village, when there are many good villages that play music.

I have more to say, but will not now.

Thank you for your kind previous post. There was much that I was in alignment with.

Peace, brother.

Onofrio,

"Thus, no anti-Eck *hier stehe ich* on ichthus, just ick."

Verbum sapienti: Even the sapient you, my language- gifted friend, cannot heal the sick wording. Die Welt ist [ihre] Vorstellung. :)

Farnaz

Hi Farnaz,

Yes, I've lumbered on very late. I caught up with Justillthen's posts and all of yours too.

As I wrote to Justill, I was grieved at his reiterated *boredom*. Not the first time.

I felt compelled to say *something*, though ended up really just talking to myself. Thus, no anti-Eck *hier stehe ich* on ichthus, just ick.

Sorry for the stench.

Onofrio,

Skip my previous posting, please. I have no wish to go on with this nonsense. It smells ichthian.

Hi Onofrio,

Long time! Did you read all of Justilthen's posts?

Hello Justillthen,

I'm sorry to have lectured you. My late-threadly rave left its own moorings early on, Christ-wise. It was a window on my consciousness about these things; in the end, mere soliloquy.

In truth, the catalyst for my ramble was perplexity at your boredom. It is bold and candid of you to state it, and I get your gist, yet it leaves me grieved. And so I ruminated e-aloud, as it were, like Danielinthelionsden.

The issue of antisemitism seems to me beyond boredom, whatever one may feel about Judaism as religion, or about Jewish culture, or about the policies of the state of Israel. Antisemitism is at the core of the *Western* identity, based as it is on Christendom. As such, it demands fathoming. The Jews did not bring it upon themselves; we of *the West* brought it upon ourselves.

Here, I do not presume to lecture. Just sharing. You of all people know that genocides ancient and recent don't lie stoppered in graves, to dissolve as flesh and memory do. They come back at us in karmic storms, screaming down the wind. Unless we hear them, and bear them - painful as it is - they will blast Soul from us.

To hear them - even repeatedly - is the least we can do, and indeed, necessary. If the reiteration begins to grate or numb, I recall that this too is part of the whirlwind's message. As a consequence, it is not too much to bear, since we who hear are yet alive.

To remain viable, our souls must take into account the whole darkness of the existent. Otherwise, even what we think we have is taken away.

Best Regards,

A devil.

Hello Onofrio,

Thank you for your fabulous historical accounting, told with insight and a storytellers aptitude for fascinating the listener. I am always fascinated by your knowledge and poetic weave. Thank you for thoughts to contemplate.

Yet, I am dumbed somewhat by how I warranted such a lesson. My posts were not a negation or invalidation of the scourge of anti-semitism, neither some blind loyalty in allegiance to the untarnished virtues of Catholicism or christianity.

I admit a mistake in ridiculing the charge that christians expropriated Hebrew Scriptures, though I do not yet support that verb. Clearly there was a deep connection, that Jesus was Jewish, and (if one believes any of the tales) that he continued practicing rituals of his tribe. Clearly also, he was a radical and a rebel, and all such hooligans relish change, and mixing it up a bit. Perhaps he was not alone in those endevours, but just became the one who got famous for them.

It is fascinating how we perceive.

One point of mine, repeated again here, is that we are not so innocent of the outcomes of our lives. Tribal conflicts do not just birthed, fully matured, in their intricacies. We build them. There is no doubt that Christians found in Jews, for centuries, easy scapegoats for their own Shadow. As Hutus found the devil in the Tutsis, and vice versa. As the Boers found the devil in the Zulu, Seminoles in Jackson, Chinese and Japanese in each other.

Onofrio,
continued:

We participate in our story and make alliances and enemies in the process. Jews were said to participate in the "betrayal" of Jesus, as they may have seen him as the betrayer. And perhaps to attempt to make it easier for themselves in their relationship with their overlords, the Roman Empire. Each empire and tribe tends to seek what they consider best for themselves. Self interest. Tribal consciousness continues here. Look at the defenses of and attacks upon these different tribes and religions that are being dialogued. Sunni and Shiite. Croat and Serb. Irish and Italian.

The Native American, bloodlines perhaps sufficiently thinned as to be less of a threat to the powers that be, are only now attempting to remake themselves and pick themselves up from the dust of persecution one hundred and fifty years ago and more.

You do not need to school me on the evils of a persecuting Catholic Church of three and four hundred years ago, (though I learn something every time you school me!). I am not a Christian apologist.

But I also am far less inclined to buy the poor me pill of the innocent and persecuted Jew. In the worlds only Jewish State and Homeland, they are doing none too well for bringing about peace and stability, or equality for all, to their state or to the world.

If we are to speak on censuring blogs and web sites we should do so for all tribes and peoples. Yet, I am not a vote for censure. I think it an ugly road to crawl. Better is to nurture and harvest in ourselves equality and peace and centeredness. Lest we become the persecutors of the persecuted.

Onofrio,

I look forward to responding to your posts after a bit. Thanks for putting them up.

Hello Farnaz,

I am quite happy to discontinue this dialogue with you. As has been the case in dialogues with you in the past, so it continues. I find you are unable to hear honestly what is said, take it personally and as an attack on what is precious to you, and so respond not to me but to your past.

You need not make lists for me. You make them for yourself. I find them overwhelming, to be honest, for a bit, but do not read them through. It is not because the atrocities and persecutions against Jews finds no empathetic home in me. On the contrary, they do. Along with atrocities against most every tribe planetwide.

But you see my inputs in this dialogue have nothing to do with the negating or obscuring the validity of anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is real and practiced daily and currently. Anti-semitism is more prevalant than anti-evangelism or anti-catholicism, in this country at least. Perhaps not in others. But it is not necessarily more prevalent that anti-islamic sentiments or anti-illegal immigrant sentiments.

Do we cease all dialogue of negative positions on these issues in web based chat rooms? Interdict it at it's corrupt source?

This thread is not about anti-semitism per se as it is about policing the web to censure dialogue on issues that are of specific interest, in this case to Jews. While at the same time some of these very people are vilifying what THEY are ant-... toward.

Double standards?

You said "You defend Muslims, who attacked this country, and you should."

I am not defending those that attacked this country. I am standing up for equality and equanimity in public discussion and perception. There are a billion muslims that are descent people, and the west is vilifying them daily, as a group. Now Farnaz, this has happened in history often and regularly as you are well aware. You have your sacred list, you see. But in YOUR mirror, you see only YOUR list, speak only of your persecution and ill treatment, seek your betterment.

Would you like to see anti-islamic sentiment grow so that they can become the devils that Jews have been seen in the past? Pogroms against islam? 21st century Crusades?

Farnaz,

One of my points in this dialogue is that we create our outcomes as a people and a tribe. We are aided toward that end by other tribes and peoples, but we are causal. Would that the moderate muslim majority, (the Moral Imamjority? :-) ), stand up and be counted as a counter to the progressive movement toward medias vilification of Islam.

The media is FAR more negative towards Islam than it is towards Judaism. Partly, no doubt, because much of it is owned and run by Jews! I do not hate that fact, Farnaz, but I just slowly turn towards other voices that can counterbalance the media biases that exist.

Most every outlet is biased as a matter of course. I usually prefer NPR as they are the least biased, in my opinion, and most informative.

But I digress off of point....

This is a continuation for you of your fight against anti-semitism, and that is a fine crusade. As per usual you want to make me and others of contrary perception your evil christian devil anti-semite. I expected as much from you, for you go there on auto pilot every time I have dialogued with you. You so miss me, and my points, and becomes disinteresting. And hey, boring after a point.

I am not interested in flailing about as you rail about anti-semitic wrongs. I agree. It has been and still can be ugly. So we may stop now, as you are unable or unwilling to address what was my inputs.

Hey Farnaz, if it is meaningful to you I am happy to agree, again, that Christians ought to drop the Old Testament altogether. Expropriated? Sure, certainly manipulated and really damaging to the Christian message. I would love it if they just read the New Testament and followed that way. We all would be far better off.

Justillthen, cont'd.

Jewishness had the effrontery to survive its disasters of 70 AD, and 135 AD, and to carry on as if Jesus had never happened.

Prompted by these disasters, Christ broke his Jewish moorings very early. Having sought to distill the constellation of Israel into his single star, he found new lodgings in the mystery-addicted Roman oikumene, won souls used to Serapis, and Dionysos, and Asklepios. And from the very beginning he was always an alternative Caesar. Even resembled the original divine Julius in being murdered by his own compatriots for pretending to kingship. Et tu Brute. Primed for mass consumption.

Galvanised with the guarantee that those who imitated Christ in death would rule the world, Christians gave Rome what it most respected - blood; offered it up cheerfully, while singing psalms on the spit. In their indomitable fanaticism, the martyrs incubated a new imperium, fed on ressentiment.

Once Christ and the genius of the emperor were syncretised, Christianity could not keep its inherent aggression passive. Why defer wielding the rod of iron till Judgement Day, when God had handed it down to his chosen Caesar at the Milvian Bridge?

In hoc signo VINCES. Sword = cross. Sun god = Son of God. Caesar = Messiah.

The continuity of the supposedly superseded, abolished Israel was an affront to the Caesarised Christmongering gaze. Through his sanctified torment, the dead and apotheosised Last Jew had become the epitome of all values. The shadow he cast fell on real-and-present Jews, who became a God-sanctioned target for Christendom's collective fear-and-loathing - approved villains, perpetual scapegoats. They were seen as seditious by default, heretical by genetic inheritance. And the Holy Writ of the Beloved Disciple himself showed them complicit in their own abomination, wilfully cursing themselves and their descendants with the guilt of deicide.

As Farnaz' litany shows, *the Jews* have paid the price of Christendom's "blessed assurance" for centuries.

Justillthen,

You to Farnaz:
"As I said to you, though, I do not agree that the Hebrew Scriptures were "expropriated". That is so much crap. Jesus, 'founder' of christian thought, was a Jew and followed Jewish tradition, though clearly not traditionally. It is clear that there is a deep connection, even if the traditions are obviously different and unique."

Not so much crap as you think, Justillthen. *Jesus the Jew* and *Christianity* are two very different kettles of ichthus. Ways were parted very early in the piece.

Christianity began with the understanding that it had superseded the trajectory we know as *Judaism*. Yes, Jesus was a Jew, but he was supposed to be the Last Jew. Paul (formerly Shaul) wrote that the Jewish Law had been crucified in Jesus' executed body. *The Law* was the scurf that the vindicated Christ sloughed off when he took on his new form, fit for eternity. Christ = the Jew de-Judaised, amenable to Rome.

In all gospels, *the Jews* par excellence - whether *teachers of the Law*, *Pharisees*, or Temple elite - are portrayed as Christ's principal enemies, and, ultimately, his assassins: the darkness that did not understand the light. (By contrast, Roman centurions - the enforcers of imperium - get a good rap. The one who supervises Christ's execution even ascribes deity to him!)

Accordingly, Christianity has thoroughly subordinated *Jesus the Jew*, to *Christ versus the Jews*.

As for the shepherd, so for his flock.

Justilthen:

I see no point in continuing this chat on "the jews" (sic) of whom you are evidently not quite so "bored" and "tired" as you endlessly profess to be. You are either incapable of or unwilling to conduct either a good-faith discussion or a reasoned argument.

You employ one logical fallacy after another: name-calling, non sequiturs, misplaced blame, red herrings, etc.

Truly, there is no point. In hopes that there is yet some good I might do for you, I offer this for you to ponder.

NB: Racism(s) and bigotry say nothing about the target group, everything about the bigots. Everything.

I shall continue from time to time to supplement the very sketchy list so as to include omitted countries, the various Churches, and the period from 1945 to the present.

Hello Ukba,

"Accusing people of anti-Semitism is one of the tools used by the Israeli state and its surrogates to silence and intimidate anyone from having a reasonable discussion about the human right abuses and irrational behavior of successive Israeli governments."

True. One of the reasons for deflection of association with and discussion of Israeli policies as related to world perceptions of Jewish behaviours.

But associations aside the first statement is so valid.

justilthen:

As promised. This is very sketchy, stops at 1945, omits several nations, the Churches, etc. Take this as a preview of coming attractions. Try not to personalize. You are responsible only for the harm you do and have done.

Jewish Persecution | Timeline of Judaism | History of AntiSemitism
Lesser Known Highlights of Jewish International
Relations In The Common Era

DATE PLACE EVENT
250 C.E. Canhage Expulsion
224 C.E. Italy Forced Conversion
325 C.E. Jerusalem Expulsion
351 C.E Persia Book Burning
357 C.E. Italy Property Confiscation
379 C.E. Milan Synagogue Burning
415 C.E. Alexandria Expulsion
418 C.E. Minorca Forced Conversion
469 C.E. Ipahan Holocaust
489 C.E. Antioch Synagogue Burning
506 C.E. Daphne Synagogue Burning
519 C.E. Ravenna Synagogue Burning
554 C.E. Diocese of Clement (France) Expulsion
561 C.E. Diocese of Uzes (France) Expulsion
582 C.E Merovingia Forced Conversion
612 C.E. Visigoth Spain Expulsion
628 C.E. Byzantium Forced Conversion
629 C.E. Merovingia Forced Conversion
633 C.E. Toledo Forced Conversion
638 C.E. Toledo Stake Burnings
642 C.E. Visigothic Empire Expulsion
653 C.E. Toledo Expulsion
681 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
693 C.E. Toledo Jews Enslaved
722 C.E. Byzantium Judaism Outlawed
855 C.E. Italy Expulsion
876 C.E. Sens Expulsion
897 C.E. Narbonne Land Confiscation
945 C.E. Venice Ban on Sea Travel
1009 C.E. Orleans Massacre
1012 C.E. Rouen, Limoges & Rome Massacre
1012 C.E. Mayence Expulsion
1021 C.E. Rome Jews Burned Alive
1063 C.E. Spain Massacre
1095 C.E. Lorraine Massacre
1096 C.E. Northern France & Germany 1/3 of Jewish Population Massacred
1096 C.E. Hungary Massacre
1096 C.E. Ralisbon Massacre
1099 C.E. Jerusalem Jews Burned Alive
1100 C.E. Kiev Pogrom
1140 C.E. Germany Massacres
1146 C.E. Rhine Valley Massacre
1147 C.E. Wurzburg Massacre
1147 C.E. Belitz (Germany) Jews Burned Alive
1147 C.E. Carenton, Ramenu & Sully (France) Massacres
1171 C.E. Blois Stake Burnings
1181 C.E. France Expulsion
1181 C.E. England Property Confiscation
1188 C.E. London & York Mob Attacks
1190 C.E. Norfolk Jews Burned Alive
1191 C.E. Bray (France) Jews Burned Alive
1195 C.E. France Property Confiscation
1209 C.E. Beziers Massacre
1212 C.E. Spain Rioting and blood bath against the Jews of Toledo.
1215 C.E. Rome Lateran Council of Rome decrees that Jews must wear the "badge of shame" in all Christian countries. Jews are denied all public sector employment, and are burdened with extra taxes.
1215 C.E. Toulouse (France) Mass Arrests
1218 C.E. England Jews Forced to Wear Badges
1231 C.E. Rome Inquisition Established
1236 C.E. France Forced Conversion/Massacre
1239 C.E. London Massacre & Property Confiscation
1240 C.E. Austria Property confiscation. Jews either imprisoned, converted, expelled, or burned.

Continued
1240 C.E. France Talmud Confiscated
1240 C.E. England Book Burning
1240 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
1242 C.E. Paris Talmud Burned
1244 C.E. Oxford Mob Attacks
1255 C.E. England Blood libel in Lincoln results in the burning / torture of many Jews & public hangings.
1261 C.E. Canterbury Mob Attacks
1262 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. Germany Council of Vienna declares that all Jews must wear a "pointed dunce cap." Thousands murdered.
1267 C.E. Vienna Jews Forced to Wear Horned Hats
1270 C.E. Weissenberg, Magdeburg, Arnstadt, Coblenz, Singzig, and Erfurt Jews Burned Alive
1270 C.E. England The libel of the "counterfeit coins" - all Jewish men, women and children in England imprisoned. Hundreds are hung.
1276 C.E. Bavaria Expulsion
1278 C.E. Genoa (Spain) Mob Attacks
1279 C.E. Hungary & Poland The Council of Offon denies Jews the right to all civic positions. The Jews of Hungary & Poland are forced to wear the "red badge of shame."
1283 C.E. Mayence & Bacharach Mob Attacks
1285 C.E. Munich Jews Burned Alive
1290 C.E. England King Edward I issues an edict banishing all Jews from England. Many drowned.
1291 C.E. France The Jewish refugees from England are promptly expelled from France.
1292 C.E. Italy Forced conversions & expulsion of the Italian Jewish community.
1298 C.E. Germany The libel of the "Desecrated Host" is perpetrated against the Jews of Germany. Approximately 150 Jewish communities undergo forced conversion.
1298 C.E. Franconia, Bavaria & Austria Reindfel's Decree is propagated against the Jews of Franconia and Bavarai. Riots against these Jewish communities, as well as those in Austria, result in the massacre of 100,000 Jews over a six-month period.
1306 C.E. France Expulsion
1308 C.E. Strasbourg Jews Burned Alive
1320 C.E. Toulouse & Perpigon 120 Communities Massacred & Talmud Burned
1321 C.E. Teruel Public Executions
1328 C.E. Estella 5,000 Jews Slaughtered
1348 C.E. France & Spain Jews Burned Alive
1348 C.E. Switzerland Expulsion
1349 C.E. Worms, Strasbourg, Oppenheim, Mayence, Erfurt, Bavaria & Swabia Jews Burned Alive

justilthen:

This posting will be followed by a brief,
sketchy list of atrocities carried out by your so "tired" tribe against "jews" (sic). Your post speaks for itself, so I shall merely address a few points here.

The matter of expropriation is not a matter of agreement or disagreement; it is a matter of history. The Catholic church fathers (mis)read the Tanakh backwards so that everything referred back to Jesus. Got a bit carried away, of course, so as the Middle Ages progressed, many others came to be "types," including Prometheus, whom quite a number of people believe was Jesus, in his Osiris emergence.

The Muslims did the same, rereading Jesus as a mortal named Isa.

The Protestants made some changes.

Antisemitism, which you are so desperate to dismiss, began, in its current form, with Constantine, who predated the formation of Israel by 1600 years. Christian antisemitism was exported to the Muslim world, and has since become thoroughly Islamicized.

The topic of this essay was antisemitism, which has continued apace, whether or not Israel is at issue. Whenever someone who may or may not be Jewish appears in the news, the bigots are sure to surface.

Donald Madoff is an excellent case in point. Were there similar postings about Enron back in the day? Where was the anti-Catholic hatred that by your distorted reasoning should have come out during the Keating scandal, which nearly bankrupt this country?

I suspect strongly that you are not simply insensible to what I'm saying. I suspect you are simply quite something else, which I need not name. Nor do I have to suspect much, justilthen. You make it so obvious.

You defend Muslims, who attacked this country, and you should. To do otherwise, would be to do what is done to Christians in any number of Muslim countries, where they are often referred to as "pigs" and idolators. Thus it was only ten short years ago by the prime minister of Turkey.

But, as for Jews, no we "personalize." We shouldn't take the historic persecution you have visited upon us personally.

And then again you personalize with me, I whom you first called a "JDL'er," correcting yourself with "JDF'r."

There is irony here, of course. I leave you to hunt for it.

Farnaz,

Are you a AIPAC employee or a full time tool?

Hello Farnaz,

Are you seriously daft, or is it just your go to position when you are wrong? You just are so full of crap.

Okay. Here we go. "Your" obsession is with yourself, Farnaz, not 'christians' with 'you'. Though I am sure that you do not speak for jews as a whole you seem to want to speak for them as 'we'. Again, I do not buy. You are false and can not be honest in it. Come with something more true, please.

"You asked in your post if there were nothing else for you to talk about. I suggested there was."

I did not ask that. Show me where.

"...the inaugural racism of the West was the Christian expropriation of the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures)."

That is a fascinating concept that I have interest in following. As I said to you, though, I do not agree that the Hebrew Scriptures were "expropriated". That is so much crap. Jesus, 'founder' of christian thought, was a Jew and followed Jewish tradition, though clearly not traditionally. It is clear that there is a deep connection, even if the traditions are obviously different and unique.

Israel IS relevant in ANY discussion of Judaism as well as anti-semitism. Policies incorporated by Israel, it's politics, it's actions and tactics affect personal and world opinion of Jews. It is clear that may be uncomfortable, but it is as true as day follows night. Israel is the manifestation of a Jewish State, in the Holy Lands and lands that Jews perceive as gifted them by their God. However hard Jews world wide may resist the equation, they are measured by the actions of their representative State.

Attempts to deflect this relationship and it's influence are flaccid, Farnaz.

Likewise is you blaming a headache for the inability to comprehend postings. Power comes out of truth, even if that truth is contrary to previously stated positions. You are false, Farnaz, and are unwilling to either accept that truth or fight a good fight to defend your stance. I lean towards the former, with the later an effect of the former.

"I dislike "spitfights," much as I do dishonesty."

You live dishonestly, if these posts are any indication. And these are not the first indications...

We well remember the Farnaz of infamy! Do not go down that road again, or veer away as you can. There is no good point.

In an evolved world tribal identity maintains importance, but not utmost importance. Human identity becomes paramount over tribal identity.

Anti-semitism is just a personalized, or tribal, form of prejudice. It is the same as, and carries the same weight and prescence as, anti-islamic sentiment, to the HUMANIST.

Step up to the next floor, Sister.

Uqba:

Re: Your post

Maybe, you could tell us about the synaogue bombing of 2006.

How does a population go from 150,000 to 7,000, mostly elderly? An ancient population?

Do you think that Muslims cry "anti-Islamic" in order to distract attention from what "they" do?

Same (il)logic as your two-part post. And I don't even need to cut and paste. Tres simple.

Farnaz,

"How are the Jews of Tunisia, these days?"

I hope they are doing well. You should ask Senator Joseph Bismuth. I think he is in a better position to answer that question since he lives in the country and I don’t.

justilthen,

I just reread what I pasted of what you wrote. Did you read it yourself? I cannot believe you wrote this:

"It is a common perception that Jews view themselves as innocent of the persecution that they feel follows them through time. Unfairly beaten down for no reason. Wrongly hated."

But you did. Didn't you?

Uqba, Aquiba--Babylonian origins?

justilthen:

"It is a common perception that Jews view themselves as innocent of the persecution that they feel follows them through time. Unfairly beaten down for no reason. Wrongly hated."

"Perception?"

Is it the case, then, that you are unaware of our very well-documented history?

UQba,

Give it a rest. No antisemitism? How about Mumbai? How about all the deportations of Jews from throughout the MIddle East?

HOw are the Jews of Tunisia, these days.

Calm down, Uqba. Take a breath. You are better than this.

And, btw., how about the persecution of Christians, the Dalit, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh?

Puhleez.

justilthen;

Thank you for your posts. I dislike "spitfights," much as I do dishonesty.

You have repeatedly complained, most recently on this thread that you are "tired of the Jews."

I have informed you that we are exhausted with your two thousand year obsession with us. You asked in your post if there were nothing else for you to talk about. I suggested there was.

I pointed out that IMHO, and I'm not alone--many scholars have said as much--the inaugural racism of the West was the Christian expropriation of the Tanakh (Hebrew Scriptures). The Tanakh pre-dates Christianity by several thousand years.

It and the Talmud are the core texts of the Judaism.

ON the text in question, "An eye for an eye..." This passage is read in the Talmud to mean that the punishment should fit the crime. This does not mean, as the Christians, who took it from its context and put it in a very different one, that if someone rapes someone else, that person should be raped.

Quite the contrary. The whole purpose of the law was to establish civil authority in place of clan or family "justice." That is why the notion of "social justice" much in vogue these days, as Jewish Studies grows apace, mainly due to the endless influence of a great Jewish philosopher E. Levinas (use google) is bizarrely redundant to Jews. What other kind is there?
________________________________
As for the article, it is on cyber-antisemitism, NOT on Israel. There is ONE (1) sentence in the entire article relevant to Israel.

Definitions of Terms: Judaism is a religion. Arguably Jews comprise several ethnic groups. Israel is a country. This article concerns antisemitism, which may or may not involve Judaism.

Shifting the topic to Israel, trying to back off earlier positions, etc., do not arguments make.

Neither do name-calling: Calling me variously a "JDL'er," "JDF'er" is yet one more logical fallacy you throw into your non-argument. Exhaustion with Jews is not an argument.

I, do, however, share your exhaustion with the Christians' obsession with us. I can only imagine how exhausted you must be by the endless discussions of Christianity and Catholicism that take up so much space on this blog. How you manage to make Christians everyone's victim is something I'm curious about, but couldn't read for now, as I've already got a headache.

I shan't be reading anymore of this, since you refuse to engage anything I've written. There is no good faith evident in a single one of your posts on this subject, sad to say. And it is sad, since I would like a good faith discussion on the topic of the article.

Accusing people of anti-Semitism is one of the tools used by the Israeli state and its surrogates to silence and intimidate anyone from having a reasonable discussion about the human right abuses and irrational behavior of successive Israeli governments. This state which according to the Jewish British historian Tony Judt is on its way to becoming a "belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno state." Criticizing its actions is in no way anti-Semitism. It is but a reasonable reaction to its outright barbarism, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and racist policies.

Labeling Christians anti-Semitic because of past actions is no more valid today than holding white people responsible for past sins of slavery of a bygone era. It is but a failed tactic and shameless intimidation.

It’s about time that people of conscience stood up for what is right and decent and tell the Israelis what they don’t want to hear and to hold them accountable for their actions. The American people should also know about the damage that our support for the Jewish state is causing. They should know about the unbelievable amount of our tax money and the unflinching political support on the international arena the Jewish state receives from the United States and the harm done as a consequence.

Two courageous authors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt tried to shed some light on the work done by AIPAC in an article which can be found at:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

They wrote: “Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain…”
And this money is used to kill and maim a powerless civilian Palestinian population. It is used to bulldoze homes, uproot olive trees and oppress and dominate innocent people.

Part 2.

Later they write:

“Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.”

All this is made possible by the tireless work done the powerful Jewish lobbying group AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC is ruthless and fanatical when it comes to supporting the Jewish state perceived interests at any cost even at the expense of American interests and common human decency.

It is a very good example of “the tail wagging the dog.” Here, the most powerful superpower the world has ever seen is being manipulated by a small foreign government of six million and their surrogates AIPAC here in this country.

I encourage anyone interested in having a good sense of the reach of AIPAC to watch this documentary. It should be an eye opener for a lot of people.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2894821400057137878

Knowledge is a virtue.

Hello Arminius,

Thank you for your post. I love Ghandi and Martin Luther, King, and the quote. I am not a big one for bumper stickers on cars, but must admit that I proudly have that one on my old van.

It seems an essentially christian, and human, thought. I like it.

Must say that your last poem was a bit dark, or darker than normal. Are you alright? Fare thee well and God bless is a bit foreboding. Many others will not know, or care to have the compassion to listen, regardless. We do not all come with the same attire. We can just wear ours well, change up as we need and are compelled to, and live as best as we can. These things are in our control, and many others. Some we have no hope of controlling, and are freed as we relinquish the attachment to them. And that freedom is easily within reach.

Hello again Farnaz,

Thank you for the suggestion that I reread the posts. I had, several times over, and am well aware of what your comments as points were. I am quite comfortable that I have answered your comments and points, and made many of my own comments and points. I remain comfortable in the position that you never did speak to the issues that I brought up, but for your reaction to my being "bored" with All Things Jewish, even as you stated "You have yet, in two posts, to address a single point I raised."

I dislike adolescent spitfights, and find that I decline in that general direction in this discussion. Good debate and exchange of ideas requires as prerequisite the ability to comprehend what is being placed on the table for discussion. To hear correctly and honestly, to respond likewise to what is said, and to further the conversation with more insight. Often lacking in these rooms, Farnaz.

In regards to an eye for an eye as a format for punishment fitting the crime, I disagree. I am not of the mind that one should be raped if one did rape, or that one should be murdered if that one had murdered. Karma will even out the equation far better than human justice will, and human justice is not above the law of Karma. Or call it the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,... As you wish.

If by your statement "Without this perspective, we are all doomed" you mean we must maintain eye for an eye, again, I disagree. I believe that as humanity evolves and advances so does by necessity it's perceptions, tactics and laws.

Regarding your Jack Bemborad quote on the perception of the Catholic Church to Jews, I am happy for the change. It is appropriate and right.

One of my points, however, is that we create our own reality. It becomes especially clear if seen over the span of centuries, as one might in viewing Jewish history, or the history of the Catholic Church.

It is a common perception that Jews view themselves as innocent of the persecution that they feel follows them through time. Unfairly beaten down for no reason. Wrongly hated.

I believe the same laws govern us all, and the Law of Cycles is one way to say some of that. Jews are no different. They are a great people, and they have their burdens, as we all do.

I am fine to dialogue anti-semitism, but the discussion should include anti-islamic sentiment as well. Lest we support the idea that one must not use ones' mouth to utter words against one tribe will, in the same breath, condemning outright another tribe.

"Spoken softly unto the void of this blog
None shall note my poor words
They fade into the Sounds of Silence
so be it"

Arminius- I will NOT be silent.

We(Jews, Messianics, and Christians)are to make a Joyful Noise unto the LORD and Serve the LORD with Gladness ...

This used to be an open forum with many voices chiming in. Now. I can't bear to read here. If I wanted to hear a group of constipated people repeating and repeating their woeful distaste for this world- I'd volunteer at my local rest home ..

Anyway-

Who are the most compassionate and charitable people in the world?

Who were the first responders to Katrina? Who packed food and clothing and headed into the storm while the government dawdled and the rest of America watched on TV?

Who was the only American who stayed in Rwanda throughout the days of genocide while the US government workers fled to safety?

And dear Jewish friends please remember-

Who stood against the Nazis and their own French government by bringing your brethren into their homes, feeding and clothing them in open defiance. So true was their Love- not one Jew was turned away or betrayed. They were poor and ordinary people doing the extraordinary.

Now. Take a look at the fading Western Civilization:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoV94GtIT8o

Lovely.

Spoken softly unto the void of this blog
None shall note my poor words
They fade into the Sounds of Silence
so be it

Christian haters
Why do you despise me?
Do you not understand
What God is?
Do you judge me
With guilt by association
By the Robertsons and Falwells
Those foul trolls
Who are not Christian?
Do you not know
That God is LOVE?
Do you not know
That we are all God's Children
That there is no us and them
But only We and We?
Do you not know this?
Have you not read the Gospels
And learnt that Jesus taught Love
That blessed are the peacemakers
Can you not understand this?
Do you not know that I pray in secret
And not on the street corners
Do you not know
That I really do try
To love and forgive my enemies
Do you?
Hear now my creed:
Is God all powerful?
I do not know
Is God all knowing?
I do not know
Is this important?
I do not know
I do not care
I know that God IS
I know He is with me
I know He has always been with me
I know He will always be with me
I know He is with you
I know that God is LOVE
But I tire of the fight
Weary of those who only reject
And have no respect
For the beliefs of others
They do not know
That they don't have to agree
They just should have the compassion
Simply to listen
Fare thee well
And God Bless...

Mark well "an instinctive hatred of reality"...

Perhaps this is at the root of antisemitism.

Jews remind Christians of reality.

Just now raised my head from the underworld, where I've been counting shards of the sun and chrysalic cysts.

And what have we here?

Farnaz has repeatedly asked, both rhetorically, and actually:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?
Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?
Will the "RealChristians"...?
WIll the REAL?

I think the answer of poor, mad Friedrich N might be germane here:

"The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. The “Gospels” died on the cross. What, from that moment onward, was called the “Gospels” was the very reverse of what he had lived: “bad tidings,” a Dysangelium. It is an error amounting to nonsensicality to see in “faith,” and particularly in faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing mark of the Christian: only the Christian way of life, the life lived by him who died on the cross, is Christian.... To this day such a life is still possible, and for certain men even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will remain possible in all ages.... Not faith, but acts; above all, an avoidance of acts, a different state of being....
To reduce being a Christian, the state of Christianity, to an acceptance of truth, to a mere phenomenon of consciousness, is to formulate the negation of Christianity. In fact, there are no Christians. The “Christian” — he who for two thousand years has passed as a Christian — is simply a psycho logical self-delusion. Closely examined, it appears that, despite all his “faith,” he has been ruled only by his instincts — and what instincts!
In all ages — for example, in the case of Luther — “faith” has been no more than a cloak, a pretense, a curtain behind which the instincts have played their game — a shrewd blindness to the domination of certain of the instincts.... I have already called “faith” the specially Christian form of shrewdness — people always talk of their “faith” and act according to their instincts.... In the world of ideas of the Christian there is nothing that so much as touches reality: on the contrary, one recognizes an instinctive hatred of reality as the motive power, the only motive power at the bottom of Christianity."

Friedrich Nietzsche, 'The Antichrist', 39.

Zebra4,

You keep throwing in one red herring after another--anything in order to avoid addressing my points, anything.

Now, we have a question of scripture, next it will be climate change.

If you intend to address my points, please do. If not, I'll assume that you cannot, or for some reason, will not.

I will then leave you to commiserate, bash me, and return to your original thinking. Will that be salutary for you in some way? If so, feel free.

Farnaz:

You claimed to be an atheist. Now you are backing up Arminius' scripture quote. Is there such a thing as pseudo-atheist?

Could it be that deep down you are not an atheist? Is this why you refrain from condemning Israeli violations of Human Rights of the Palestinians?

Justilthen,

Arminius indirectly brings up a point I made in my orignal post to you. Arminius mentions the Hebrew Scriptures passage, " An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.:

This passage which occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures means the punishment should fit the crime.

Without this perspective, we are all doomed.

Ironically, given this discussion, Jack Bemborad wrote on this current blog:

"There is no doubt that the last 45 years have seen revolutionary changes on the part of the Catholic Church to begin to view Jews as Jews view themselves."

Justilthen,

My reply was to your ongoing complaint that you are "tired of the Jews."

Perhaps, you should reread your original post and my reply to you.

Zebra4.

I raised several points in my replies to your previous posting. You have addressed none of them. If you intend to consider them, please do. If you don't, I will assume you cannot.

Justillthen,

As Gandhi said, later echoed by MLK, "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind."

We seem to have more in common than I realized earlier. Feel free to comment, friend.

Farnaz,

Again, read the posts and points that I made.

I started my response to your reply by recognizing that Jews may be "exhausted" by bigotry and persecution.

I also replied to your accusation of Christian "obsession" with Jews.

I think that Jews are obsessed with themselves, as many people are, Christians included. So what? We are all a bit self fixated.

One of my points is that we create our outcomes by the actions that we take. I do not buy the illusion that Jews would be just OKAY if every persecuter left them alone. One example of that is how the Jewish State persecutes. One can make a corelations between oppressors and their tactics. In this case Israel and America with the American Indian wars. You made no comment on that point of mine, as well as most of my other points. You just wanted to express your exhaustion, get my empathy, and claim that Christians had usurped the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jesus was a Jew, Farnaz. Though I have to admit that I wish they would drop the Old Testament as well. It does nothing for the furthering of the essential message of Christianity, in my opinion, and just drags them back to an eye for an eye.

Your realm.

You are blind if you do not recognize my responses to your points. What of the jealous lovers of virtue and vileness? No one is hated for no reason. The concept of innocent and persecuted unjustly is a mask that has been played over a million times. I don't buy that ticket anymore.

Hello Farnaz,

I believe that I did speak to your point, though perhaps not in the way that was satisfying to you. There is no doubt that Jews have been persecuted for centuries for varying biases and prejudices that other peoples have had about them. Christians have been some of the greater aggressors in this bigotry, historically. Historically.

Of course the same might be said of Christians before they were a power politically and socially. Jews lived stations above them in the Roman Empire. Lions too, we understand. Everyone needs to eat, as well as be entertained. Christians were nice passivists, so obvious lion meat. And gladiator target practice.

But then I am speaking older history. Christians have had to endure far less bigotry than Jews in more recent history, and for long periods they were the abusers.

Yet you name me as the aggressor. Show me that, Farnaz. I know that you are quick to label others as the aggressor or as the racist or the anti-semite if they disagree with your perception. Just look at this thread alone. You are well know for jumping to aggressive conclusions.

I am not the aggressor that you accuse me of. I am not your Christian Devil.

You accuse me of not addressing your point, while you have not addressed mine as a start of dialogue... How common. You seek to divert conversation from the State of Israel, claiming it is outside of the topic of anti-semitism. This has been a regular tactic of yours in many conversations, and I have little doubt as to the real reason. Policies of Israel become less defensible in the face of global perceptions, hypocritical, and uncomfortable to address honestly. But they are inextricably tied to how Jews worldwide are viewed, and to issues of anti-semitism as a result.

You await response to your questions from others while, at least in my case, not responding to mine to begin. I did respond. You did not. What, are you the center of the world? But then you are Jewisg, so may rate that label. You may not see that in the mirror, even if it was a main point of my post to you. Ego-centrism.

I suggest that you go back and read my post and points.

You suggest that it is Christians that are obsessed with Jews. Perhaps, though that seem odd. Like many, Christians seem obsessed with themselves and their own story, and Jews fit into that. But what I am clear about, and made points about, is that Jews are certainly fixated on themselves as well. Center stage and rue to give it up.

I responded to your points. You failed to respond to mine. As per usual.

I meant to type JIDFer.

Farnaz,

You are asking for the Real Christians to stand up.

Could you tell me what you might expect a 'Real Christian' to be? I am NOT looking for a fight. I just want to know.

Justilthen:

Re: Your post

You have yet, in two posts, to address a single point I raised.

If you intend to, please do. Otherwise, I'll have to assume you cannot.

Farnaz:

You are no match to Ender2.

The credibility of a blogger is judged by whether she acknowledges the weaknesses in her positions. You see every thing wrong with Catholics, Protestants, Muslims etc.

But you refrain from saying against Israeli policies or violations of Human Rights of the Palestinians.

Do you have anything to say about why America should continue to help Israel at the expense of our standing in the world.

Ender:

RE: Your post

Again, you are not addressing the points of my comments. I will respond to your question once you have done so.

So why did you call me racist? Are you schizophrenic? Off your meds? Goat deprived?

Ender,

1. You address one sentence: "One last point of real interest...."

That is not the thrust of this essay, quite obviously, since it takes of one sentence. What of all the other points?

2. Also, since your current posts to me draw from mine to Zebra4, would you be so good as to reply to the following, also addressed to
him/her?

Note, I could have chosen any one of many, many Catholic countries, not to mention Protestant.

"If the essay were on anti-Catholicism, would it make sense to address the questionable politics of El Salvador, a staunch Catholic country in which drug cartels continue to infect government, allowing them to make there way to the US?"

Thanks.

Farnaz,

You made it the topic when you called me a racist for disagreeing with and discussing the politics of the state of Israel. And, this is the root cause of what Berlinerblau calls "One last point of real interest concerns the new relation between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that the ADL has observed in some of its valuable studies."

Anti-Zionism has a political face. It is not antisemitism or racism. It is a political argument that needs to be made repeatedly until the US's politicians get it. It appears Pres. Obama is starting to 'Get It'.

Ender,

You write:

"This conversation is about why any statement about the politics of the State of Israel is called racist be some trolls like you and your multiple personalites on this board."

No, the conversation is not "about why any statement about the politics of Israel is called racist and I don't think I have said that.

Kindly reread the essay to which this thread is supposed to address itself.

Justilthen,

Also, kindly explain this:

"Perhaps you can consider that as you blog on, JIDLer."

Justilthen:

RE: Your post

It does not speak to my point. You have repeatedly concerned that you are "tired of the Jews" (sic). I replied that we are exhausted by you, have been for two thousand years, wondered if you Christians could not find another topic of conversation.

When I look in the mirror, I do not see your image of me reflected. Anna Freud wrote eloquently of the "internalization of the aggressor" which burdens all minority peoples. I have purged myself of that, but admittedly the task has not been easy.

I suspect you, the aggressor, will never see your reflection, but I earnestly hope you do. Someone is purported to have said, "The truth shall set you free."

In reply to your current post, I offer this, which I originally posted to Zebra4. I will await your reply.

"What does Israel, a foreign nation, have to do with this? The essay is on anti-semitism.

If the essay were on anti-Catholicism, would it make sense to address the questionable politics of El Salvador, a staunch Catholic country in which drug cartels continue to infect government, allowing them to make there way to the US?

What on earth are you talking about?"

Finally, a President that Gets It.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/28/netanyahu_what_the_hell_do_they_want_with_me

President Barack Obama Thursday ratcheted up what might be America's toughest bargaining position with Israel in a generation, demanding anew that Israel stop expanding its settlements in the disputed West Bank as a key step toward making peace with its Arab neighbors.

Obama made the demand after a White House meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas , building on unusually blunt language the day before from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton .

"Each party has obligations," Obama said of the so-called Road Map to Peace, to which Israel is a party. "On the Israeli side, those obligations include stopping settlements."

Hello Farnaz,

This conversation is about why any statement about the politics of the State of Israel is called racist be some trolls like you and your multiple personalites on this board.

The state of Israel effects world politics and cost me tax dollars. I do not want my dollars used to prop up a terrorist theocracy whether it is jewish, muslim or christian. The cults of Abraham are the bane of the human race and we will all be better when they are dead religions like the worship of Zeus.

It is amazing how humans rarely take time to examine religion(s) origins. As Sam Harris often points out, most religions are mutually exclusive, only one or none can be “true”, so if nothing else, where did all of the ‘false’ religions come from.
The cults of Abraham, appear too been created by a tribal priesthood that were originally priest of the Sumerian deity ‘el’. The creation and flood myths are most definitely ‘stolen’ from that tradition as they were recorded in art and hieroglyphic writing almost 1000 yrs older than the earliest Hebrew.
Thus we have Daniel, beloved of god, and Israel, chosen of god. Judaism didn’t even claim their tribal god as unique but that he was the only one the tribe should worship- thou shall take no other god before me. Eventually, the it was forbidden to say the name of god, to help erase that historical connection, and thus the mathematical construct whvh.
The Jews even had a problem of reverting to their earlier polytheist practices, thus causing a reduction of income to the priest of whvy, and leading to the creation of new tribal ‘history’ of the revenge of their jealous(petty) god when this occurred.
Historically, there is just as likely a chance that the patriarch Abraham was a construct, with possibly the name of a rather successful tribal warlord whose heroism bought him religious significance in the tribe, and a whole new set of ‘histories’ surrounding his victories because of his ‘chosen’ status.
If instead, Abraham stepped full blown from atheist to spiritual leader of a tribe and then billions, you can plug in these same types of scenarios for the creation of the worlds other ancient religions. Priest either did or did not create the Sumerian, Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Druidic, Hindu and Mayan Pantheons. Take your pick.
Occam’s razor says.............all of them were created by men to give power to lines of priest that were usually also political powers.

There is no reason me or my nation should be committed to the expantion of the state of Israel into land that has been the homeland of others for centuries. I'm pretty well sick of it and so are many other Americans.

Hello Farnaz,

I am sure that the Jewish people are exhausted by many peoples, but that does speak to my point. We all are anti-something. There is no doubt that Israel is burdened by "the Palestinian problem". But it is tough to be caught between the jealous lovers of virtue and vileness.... You often have brought up the shame and embarrassment of American and Christian moral failures in their policies regarding Native Americans. What we do when we are caught between our desire to do our own will, to steal from and kill an "inferior race" and erase the obstacle that they are to our own advancement, and the moral virtues of doing what is right and good and true to our stated code.

All great, (and less than great), cultures face this paradox. How they deal with it says a lot. Israel and by extension Jews as a whole do not live honestly, for all their virtues that they espouse. Their policies are at the center of Middle East imbalance and tension, and perhaps they are central to the lack of peace in the world by extension. Yet they continue to expand settlements and repress the disenfranchised Palestinians.

And yet you say how exhausted you all are with Muslims and Christians.... And you think that it is us that are the ones so self interested? Well, certainly Americans can be branded as self-interested. But we do have company, Farnaz the Non-Practicing.

"But the main problem is your never-ending obsession with us Js,..."

Mirror mirror on the wall...

So it IS then that Jews are the central problem? You all are so awesome, so rad, so Chosen, that we obsess on you! We just need to break our addiction to our obsession and it would all be just fine, right?

Jesus was a Jew, and he never said he was no longer a Jew. He carried those Scriptures in his teaching. Nothing was expropriated, and there is nothing to relinquish. We are all wound together, Jews, Christians and Muslims alike. With the rest of the world.

"Edward Said noted that ripping from another people its discourse, culture, self-understanding is the hallmark of imperialism."

Mirror mirror...

Look to Palestine. And settlements.

"How comes it then that wherever we turn, regardless of the issue, we will be vilified?"

Mirror mirror. A great question. Worth a thought or two thousand.

Perhaps you can consider that as you blog on, JIDLer.

When important points/conclusions are made, it is necessary to bring it to people's attention constantly. The Conservative Jews have conclusively done this and as with the bible thumping, the new thumping has begun. Deal with it or skip it. Your choice. This is still a free country!!!

Oh, so Orthodox Christians are a "crazy cult" now?

I swear, you must have carpal tunnels from using your cut and paste keys so much. Don't you ever have an original thought, or do you just cut and paste other people's?

Hmmm, the Serbs are not Christian but some red-necked cult left over from Tito. The USA and NATO hopefully showed them the errors of their ways.

And where did Judaism get all of its ideas for their scriptures? Again, read what 1.5 million Conservative Jews and their rabbis to include Rabbi Wolpe, an On Faith panelist, have concluded:

New Torah For Modern Minds
By MICHAEL MASSING (NYT)
origin: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482

an excerpt:

"Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation."

zebra4,

Final post: Could you please address some of the other points I made, notably, why the Christians, et al, who have already expropriated our Scriptures, our discourse, our culture, cannot, now just leave us alone?

Consider Said in your reply, please.

zebra4:

Another reply.

If a Catholic blogger took exception to the vilification of Catholics by threaders stemming from El Salvador's corruption, how would you reply?

zebra4,

What does Israel, a foreign nation, have to do with this? The essay is on anti-semitism.

If the essay were on anti-Catholicism, would it make sense to address the questionable politics of El Salvador, a staunch Catholic country in which drug cartels continue to infect government, allowing them to make there way to the US?

What on earth are you talking about?

While I have no great love for the way that women are treated in Islamic countries, I do have to say that you wouldn't know the facts about Islam if they came up and bit you on the behind, CCNL. Besides, the way you've treated Muslim women on this board makes me think that you're just as misogynist as the people in Ms. Ali's book.

Remember that women in Western countries were treated in much the same way until very recently. And you don't have to look farther than the Former Yugoslavia to see how good Christian Serbian men treated Bosnian women.

Farnaz:

There are at least 20 per cent of Israelis who belong to the Peace now movement and oppose building settlements, bulldozing Paleninian homes, assaasinating Palestmian leaders, building walls etc. etc. There are now 83,000 American Jews who belong to an organization opposing zionism and Israeli policies listed above.

Are they all ANTI-Semitic?

"you can't help but notice that there are a lot of--how else do I phrase this?--oddballs posting there."

This from a loon like Berlinerblau who accuses anyone who feels passionately about the singular and supreme product of sexuality of having a "zygote fetish".

oy vey..

Here Berlinerblau -->

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo1vsAvon1k

Something to listen to while you decide whether to delete this post of mine as you've deleted my other posts in the past.

justillthen:

RE: Your "boredom" and "tiredness" of "the Jews" (sic)

There are two points I'd like to make on this, your frequent plaint. If you are "tired of the Jews," can you possibly, even for thirty seconds imagine how exhausted we are by the Christians, the Muslims?

Our worn out condition does not come from a lack of curiosity or interest, although we would like it better if you took up a subject other than yourselves. It's just that it's always the same self-serving same-old, same-old, or declaration of enemies.

But the main problem is your never-ending obsession with us Js, a problem that the Christians and the Muslims could easily resolve by relinguishing the Hebrew Scriptures which they expropriated from us and which ushered in this racism that you will not permit to speak its name.

Edward Said noted that ripping from another people its discourse, culture, self-understanding is the hallmark of imperialism. Worth a thought or two thousand.

There is a great deal more to talk about than Jews, a great, great deal. How comes it then that wherever we turn, regardless of the issue, we will be vilified?

So it has been since the inauguration of the Religion of Love, since Constantine.

Do you think, since you Christians and Muslims must have a group to vilify you might turn to another? Admittedly, I'm tired, I'm bored with you vilifying each other, tired, bored with the Muslims and Hindus doing the same, but I need a break.

We are tired, tired of your endless hate, ignorance, militant stupidity. Surely, there is another topic for the Christians to think about, speak about, blog on.

Until that day comes, I welcome Prof. B's contribution. But it is not enough. If African Americans had relied on the NAACP alone, the N word would be all over this blog.

Recent Racist Postings

zebra4 X 1(amusingly bigoted line in reply to WMARKW)

WMARKW (MUST READ for RealChristians)
ender2 (formerly ender)
ccnl1 X 5
ghp60:
LeszX
Mary Cunningham X 4
____________________
So, where are all the REAL CHRISTIANS, the ones we keep hearing about....You know, the ones who practice the "religion of love."

SLIM SHADY asks the last two thousand years of Christian-controlled history:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?

Will the "RealChristians"...?

WIll the REAL?

WMARKW:

I and hundreds of thousands of people are ocurious as to where those 65 billion dollars go to? Are they in Israeli banks? Investigators should know by now.

Is CCNL really Hirsi Ali?

I have seen "cuts and paste" from Hirsi's book by CCNL innumerable times.

I have read that she lied in her visa application and now is reaping the benefits of her anti-Islam rhetoric by the support of right wing groups in America.

I wonder what kind of job she could get in her native country, Somalia--a land of pirates. There is nothing there.

Zebra4: I don't mean to imply that the fact that Madoff is Jewish implies that all or even a disproportionate number of Jews are crooks.

I'm looking at all those Jewish clients. Some of them must have known it was a scam.
So you have a large number of Jews participating in a scam (that turns out to be on them, but they didn't know it). Shouldn't we be questioning their ethics?

WMARKW:

Jews support each other. But one Madoff does not mean all Jews are crooks, nor are all Christians, Hindus, or Muslims.

It would be better for us to focus on the Human Rights violations of Palestinians by Israel. Just today's news is that the Israelis have rejected call for a halt o settlements building.

Without America challenging Israel on this and other issues, this conflict will not be resolved.

MY POST WAS REMOVED

Yesterday I posted about the Madoff scandal, Jews and anti-semitism, and the moderator apparently doesn't think my opinions should even be considered and debated. In sum, they were:

1. The Madoff fund attracted large numbers of Jews
2. Many of them must have known, or at least suspected, it was a scam
3. They must have thought THEY weren't the ones being scammed, probably because of the implicit trust of shared faith
4. Ergo, they must have though someone else was being scammed, and were perfectly willing to participate

If you don't agree, then this is a DISCUSSION board, and the honest thing to do is point out why I'm wrong. Don't just say my view HAS NO PLACE HERE.

Athena, Athena, Athena,

Presenting the facts about Islam is not hating.

e.g.

Added reading material- Ayaan Hirsi Ali's autobiography, "Infidel".

"Thus begins the extraordinary story of a woman born into a family of desert nomads, circumcised as a child, educated by radical imams in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, taught to believe that if she uncovered her hair, terrible tragedies would ensue. It's a story that, with a few different twists, really could have led to a wretched life and a lonely death, as her grandmother warned. But instead, Hirsi Ali escaped -- and transformed herself into an internationally renowned spokeswoman for the rights of Muslim women."
ref: Washington Post book review.

four excerpts:

p. 47 paperback issue:

"Some of the Saudi women in our neighborhood were regularly beaten by their husbands. You could hear them at night. Their screams resounded across the courtyards. "No! Please! By Allah!"

p.68:

"The Pakistanis were Muslims but they too had castes. The Untouchable girls, both Indian and Pakistani were darker skin. The others would not play with them because they were untouchable. We thought that was funny because of course they were touchable: we touched them see? but also horrifying to think of yourself as untouchable, despicable to the human race."

p.309

"Between October 2004 and May 2005, eleven Muslim girls were killed by their families in just two regions (there are 20 regions in Holland). After that, people stopped telling me I was exaggerating."

p. 347

"The kind on thinking I saw in Saudi Arabia and among the Brotherhood of Kenya and Somalia, is incompatible with human rights and liberal values. It preserves the feudal mind-set based on tribal concepts of honor and shame. It rests on self-deception, hyprocricy, and double standards. It relies on the technologial advances of the West while pretending to ignore their origin in Western thinking. This mind-set makes the transition to modernity very painful for all who practice Islam".

M

Hey... CCNL... when Jacques is talking about anti-Muslim hate speech online, he's talking about YOU!

We would have a long way to go to cleanse "anti-____" sentiments from internal dialogue, much less public discourse. Everyone has opinions, pro and con, and some are none too PC. I would bet, in fact guarantee, that Jews or others that are offended by anti-semitism are anti-something themselves. Many pro semites are anti-islam, anti-palestinian, or anti-EndTimers, or whatever. Anti fascism. You can bet that they voice these opinions.

Perhaps Pro-semites are just way too sensitive.

It is natural to have opinions for, and against, virtually everything, at least until we truly become unconditional in our attitudes and beliefs. That is extremely rare.

Jews are not unlike most of us when we are criticized or disliked. No one likes being loathed. Ask most any muslim living in a non-muslim society. Or an illegal alien, a Palestinian Arab in the West Bank, a Tutsi in Hutuville.

Jews have a great advantage, and great disadvantage, by being the poster people of prejudice. That is not to say they are the Chosen People of being hated, (though one could make that argument!). There are plenty of people that are hated... Look at the few examples above, and then add just about any other name that you would like to the list.

Jews just are on center stage, and they can't seem to get off that stage. There are half of ten million movies and docudramas about it, news stories and television shows highlighting All Things Jewish.

Add to that the sensationalist news outlets that pump fear of the unknown islamic terrorist growing like weeds around our fair and vulnerable cities and families and we get a nice recipe of anti-peace.

Now the JDL is into censuring the web?

Among other comments I found sympathy with bob2davis | May 27, 2009 1:50 PM. Of course he was immediately jumped on by Person2 for bashing Jews. But the point may be that we are not hated for no reason. There are reasons that we are disliked. Though we cannot neutralize those that will not like us, we can vastly improve our positions by the actions that we take. Or avoid taking.

I for one am bored, and though still annoyed, at the spotlight that Israel and Jews worldwide get while there are many other worthy peoples and issues and crises going on in the world. I have said it before in past threads. I am tired of evangelism as well being spotlighted as if it were the essence of true christianity. I am not anti-semitic, I just don't want to keep hearing about it and about All Things Jewish. Instead every day in the news there is something more about Israel and Palestine.

When will they just stop making more reasons for others to look on them dimly? Self perpetuating...

Let web sites police their house if they need to. I can't say that I would miss some of these trolls! Just scroll through some of these adolescent cat fights below, delete them, and the room would be so much more enjoyable!

Once again:

And as history marches on, it appears all Jews will be slowly become
"Crossanized" or become atheists and anti-semitism will disappear.

Ditto for the prejudices against all religions/cults as said religions/cults disappear into the forest of myths and embellishments!!!

Just trying to read these posts will make your head hurt. The hatred and invective are painful to see, but the assault on the English language will truly bend your brain. It seems the discussion cannot go forward without inventing new terminology that more precisely describes the groups to be hated and/or suppressed. Then we come to the following dilly:

"The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) is on top of the issues online, not just on Facebook, but YouTube, Myspace, Twitter, etc."

What means this "on top of?" From what the poster goes on to say, this does not seem to denote awareness. The phrase seems to denote an organized effort to dominate discourse on various media and suppress the speech of others. "On top of" means to control, apparently.

I think you should be asking which you care about more: the hate speech, or the hate? If the JIDF is doing what I think it's doing, it's only going to inspire more active antisemitism. And I mean specifically bad feeling against and hatred of Jews everywhere, as opposed to the state of Israel particularly. Look at the Church of Scientology: its efforts to suppress and control speech about itself have only resulted in the settling of public opinion against it.

As for Israel, I feel the world will not be a happy place until all religious states, be they Islamic, Christian, or Judaic, have faded away.

A religious state is essentially a tyranny of the majority. Though not necessarily despotic and possibly democratic, the results seem to be inevitably tyrannical. No amount of inherent goodness in the basis religion, be it Buddhism (Tibet) or Judaism (Israel) can forestall this outcome. JIDF writers I have encountered, or those like them, will forcibly declare that Jews can never be "dhimmi" again, and I think that's right, but the solution is not to create still more "dhimmi," e.g. the Israeli Arabs. Let's not speak of the Palestinians, many of whom were dispossessed and expelled as a class of persons "Less than dhimmi."

I write as one who admires and esteems Judaic religion and culture. If you call what I write here "anti-semitic" I am unconcerned. Nor will my speech be controlled.

Why don't we ever get down to the real nitty gritty? Will I get called racist for expressing the political argurments against Israeli actions and policy?

Does Israel have the right to exist? Were the US and UK wrong to give a land where 800,000 humans lived to others?

Why has the State of Palestine mandated by UN Resolution 181 never been created?

Christine Amanpour's "God's Warriors" on PBS visually documents Israeli leaders verbally committing to occupation of all of the biblically historical state of Israel. She also shows interviews with Israeli terrorist group describing acts that forced Muslims to leave land they wanted to settle. "Israel" never recognized the existence of the indigenous owners of Palestine: the Palestinian people.Golda Meir once said "What Palestinians?"
Israel never implemented a single UN resolution since its anomalous and questionable creation including UN 181 which created it-by devouring large chunks of the would be Palestine state in 1947, nor UN 194 of the same year which dictates the return of Palestinian refugees now multiplied into seven million who are still living in refugee camps outside Palestine for the past 60 years.
Jewish terrorist gangs such as Haganah, Palmach, Shtern and Argun used extreme violence to ethnically cleanse millions of Palestinians and destroyed over five hundred Palestinians villages to prevent their return as per UN 194-which 60 years later Israel still refuses to implement. Israel was built on and continues to survive on respectively gang and state terrorism. Even Israeli revisionist historians have uncovered and documented Israeli ethnic cleansing to establish the state in 1947.
No land or resources are left whatsoever for a Palestinian state: Israel occupied 78%of Arab historic Palestine in 1947/8 and 22% in 1967 (West Bank, Gaza and most importantly Jerusalem. And again Israel annexed-slowly but surely by implanting settlements in full day light- over 58% of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem-leaving less than 10% of original Arab historic Palestine for a Palestinian state???

Even the present Israeli defense minister Yahoud Barrack once said: “If I were a Palestinian I would be a terrorist.”

A majority of Israelis recognize that the Zionist insistence on ignoring the UN designated borders of Israel and creating a nation with the mythical borders of the Talmud are counter to Israeli survival and morally reprehensible.

: Why do some people love to make sweepy generalizations about any group of people? There are good and bad people everywhere.

I have known a great many kind hearted Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhists. Many Jews are known to be opponents of Israeli policies or zionism. Many true Christians accept that Christianity was forced upon people of Europe from 4th century to 18th centuries. I could go on and on. You get the point.

The question is where do we go from here despite mistakes of the past centuries.

The most rational answer answer to me is recognize the fact that we should emphasize reaching out and promote dialogue.

I am a disciple of President Carter on this, although he does not know me.

Just got a new word count/search system. I don't fancy going through all her stuff everywhere, but she is omni-present, that's for sure. And mean.

Anyway, this is for her:

Farnaz fatally
Thinks poorly, spams evilly.
No love, just hate: sad.

Mary_Cunningham
Wow!
If you workout her comments on other on-going discussions on this forum, she seems to be doing a full-time job.Can anyone check?.

Spidermean2:

I agree with your warnings against this "plauge". My vote is on your side.

Three racists in almost no time, but who is counting?

ghp60:
LeszX
Mary Cunningham X 3
____________________
So, where are all the REAL CHRISTIANS, the ones we keep hearing about....You know, the ones who practice the "religion of love."

SLIM SHADY asks the last two thousand years of Christian-controlled history:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?

Will the "RealChristians"...?

WIll the REAL?

New count: at 24 posts out of 60, Farnaz1Mansouri1 has posted 40% of the total number of posts. Of the 6 new posts 4 were hers, wordcount of the six posts=1535, of which Farnaz1Mansouri1's accounted for 728 or 47%. (Not counting this one)

She will tolerate no dissent. She deals out disagreement by abuse and shutting discussion down. She must be a teacher! A very poor pedagogue and unpopular with her students, but still..

Farnaz1Mansouri1:

Foul-tongued and potty-mouthed comme habitude , eh? Answering valid posts with abuse and invective per usual, right? Well, at least you're consistent so I can't say I'm surprised.

And now you say I'm a Protestant! And after all the abuse you trowled on because I was Catholic, oughta be a law febrile Farnaz. Was also impressed by your majority of Catholics in the US Senate: so 25% now means majority--well, in Farnaz's feverish imagination black is white and Jesuits are Jews and Catholics are Protestants. (For the record I'm Catholic, y'know the ones you love to hate).

You are a great example of the aforementioned "hateful Jew" troll. I wonder why you do it. Answering valid comments with craziness, makes you seem mentally unstable. But why do you think it helps your case?

(Last from me. I'm not completely stupid and shouldn't have fed such a vicious troll. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa , I really am Catholic).

Three racists in almost no time, but who is counting?

ghp60:
LeszX
Mary Cunningham
____________________
So, where are all the REAL CHRISTIANS, the ones we keep hearing about....You know, the ones who practice the "religion of love."

SLIM SHADY asks the last two thousand years of Christian-controlled history:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?

Will the "RealChristians"...?

WIll the REAL?

ghp60:

The term "semitic" was introduced in the seventeenth century to refer to a group of languages. The term "aryan," which, of course, has a prior usage was assigned to another group.

During the nineteenth century, Christian racialists reifed the terms "semitic" and "aryan." The term anti-Semitic was introduced by the proto-nazi, Wilhelm Marr, and was deemed by Marr and his fellow racists to be a positive stance. It was so viewed by all "anti-Semites" thoughout Europe, who proudly proclaimed their anti-Semitic identity.

For those who were not "anti-Semitic," the term had other connotations, those which it has, for some of us today.

Many Jews do not like the word since it is meaningless and prefer the simpler word "racist." Although we are not a "race," we are subject to racist attitudes as is readily seen from a glance at this thread. Since Jews cannot get rid of "anti-Semitism," the word, and since there are no "Semites," we write the word as "antisemitism." We use it interchangeably with racism.

Did you say we are not "particularly interested in accuracy"?

I'm sure Mr Berlinerblau means well and I have not read all of his writings, but the use of "semite", most people do not understand, pertains to a much wider group than only Jews. It has been popularily used as a "Jewish" reference for over a hundred years, but in fact it pertains to a much larger and wider group in human history. But, on the other hand, since Jesus' time and before, Jews in general have not been especially interested in accuracy of interpretation or presentation with notable exceptions. They influenced the Apostle's Creed for their Christian brothers in which they conveneintly passed the guilt of Jesus' crucifixion to Pontius Pilate from themselves - the evidence of the NT scriptures not withstanding. And, of course money was involved, so the early Catholic church bought it!

Looks like a field day for racists may be dawning.
Is there a full moon?

What is really dangerous to a free society is people like David Friedman, who appoint themselves as arbiters of what is acceptable speech. They use the labels "hate group", "terrorist", or "anti-Semite" to silence even legitimate critics of things Jewish or Israeli. They cheapen the sacred memory of six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust - for their own ignominious political ends. They have stampeded the U.S. into unnecessary, unjust, and costly (in lives and treasure) wars, and have curtailed civil liberties for all Americans. Ignorance - which is the source of much bigotry - is best combated by speaking the truth, not by government edict.

"Muslims to my understanding respect Christianity and Judaism."

Many support tolerance of Christianity. Many emphatically do not respect Christianity. Recall that in Quoran Jesus (Isa) is a Muslim, that he was not the Son of God, that any who think otherwise are doomed to hell.

Given the theology of Islam, how could it respect any religion that posits a Son of God?

As for Judaism, those who know what it actually is, a very small number, do respect it. Disagreements abound, however. They would have to, given that according to Quran, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were also Muslim.

Prof. Berlinerblau,

If you scroll down, you will find the Catholic answer to the Protestant anti-Jewish racist, Mary Cunningham.

In Ms. Cunningham you will find the embodiment of two thousand years of every antisemitic element that the Catholic Church has been at pains to purge.

Read her and weep. Look at this bizarre linguistic combination: "On Faith is usually free of such posters but that is simply because it is dominated by—I’m sorry to say—AIPAC , ADL, IDFL etc. trolls." And look at the bizarre assembly of words that precede it.

The post of this unselfconscious racist does, however, confirm the point I raised earlier. No antiracist organization will succeed in ridding the web of racism of any sort. Did the NAACP bring about the dramatic reduction in anti-black racism we see in this country? Has the ADL reduced antisemitism?

With regard to OnFaith, antisemitism was constant on your thread when you posted essays here. It has declined because Jewish bloggers have refused to tolerate it, have fought it aggressively. As well, some bloggers, who had not been aware of their own prejudices, became alert to them as the blog became more divers.

However, even an aggressive stance against racism will not, in the short run, reform the warped vision of such as Mary Cunningham. Nor, in the short run can those engaged in the war against racism defeat the Mary Cunninghams of this world. The morally impoverished will always be with us. But we can create an environment in which those for whom no redemption is possible will be fewer in number.

That, sir, is the best we, as Jews, can do. We do not render unto the Caesars, the Mary Cunningham's, etc.

Professor B;

A few points from a former participant:

1) the anti-Semitic cyber comments on WaPo have been on comments on general articles by Iraqi-invasion proponents such as Krauthammer, Cohen, Gerson &tc. On Faith is usually free of such posters but that is simply because it is dominated by—I’m sorry to say—AIPAC , ADL, IDFL etc. trolls. You can almost always determine a troll by counting the number of posts—for example here Farnaz1 has posted 19 out of the total 54 comments: or 35%. (The other 35 posters were split amongst more than 28 people, far more representative). Word count: of 8243 words of comment Farnaz1Manzouri1 has contributed 2854, or 34%. So her comments have not been quick ripostes but instead take up more than 1/3 of the blog.

2) One of the reasons there are more anti-Semitic comments on the general articles is because these have a built in limit to successive posts by the same person: this limitation blocks trolls like F1M1 who, by dominating the blog, tend to shut down any debate.

3) Where does “free speech” end and “hate speech” begin? I would say banning free speech on the grounds it is anti-Semitic is allowable when there is indication that such speech provokes anti-Semitic acts . I offer the following very recent example: last week the Irish gov’t released the Ryan report detailing horrific abuse inflicted upon children by Catholic clergy (mostly the Christian brothers) in Ireland during the 1935-1975 period. In response, blogs in Britain were inundated with enraged anti-Catholic rants, some threatening Catholics with the closure of their churches and schools, and banning Catholics from public life. Prominent news organisations such as the Times and the Guardian openly encouraged such language with incendiary headlines and anti-Catholic journos. On Sunday, in Northern Ireland—part of Britain— a Protestant mob drove to a Catholic village, went on a destructive rampage, precipitated a riot where they kicked a 50-yr-old Catholic man to death. The episode was a pogrom, pure and simple.

Did it have anything to do with the anti-Catholic rants which had dominated British cyberspace for the previous four days? IMO, yes.

Another report will be published this week or next. Should this time bloggers and journos in Britain refrain from provocative reporting?

"Conservative Jews who have questioned the basic foundations of their religion."

No. They haven't. Judaism is not foundationalist. Not Catholicism. Baruch Hashem.

"Muslims to my understanding respect Christianity and Judaism."

Many support tolerance of Christianity. Many emphatically do not respect Christianity. Recall that in Quoran Jesus (Isa) is a Muslim, that he was not the Son of God, that any who think otherwise are doomed to hell.

Given the theology of Islam, how could it respect any religion that posits a Son of God?

As for Judaism, those who know what it actually is, a very small number, do respect it. Disagreements abound, however. They would have to, given that according to Quran, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were also Muslim.

Actually, as with Christianity, Judaism is being "Crossanized" by Conservative Jews who have questioned the basic foundations of their religion. See for example the article, New Torah For Modern Minds.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482

As this "Crossanization" continues, Judaism as we know it today will fade slowly into the forest of myths where all religions are slowly being deposited.

"Crossanization" of various religions comes indirectly from Professor JD Crossan, the famous historic Jesus and Christianity exegete and On Faith Panel member.

For example: Crossanized" Christians are those who review the contemporary books/articles/net sites of the historical Jesus and NT exegetes and conclude the reviews are well researched and that the analyses therein give credence to Jesus being not deity but a simple preacher man embellished by the likes of P, M, M, L and J into some kind of messiah. Common sense and reality are quite apparent in the works of these exegetes.

Most of the 1.5 million Jews and their rabbis are also following analogous guidelines with respect to Judaism.

Jewish atheists feel partially vindicated by the current studies and conclusions of the Conservative Jews. And as history marches on, it appears all Jews will be slowly become atheists.

"Muslims to my understanding respect Christianity and Judaism."

Many support tolerance of Christianity. Many emphatically do not respect Christianity. Recall that in Quoran Jesus (Isa) is a Muslim, that he was not the Son of God, that any who think otherwise are doomed to hell.

Given the theology of Islam, how could it respect any religion that postis a Son og God?

As for Judaism, those who know what it actually is, a very small number, do respect it. Disagreements abound, however. They would have to, given that according to Quran, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were also Muslim.

Zebra4:

Re: YOur post to me

You misunderstood my posting. The comments you referenced were NOT made by me. They were made by bloggers on the Christian anti-Muslim web sites I included in the same posting.

As I mention, the number of Christian anti-Muslim web sites is legion. In Christian, I include Catholic.

One literally cannot come to the end of such sites.

We have to stop simplifying everything. There Christians want to commite genocide, and, have committed mass murder, are continuing to in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There Christians want to see more blood run in Israel, the blood of Jews, Christians, Muslims, et al, and have succeeded in killing thousands.

There Christians support with their silence the Native American Ghetto, which is ending the lives of the few remaining native Americans that some Christians living in America have not succeeded in already killing through genocide.

There Christians deprive millions of human rights via Walmart, control of international Commerce, Banking, etc.
There are some Christians living in America who support the LITERAL ENSLAVEMENT OF ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY MILLION DALIT so that they can outsource support for computer help to India.
Etc.

There Christians indifferently watched while Israel, during the CHRISTIAN CLINTON "PEACE ACCORDS," suffered the up to three terrorist attacks weekly, while negotiating with Christian supported CHAIRMAN PEDOPHILE ARAAFAT, who then led an Intifada against Israel, precluding the formation of a Palestinian state.
There are some Christians living in America

All those dead Native Americans, Muslims, and, of course, Jews, never did any harm to the Christians.

The Christians ought to consider why they still want to kill them.

Farnaz Mansouri:

You know very well that the passages from Koran you refer to refer to the events under the actual battle conditions and do not demonize Judaism and Christianity as such . What I have read is that there were wars between Jews and Muslims and Muslims and Christians after Islam took hold of Mecca and the religion was expanding.

Didn't Jews and Christians initially support Muhammad becuase his message was montheism? Later, they felt threatened because Islam was expanding and was being accepted by leaps and bounds.
Take the case of Indonesia. It is the largest Muslim country in population. Yet, Muslim armies never went to the Far East.

You can read the history of Indonesia and read about the peaceful transformation of Indonesians to Islam

Muslims to my understanding respect Christianity and Judaism.

Sounds like the stuff of science fiction. Not long ago anyone questioning the Iraq invasion was un-American and "liberal" was a bad word. What is considered anti-Semitic? Who will decide? Am I anti-Semitic when I write my outrage at Israel's use of illegal weapons and abhorent expansionist and aggressive policies? Do the same rules apply if a Jew says something similar or more outrageous against Israel? Are verbal attacks on the state of Israel or certain people therein to be considered attacks on all Jews (a people spread all over the planet some of which share my opinions regarding Israel)? The internet has made it possible for me and others to share our opinions and disagreements on issues that until now have had lopsided support by mainstream media. So are we now supposed to worry not to offend someone that may disagree because they can permenantly silence us? Einstein said: "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding” and "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them". Freedom of speech has been extensively debated and made part of our Constituion. Is Dick Cheney involved in this sensorship?

The real problem started at the end of 14th century inm Europe. They started a camapaign of usurping the property of Jews, pesecuting them and expelling them.

Then the European leaders like Lord Comer, Churchill and Lord Balfour in the 19th and 20th centuries started demonizing Jews. Some of the used epithets like "vermin" against Jews.

They wanted Jews to leave Europe. Lord Balfour developed a scheme to grant Jews a homeland in Palestine. Jews were told to have their own "homeland". Hence Israel was created in 1948.

While the Jews were expelled and killed from 14th centuries, the Ottomans from Morooco to Turkey etc welcomed the Jews and gave them shelter.

So, the Palestinians had nothing to do with the Holocaust. Now the Israelis are killing the Palestinians, taking their land, demolishing their homes etc. What a tragedy! The Jews should rethink about Muslims and Arabs. They were good to them.

Christian hatred of Arabs, Muslims, is of course, very, very real.

The Christians use the Muslims, of course, but they loathe them. The numbers of anti-Muslim Christian web sites are legion.

Does Not Mean Peace: "Fight and slay the Christians" ...
To Christians Islam means war, persecution and death. ..... Hadith 19:4294 " Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war. ...
www.bible.ca/islam/islam-kills-not-peaceful.htm - 23k

Jihad Watch: U.S. praises Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda, car ...
Yup, yemen is our good buddy in the fight against islamofacism! ... call ISLAMIC TERRORIST. y no CHRISTIAN TERRORIST when christians fight, ...
www.jihadwatch.org/archives/022735.php - 22k

Could you also talk about the fighting and killing in Islam?
Sometimes when I read the Quran I think, why didn't he insight the Muslims to fight against Bhuddists, Hindus? Why Jews and Christians? Whose wars? ...
www.thespiritofislam.com/text/Q43.html - 11k - Similar pages

Blair Calls for Continued Fight Against Islamic Extremism on ...
Apr 24, 2009 ... Christians and Public Education · Faith and Politics ... Blair Calls for Continued Fight Against Islamic Extremism. By: Jackie Walker, Email ...
www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=14119 - 32k - Similar pages

Understanding Islam
"Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, .... In Sudan, more than one million Christians were killed by the Islamic government. ...
www.biblicist.org/bible/islam.shtml - 19k -

A Christian Response to Islam in America
Apr 1, 2004 ... Since Islam does not teach love for enemies, bur rather hatred, some Muslims are tempted to fight America . The best way for Christians to ...
www.leaderu.com/theology/islaminamerica.html - 47k - Similar pages

On the word "Semite" (for Christians, REal and Otherwise)

The word "semite" refers to a group of languages and was introduced into the vocabulary during the seventeenth century.
The same was true for the current usage made of the word "Aryan."

The Christian racialists of the nineteenth century reified the word "semite" to refer to Jews.

There is no such thing as "semite," simply a fiction of the Rean and Unreal Christians.

(Slim Shady: "Will the RealChristians please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?)

Person2, you really need to learn what Semite means. It is not what you and all the Israel apologists claim while you attack anyone who denounces Israeli crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. Here is that definition with thanks to Ender2 who posted it here earlier.

Sem·ite
Pronunciation: \ˈse-ˌmīt, especially British ˈsē-ˌmīt\
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Sem Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek Sēm, from Hebrew Shēm
Date: 1848
1 a: a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b: a descendant of these peoples.

Your arguments don't make any sense since Arabs are Semites alongside Jews. So Jewish hatred of Arabs is also antisemitic.

Mr. Friedman has a history of shouting antisemitic at anyone who criticizes Israeli crimes. The man is attempting to stop anyone who rightfully speaks out on the crimes committed by Israel.He attempts to be the world censor of any commentary regarding Israel. He is extremely dangerous if allowed to get away with his attempts to muzzle free speech! There is a big difference between being anti-Israel and being antisemitic.

A blogger writes:

"As to genocide, I think it is far more important to use funds to prevent and fight current genocides."

Jews have always done this. Hence, the campaigns agains the Rwandan and Sudanes genocides. Google is a simple search tool.
Why not start with the USHMM?

In the meantime, since the Christians have control the world economy, have been responsible for countless genocides, continue it unto the present day, perhaps they could divert some of their funds to glance at their motives, the bettter to let the rest of us live.

In the meantime, attempt to get over yourselves bit by bit. For the Shoah, which introduced the word "genocide" to the world, for all your genocides past and present: YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU DO THE TIME.

In your case the time is until the end of history, since the effects of your crimes will be felt until time ends, since your crimes are still in progress.

SLIM SHADY asks the last two thousand years of Christian-controlled history:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?

Will the "RealChristians"...?

WIll the REAL?

Re: Person2

I don't think it is Jew bashing to suggest that Jewish organizations partner with"gentile" organizations to fight religious or ethnic discrimination. Throughout history Jews have often separated themselves from the society at large (yes sometimes out of necessity) rather than become a part of that society. This has often had disastrous results from discrimination to murder. Even today, many Jews will only marry other Jews which has both health and societal ramifications. This further suggests a difference between Jews and the other. (Albeit Catholics, Protestants,and Muslims often do the same with similar consequences.) No group is more special than another. We are all in this game together. But certainly seeking assistance and cooperation will only aid in the fight against wrongs. As to genocide, I think it is far more important to use funds to prevent and fight current genocides. Eli Wiesel, as talented and skilled as he is, would certainly appreciate more assistance in the fight against genocides than in the building of more museums.

SLIM SHADY asks the last two thousand years of Christian-controlled history:

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up, please stand up, please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand up?

Will the "RealChristians" please stand...?

Will the "RealChristians"...?

WIll the REAL?

"This increases private outrage some of which finds an outlet in the anonymity of the internet. The heavy handed ADL or JIDF policing and labeling politically incorect criticism as a form of anti-semitism is only going to help perpetuate the problem"

Christian inspired hate speech is free speech. Admittedly, since the Christians police speech, those limits have not yet been reached as witnessed on this thread and all over the web.

Christians again, who are "not really Christians"?

ADL has cultivated a strange duality. It has actively deterred antisemitism over the years. It has also helped cultivate a politically correct atmosphere where criticism of Israeli conduct in peace and war is highly circumscribed and no one dare mention the Jewish influence in Hollywood, government, finance, politics. academia, medicine, teaching, publishing. Such constraints greatly distort both public and private expressions. Public expression has to toe the line; contrary points of view are seldom fully expressed because they do not pass the ADL-inspired social litmus test. This increases private outrage some of which finds an outlet in the anonymity of the internet. The heavy handed ADL or JIDF policing and labeling politically incorect criticism as a form of anti-semitism is only going to help perpetuate the problem.

A blogger writes:

"But in the USA it's people calling themselves "Christian" but behaving as anything but who have been causing an enormous amount of problems lately."

Unfortunately, this is circular reasoning. Although the Christians proclaim themselves followers of the "religion of love," they have yet to demonstrate love in any way recognizable to anyone else.

This has been evident throughout history. To argue that those Christians who behaved in ways one would condemn are/were not Christians would have made/make most Christians not Christians.

A couple of contemporary cases in point, setting aside the obvious contemporary examples: Genociding George Bush, Cheney, their regime in Congress, the anti-choicers, anti-gay marriagers, homophobes, etc.

Past: You would have to say that William Bradford of the "Pilgrim Bradfords," he who gleefully watched as the Pecot Indians were burned to death, quoting from the Bible, was not a Christian.

Neither was John Winthrop, founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop of the "we shall be as a city on a hill" Winthrops, he who did the burning, a Christian.

These same "persecuted Christians," fleeing the persecution of their co-religionists gave the American Indians blamkets infected with Small Pox.

The Puritians were not Christians. The Protestants in toto are not Christians. The Catholics and Orthodox, et al--none of them Christians.

Is it simply that no Christians have ever acted as Christians?

Is there any logic to this statement?

My Dear Whistling,

I was wondering when you would show up. One of the foremost web racists has graced this thread, Christianly speaking. Whistling you are in the wind.

A fly of the flies.

"But in the USA it's people calling themselves "Christian" but behaving as anything but who have been causing an enormous amount of problems lately."

Unfortunately, this is circular reasoning. Although the Christians proclaim themselves followers of the "religion of love," they have yet to demonstrate love in any way recognizable to anyone else.

This has been evident throughout history. To argue that those Christians who behaved in ways one would condemn would make most Christians not Christians.

A couple of contemporary cases in point, setting aside the obvious contemporary examples: Genociding George Bush, Cheney, their regime in Congress, the anti-choicers, anti-gay marriagers, homophobes, etc.

Past: You would have to say that William Bradford of the "Pilgrim Bradfords," he who gleefully watched as the Pecot Indians were burned to death, quoting from the Bible, was not a Christian.

Neither was John Winthrop, founder of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Winthrop of the "we shall be as a city on a hill" Winthrops, he who did the burning, a Christian.

These same "persecuted Christians," fleeing the persecution of their co-religionists gave the American Indians blamkets infected with Small Pox.

Is it simply that no Christians have ever acted as Christians?

Is there any logic in such a statement?

We have to stop simplifying everything. There are some Christians in America who want to commite genocide, and, have committed mass murder, are continuing to in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are some Christians living in America who want to see blood run in Israel, the blood of Jews, Christians, Muslims, et al, and have succeeded in killing thousands.

There are some Christians living in America who support with their silence the Native American Ghetto, which is ending the lives of the few remaining native Americans that some Christians living in America have not succeeded in already killing through genocide.

There are some Christians living in America who deprive tens of thousands of human rights via Walmart, control of international Commerce, Banking, etc.

There are some Christians living in America who support the LITERAL ENSLAVEMENT OF ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY MILLION DALIT so that they can outsource support for computer help to India.

Et.

There are some Christians living in America who indifferently watched while Israel, during the CHRISTIAN CLINTON "PEACE ACCORDS," suffered the up to three terrorist attacks weekly, while negotiating with Christian supported CHAIRMAN PEDOPHILE ARAAFAT, who then led an Intifada against Israel, precluding the formation of a Palestinian state.

There are some Christians living in America who wish to commit genocide. Who are the others?

The problem is the radicals. Who feel it's their way or the highway.
You have to stop simplifying it all as though there are 1-2 opinions. There are many POV's on the issues of Israel's political relationships with her neighbors. From the radicals on both sides who want to destroy each-other, who lets face it are about 1-2% of the population to moderates who just want a 2 or 1 state solution to people who want nothing to do with it all. There are also people who stand outside, watching and just looking for a way to profit of the death and destruction of it all.

In my life I have been called an anti-semite and a zionist because I fall in the middle, in the peace first camp. There are some Jews in israel who want to commit a genocide against the Palestinians and other Muslims and vice versa, but they are the minority. You want anti-semitism to start to disappear, end the violence.

They say there is no peace without justice. I say there is no justice with out government (this is meant in the broadest sense of the word, not just rule over one land but the relations with the rest of the world) and right now there is no government in Israel and Palestine.

Person2:

Thanks for your thoughtful comments.

My response to gm123 was not just to that post but to others by him. He is attempting to confuse gross anti-Semitism (a kind of racism) with anti-"christianity." Now I happen to know that his version of "christianity" is that perverse quasi-religion that pointedly ignores or contradicts every single thing that the person known as Jesus of Nazareth said, yet claims him as its guiding light and "savior." So I thought I would inform him how he was mistaken with a lesson in current US history.

As for "real" Christianity and "real" Christians? I have no problem with followers of Jesus and have no wish to tell them how to live their lives, so long as they have the same consideration for me. Likewise I can recognize a positive contribution by an avowed Christian. Same goes for any religion. But in the USA it's people calling themselves "Christian" but behaving as anything but who have been causing an enormous amount of problems lately.

I generally agree with you that the run-of-the-mill anti-Jewish sentiment expressed here is vulgar racial hatred, pretty much identical to the kind expressed towards African-Americans in other venues. But I think that the anti-"christian" sentiment, expressed by myself and many others, is a different thing. It is historically and geographically grounded in this country and focused on the fundamentalist branches and their specific behaviors.

Again, thank you for your civil disagreement. I'd happily argue with you over the beverage of your choice any time.

Now!... The Israelis ARE A democracy. They do 'tolerate' differences of opinion. Forget about all of the 'hard feelings' claims of the past. They DO practice what 'they' preach. Look at Your children, as future citizens and adults. What is said is not so important as what is DONE. 'Thought control' has been attempted by diverse societies in the past.... To no avail. Somehow... someway... LOVE does win through.... ALL opinions must be heard. ALL ' minority' questions must be answered, as far as humanly possibe. What else can be done?

Berlinerblau wrote: "For starters there is a difference between extremist sites devoted exclusively to promulgating hate and comment boards owned by respectable media organizations that get overrun or hijacked by bigots of one sort or another."

So? Speach is speach. The only difference is the context and the restriction of speach by the extremist site. The hijacked "respectable" site would still allow anyone to speak, allowing counter arguments and information. So I find the "respectable" site to be a place where hate speach can be spoken but also challenged. I hope everyone would understand that the extremist site is not open and is heavily self regulated, and take the information there for what it is.

Berlinerblau wrote: "Friedman also addresses the question of the anonymity which the web (in theory) provides; this may be the single greatest factor which enables an anti-Semitic troll to do his or her thing."

Yes, but it also prevents those who have national standing from identifying themselves too. The anonymity allows us to read these comments and laugh or sigh, and respond on an equal level. If one was celebrity or head of a party I wouldn't know nor give that anonymous person's words any more stature. Anonymity levels speach and allows the meekest among us to challenge those who speak on a larger stage without even knowing it. Anonymity democratizes speach as anomymous voting democratizes elections.

Regulation of speach is an ugly thing and I really do not know how one can apply it fairly, even for the best purposes. There are already laws against hate speach, libel and slander. Regulating speach by extremists or just "oddball" people will not help society, it never has. Freedom allows us to see what humanity really is, and it can be ugly, but you either live with the ugliness freedom shows or you suppress it and not live free. Americans have always chosen freedom over suppression. Nothing about blogging makes that any different. We're all grown ups here. Don't try to take care of us.

Jew killing human rights oriented christians will not be stopped by "scorn."

They ignore the Dalit so that they can outsource computer help to India!!

They ignore their own, the Sudanese, etc.

They run the government, get Muslims to do their work for them.

They run the Supreme Court, Congress, Web, etc.

They worship Mamon, are Mamon. "Scorn" won't do it.

Anti-semitism is real and large. The fact that Jews constitute such a tiny minority of the world's population ipso facto establishes that anti-semitism exists. Why else would people zero in on Jews to hate? The Jews are an inoffensive people, smart and hard working as one would like everyone to be. The land of Israel is hugely productive and has surely given back more to the world than it has taken. The medical advances alone that are coming out of Israel, the chip technologies, software, basic science discoveries--Israel is helping make the world a better place.

Thus the only reason that the tremendous hostility toward Israel and, under the surface, toward all Jews (in plain view, if you translate the Hitleresque hate speeches of the Islamic mullahs) is anti-Semitism.

Is it Israel? It is the holy land of the Jews. Even the Muslims admit that. It has a few holy sites for Muslims but is not "The" holy land for them; they have their own. It is also the holy land for the Christians, but most Christians trust Israel to maintain the place and not trash their holy sites.

Israel has millions of Muslims in residence, working and prospering. It is the picture of religious tolerance in a part of the world where state religions combine with severe intolerance to oppress any religious minority, even Muslim sects.

Therefore, as long as attacks on Israel continue, both in the cyber world and on the battle field, there will be counter attacks and defensive maneuvres. As long as attacks on Jews continue, their shameful perpetrators will be brought into the glare of the public spotlight and heaped with scorn.

Here's a question for the Jew-killing human rights oriented christians:

Why are you untroubled by the Pakistani Christians, enslaved by caste? I've posted on this. They are raped, tortured, forced from birth to do work outlawed by the United Nations?

They, originally, were the Dalit, the Untouchables, in India. There are one hundred seventy million Dalit in India living in slavery in 2009. They are not the people who pick up the phone to help you with your computer problems.

Why do the christians say nothing about Sudanese refugees killed by the christians' Egyptian buddies unless they make it to Israel which takes them in?

Of course, we know why the christians say nothing about Muslims shooting little girls in the head at point blank range.

Said Muslims are doing the work of the christians....

Of course, the christians don't even know what Judaism is, what Jews are. So how could said christians know what antisemitism is?

Person2 writes:

People who complain (justly or unjustly) about Israel's interaction with Arab peoples are not anti-semitic. But there is no room for people who applaud the death of civilians.

They would be your Christian Racists (CRs), thanks to whom thousands of Jews, Muslims and Christians in Israel are dead.

They are thugs. What does one do with thugs, oil wh*ring thugs? When they control the Congress, the Court, Commerce, the Army, everything?

The CRs forget the Clinton "Peace Accords" during which, throughout weekly terrory, sometimes two or three times a week Ehud Barak continued to work with the US sponsored pedophile, Arafat.

They forget that an agreement was reached by which Palestine would now be a state.

They forget that while Muslims were blowing up little girls and boys on buses the Christian supported Pedophile ARafat was planning the INtifada that began at the Temple Mount.

The Christians elected B.B. Netanyahu. Good luck, now, Christians.

One of the true marks of antisemitism, other than the standard practice of portraying Israel as Nazi Germany, then whining "but why can't I criticize Israel without being called an antisemite", is the feigned ignorance as to what antisemitism is. The claim that "antisemitism cannot be defined” or “it’s in the eyes of the beholder" is a variation on the same theme. Naturally, if antisemitism can't be defined, then no one can call me an antisemite, no matter what I say. Problem solved.

For those who have even a cursory knowledge of the history of the Jewish people, antisemitism needs no definition. For those who don’t and genuinely want to know, there is no shortage of definitions. A good place to start would be the official definition of the EU, which can be found here:

http://eumc.eu.int/eumc/material/pub/AS/AS-WorkingDefinition-draft.pdf

Re: maddymappo

Given anti-semitism is hatred of the Jewish people and that 1/2 the Jewish people live in Israel, anyone who favors raining death and destruction upon Israel is an anti-semite. This would include Hamas, Hesbollah, many in Fatah, and most other Muslim terror organizations.

People who complain (justly or unjustly) about Israel's interaction with Arab peoples are not anti-semitic. But there is no room for people who applaud the death of civilians.

Mr. Berlinerblau,

I'm very pleased to see this posting from you at long, long last. I would have preferred to see it while you were a regular blogger here and the antiJewish racists were blogging away happily on your thread.

I'd like to point out to you that if you peruse OnFaith more carefully, you will see that overall there has been a decline though not an elimination of antisemitism on the blog.

This is not because of the efforts of any organization. It is simply due to the fact that Jews have held the mirror up to the Christianist/Catholicist mirror of Jew hatred.

Christianist/Catholicst racists will hereafter be referred to as CRs.

The CRs are terrified of anyone different from them, and the continued existence of Jews since their expropriation of the Hebrew Scriptures has been a source of continued insecurity and fret.

They therefore attempt to molest us, deprive us yet again of the nation of Israel, etc, etc.

The CRs unfortunately control the world. The have to date killed one and one half million Afgan and IRaqi Muslims, are responsible for thousands of Israeli deathes, Jews and Muslims, Palestinian deaths, etc.

They are a greedy menace to everyone and have always been. They are the Walmarts, the British Petroleums, Exons of this World of this world, control the government, commerce, oil, you name it. We are the CRS scapegoats. The CRs worship Mamon, want the world to be Sodom and Gomorrah.

THey are of course, morons, using the word Zionist, without a clue to what it means, etc. But then they know what nothing means. They are idolators. But you can be a moral moron, thug, etc., and still cause climate change, control the Congress and the Court, and make the world a blood bath.

Here are just a couple of exerpts from this thread to show what I mean.

'Most people on the blogosphere are vehement anti-Zionists and some of them are lured in by AIPAC trolls and WAPO columists to cross the line through verbal baiting. It is as simple as that

.The fight against anti-semitism will not be won if jews are only fighting for other jews."

The christians,catholics, whatever....They speak to their thuggish nature every time they open their thuggish mouths. Worms live in their vocal chords.

I am really saddened and shocked to read most of these comments. Many appear to be either truly confused about what the difference between anti-semitism vs anti Israel is, and many just spew hate speech, which in their ignorance they self servingly define as just a matter of difference of opinion. Let us remember, that while we have freedom of speech, even hate speech, no one is compelled by law to publish it. If these blogs and comment spots had a tag for "hate speech" that can be quickly reviewed by the blog keeper, the life span of these dispicable statements would be short, if not sweet.

Sem·ite
Pronunciation: \ˈse-ˌmīt, especially British ˈsē-ˌmīt\
Function: noun
Etymology: French sémite, from Sem Shem, from Late Latin, from Greek Sēm, from Hebrew Shēm
Date: 1848
1 a: a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs b: a descendant of these peoples

Anti-semitism is not really the issue. It is anti-Zionism, and the undue impact of Zionism on American foreign policy. AIPAC has directed too much of our political policy, and had too much input into our public discourse before the internet to allow the conversations happen that this country needs.

This is the backlash. Stop all discourse and commit attrocities like the recent crimes against humanity in Gaza, and all public discourse on the internet(the only place it is allowed) sounds like hate. Until very recently Israelis had more public discourse about the failures of Zionism and leftwing Israelis compared it to Nazism. Israel has now started charging its citizens criminally for public speach.

Lets make sure that Americans remain free to speak out against anything they choose, and in any manner they choose. However "wacko" that conversation may be, its better than censorship and the end of free ideas.

Re: bigbrother1

I disagree. It's bad to stereotype any type of person based on their religion. Christians of all types have contributed much to the US.

However, many people misunderstand anti-semitism, which is not like anti-Islam or anti-Christianity. Anti-semitism is not a criticism of religion, but it is an attack on the Jewish people. Because of this and the fact that Jews are often particularly vulnerable to violence, it is worse than the others. (G_d can take a few insults without being hurt, but a kid in Sbarro in Jerusalem can't take a few suicide bombers.) However, anti-semitism also takes its toll on non-Jews, since good people of other religions often get hurt by anti-semites. (Most of the people killed by Al Qaida have been Muslim.)

No doubt there is still a lot of anti-semitism in this country and around the world. Just as there is still racism and against all sorts of minorities in every country including the US.

A simple first step would be to separate once and for all anti-semitism from anti-Zionism (read Israel).

Most people on the blogosphere are vehement anti-Zionists and some of them are lured in by AIPAC trolls and WAPO columists to cross the line through verbal baiting. It is as simple as that.

The fault lies with the paid AIPAC trolls on these sites as much as it does with the whackos coming out of the wood work.

It is high time Jewish leaders especially in the US stop their blind religion based support of Israel. When that happens, anti-semitism will take a huge blow and we will clearly know where their loyalties lie.

I would like to add an observation regarding the behavior of the Post and at least one of its editors. Charles Freeman was to have been an advisor to President Obama but was waylaid by a smear campaign that, in my opinion, the Washington Post participated in. After Freeman made a statement regarding, among other things, the role that the "Israel lobby" played in torpedoing his appointment, readers here at the post were invited to participate in a discussion with the editors regarding the Freeman controversy in the Editorial Judgement section. This debate included a few of the oddball wackos you refer to in this section posting hateful anti-semetic comments, but there was also a strong group of readers legitimately concerned with the controversy. As one of the latter, I was appalled by the words and actions of the Post and wished to participate in the promised debate. Jackson Diehl promised to debate but when he actually posted, all he did was call anyone with an opinion different from his an anti-semite. I was deeply offended and repeatedly tried to get Diehl to at least provide the promised debate about the actual facts of the controversy but no such debate ever occurred. The anonymous wackos made their anti-semetic musings heard, and the Post responded by calling all of its readers participating in the so-called debate anti-semites and bigots. As far as I'm concerned, Jackson Diehl is cut from the same cloth as those that post the hate-filled comments that you refer to above. The difference being that he posts with the full authority of an editor of a mainstream media outlet. He chose to hide terrible journalistic practices from scrutiny by calling anyone who questioned his tactics anti-semetic. Shame on him, and shame on the Post for refusing to address the issue in a professional manner. We're still waiting for a real debate Mr. Diehl. Any chance you'll ever be mature enough to participate in one?

The alleged debate...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/community/groups/index.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDiscussionId=Cat%3aa70e3396-6663-4a8d-ba19-e44939d3c44fForum%3aff69aa89-8e4e-40d1-bb35-f6d467b1e068Discussion%3a966dea0e-603f-429a-a0ed-f83093a4627e

"Funny how anti-semitism is bad, but anti-christian is OK.

Posted by: gm123 | May 27, 2009 1:23 PM"

Do you want an honest, serious answer to this? Really? Then read. It's very simple.

In the USA, a minority of fundamentalists calling themselves "Christians" has sought for nearly 30 years to impose its version of "Cristianity" on the rest of the population. They have sought to change laws in their favor, have sought irrational interpretations of laws that favor their views and have even - in the last 8 years - ignored the law entirely in pursuit of their agenda (remember Monica Goodling and the whole Justice Dept./Liberty University scandal?)

Above all, these so-called Christians have sought to overturn the cornerstone of American freedom, the 1st Amendment, and to force an establishment of their religion by the state.

The 80+% of America that is not part of this fundamentalist minority is tired of it. We are in the process of taking our country back. And part of that process is reminding overreaching "christians" that there is no state religion and that they have no business telling anyone else how to live.

If you have a serious answer, please make a serious reply. Otherwise, it's up to you if you want to behave like a spoiled child.

There are more insane anti-Jewish posts on WAPO than I would expect. I encounter plenty of racism and anti-Muslim bigotry in my day-to-day experiences, but very little hatred towards Jews as a people.

It should be needless to say, but it's not: Criticism of Israel - even up to comparing it to Nazi Germany - is not necessarily anti-Jewish. Speaking as a Jew (at least as enough of one) I think the Nazi comparison is instructive and only somewhat exaggerated. Today's Israel (and Zionism in general) bears far too many similarities to the monstrosity that led to its birth.

I believe it is the duty of all ethical Jews to speak out against Israel's current leadership, against the settler movement, against AIPAC and against those Jews who want all Jews to be as as bloodthirsty, racist and genocidal as they are. Of course we should speak out against those who hate Jews as such, but it's hardly necessary. The world already sees those people for what they are. They dig their own graves.

In the "On Faith" sphere, it seems a pretty even match between the Jew haters and hateful Jews. Most times they take over any blog on Israel. It's a shame, but what can you do?

I'll just go along with the last phrase of the Smothers Bros.' John Foster Dulles song. i.e. . . . ."And I don't like anybody very much"!

Re: bob2davis

I think Jews and many other religious/non-religious people have been involved in fighting violence throughout the world. Just look at the Eli Wiesel Center. This group has done a huge amount for humanity, particularly on issues such as Rwanda in 1994 and Sudan now. After surviving the Holocaust, Eli Wiesel decided that he couldn't stay quiet while others suffered.

Why don't you start helping others instead of spending your time bashing Israel/Jews.

The fight against anti-semitism will not be won if jews are only fighting for other jews. What about anti-muslim or anti-catholic sites? If you join with other religions against religious discrimination, the fight becomes much wider and more powerful. Similarly for jews to keep building holocausts museums does not end genocide. Sure, one, two or even three are necessary to recall the horror. Any additional money should be spent on fighting genocide in places like Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Burma, etc., etc., etc. The jewish holocaust was not the only tragedy in the last hundred years. Where are the museums for Stalin's victims? Of course for me, as an atheist, I believe that people of any faith are intellectually flawed and whose religions should be no more respected than a child with an invisible friend. Drop the religions and drastically reduce the discrimination!

What is anti semitism and how is it different from legitimate criticism of Israel and its policies? If millions of Europeans and US citizens believe that Jews have an inordinate amt of control in the media and business does that make them anti semites or are their observations accurate? This is another attempt to deflect any criticism towards Israel as anti semitism.

Funny how anti-semitism is bad, but anti-christian is OK.

Problems with trying to "control" freedom of speech: 1. Definitions: What, exactly, is "anti-anything" and who says so? 2.In the case of sharp political or religious problems such as Israel/Palestine affairs, any criticism of either side is often interpreted as "anti", and this tends to shut down discussion. 3. Some (maybe many) people's definition of "anti" is "anything that disagrees with my opinion or brings up facts I don't want to know about."

Problems with trying to "control" freedom of speech: 1. Definitions: What, exactly, is "anti-anything" and who says so? 2.In the case of sharp political or religious problems such as Israel/Palestine affairs, any criticism of either side is often interpreted as "anti", and this tends to shut down discussion. 3. Some (maybe many) people's definition of "anti" is "anything that disagrees with my opinion or brings up facts I don't want to know about.

The problem with antisemitism is that we don't have a known definition. "antisemitism" concept is used to silence any criticism of Israel.
If we agree to regulate speech that spread hate against any group of people, that seems fine, but we call Antisemite anyone who disagrees with Israel's policies.

The Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) is on top of the issues online, not just on Facebook, but YouTube, Myspace, Twitter, etc. They are doing all their work with virtually no money and really put the ADL to shame. I fully support the work of the JIDF. They have the chutzpah to take on these companies with not even a fraction of a percent of the money that the ADL has. The ADL could learn quite a few things from the JIDF.

This is nothing but an extended press release for the ADL, who has proven to not even be on top of these issues. The JIDF has 10's of thousands of young supporters all over the web who are actively writing letters and reporting material.

The ADL might have done some good things in the past, but the JIDF is doing some remarkable work right now. If I weren't a student struggling with tuition, I'd be sending them a lot of money!

Nobody has a right not to be offended. Our government cannot and should not regulate speech. It's up to private businesses like Google to ultimately decide what passes and what doesn't, not government and not individuals.

The JIDF (although I don't agree with all their stands) is really at the forefront of dealing with this issue on Facebook.

Equating criticism of Israel's excesses with anti-Semitism is no different than the "anti-Soviet" smokescreen that communists used to use to try to hide their own excesses.

Regarding free speech...

This means that that the government cannot regulate speech. However, companies like Google or Facebook have every right enforce their terms of service regulations. These companies are also free to interpret what is considered a violation of their terms of service agreements. Som if they want to clear out the disreputable people who use their site, they can delete the accounts of people who show hints or white supremacism, anti-semitism, or anti-black bigotry.