Anti-Semitism: “I just wanted to kill Jews”
The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting has prompted a lot of speculation and discussion about the shooter’s motives for his murderous hatred of Jews, and about the basis for anti-Semitism in general.
But it’s not as though people haven’t puzzled over the subject of anti-Semitism for millennia. I’ve read many books and articles about it, and have come to the conclusion that most of the myriad explanations for it make sense, and yet that its root cause is ultimately mysterious.
Anti-Semitism seems to speak to some deep-rooted need to hate, and it’s almost as though the reasons for the hatred are secondary and the hatred comes first. I think that’s what was going on with Bowers, the Pittsburgh shooter.
Here’s what he said:
He screamed “All these Jews need to die” and said “I just want to kill Jews,” according to police reports.
I have come to think that “I just want to kill Jews” is the heart of anti-Semitism, and all the other “reasons” given are excuses and ex-post-facto justifications.
And now I find this piece by Dennis Prager:
And second, while there is no difference between the murder of Christians at a church and the murder of Jews in a synagogue with regard to the loss of life and the suffering of loved ones, there is something unique about the murder of Jews for being Jews: Anti-Semitism is exterminationist. Anti-semites don’t just want to persecute, enslave or expel Jews; they want to kill them all.
On Passover, Jews read the Haggadah, the ancient Jewish prayer book of the Passover Seder. In it are contained these words: “In every generation, they arise to annihilate us” — not “persecute” us; not “enslave” us; annihilate us.
So, when the murderer yelled, “All Jews must die,” he encapsulated the uniqueness of anti-Semitism.
Prager adds this:
For Jews to blame the most pro-Israel president since Harry Truman — the only president with a Jewish child and Jewish grandchildren, moreover — for increasing anti-Semitism is another example of a truism this Jew has known all his life: Unlike Jewish liberals, who get most of their values from Judaism, Jewish leftists are ethnically Jewish but get their values from leftism.
The biggest increase in anti-Semitism in the last 10 or so years has come from the left.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t also neo-Nazis who hate Jews. I would say that, whether Bowers was officially affiliated with such a group, he certainly fits the description from the information we’ve been given so far. Bowers hated Trump too, because he correctly perceived Trump as being pro-Jewish and pro-Israel.
But all of that is Trump’s fault, of course.
I do have a quarrel with Prager, however. In that same article he writes that “America has finally made the list of countries in which Jews were murdered for being Jews.” Untrue. America made that list [see *NOTE below] in 2006, when the Jewish Federation of Seattle was attacked by Naveed Afzal Haq.
Naq shot six women and one died, and he shot them because they were all Jewish—or rather, because he thought they were all Jewish. Some were, including the woman who died, but two of the women he wounded happened to be non-Jewish employees:
Witnesses reported that Haq began shouting “I’m a Muslim American; I’m angry at Israel” before he began his shooting spree…
Dayna Klein, a Federation employee who was five months pregnant, heard the shots being fired and as she went to the door of her office, Haq fired at her abdomen, but the bullet hit her raised arm. According to Klein, Haq then moved to another section of the building and Klein, bleeding profusely, crawled to her desk and dialed 911, despite Haq’s threats to kill anyone who called the police. Haq eventually returned to Klein’s office and discovered her on the phone, at which point he reportedly shouted “Now since you don’t know how to … listen, now you’re the hostage, and I don’t give a [expletive] if I kill you or your baby.” Klein told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that Haq “…stated that he was a Muslim, [and] this was his personal statement against Jews and the Bush administration for giving money to Jews, and for us Jews for giving money to Israel, about Hezbollah, the war in Iraq, and he wanted to talk to CNN.” Klein then offered Haq the phone and suggested that he tell the dispatcher what he had just told her.
Still pointing his gun at Klein, Haq took the phone and informed the police that he had taken hostages. He repeated his previous explanation that he was upset about the war in Iraq and U.S. support of Israel. He also said, “[t]hese are Jews. I’m tired of getting pushed around, and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.” He also demanded that the U.S. military get out of Iraq. He asked if he could be patched through to CNN. The dispatcher told Haq that was not possible, and informed him that talking with the media would not alter U.S. policy. Haq calmed down and told the dispatcher that he would surrender.
The shooting by Haq seem to have gone down the memory hole for most people, Prager included. And I suppose that the left might have said Bush was responsible for what Haq did, because Bush started the Iraq War that raised Haq’s ire. But I couldn’t find any contemporaneous articles that blamed Bush. Maybe back in 2006 Bush Derangement Syndrome wasn’t yet quite as virulent as Trump Derangement Syndrome has become, although it was certainly bad enough.
And remember 2014? There was an incident that year in which people were killed because the perp thought they were Jewish, but we certainly didn’t have a bunch of pundits saying that one was Obama’s fault, did we?:
On April 13, 2014, two shootings occurred at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community, both located in Overland Park, Kansas. A total of three people were killed in the shootings, two who were shot at the community center and one who was shot at the retirement community.
The shooter, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., was a neo-Nazi. His motive:
As [Miller] was led away, he made antisemitic remarks, according to witnesses…In a press conference, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stated that it was “determined” that the motivation for the shootings was antisemitism. Several items were seized from the suspect’s home in Aurora, Missouri, including three boxes of ammunition, a red shirt with a swastika symbol, antisemitic publications (such as Hitler’s Mein Kampf), a list of kosher places, directions to synagogues, and a printout of the KC Superstar competition at the community center…
During the 11-day trial, Miller acted as his own attorney and made various disruptive outbursts, including self-incriminating statements. During the trial, Miller said that he was “proud” of the crime and made antisemitic diatribes
Miller was sentenced to death, but as far as I can tell he has not been executed as of this date. As a killer he was quite efficient; all three of the people he shot died. But as a Jew-killer, he was a complete failure, although not through lack of effort. But it turns out that none of his victims were Jewish.
In contrast, by targeting a synagogue, Pittsburgh shooter Bowers was far more likely to kill actual Jews, and observant Jews at that. He also killed far more people than his predecessors.
[*NOTE: There is also the case of Leo Frank, who was lynched in Georgia in 1915 mainly as a result of anti-Semitism. Frank, a leader in the Jewish community of Atlanta, was apparently framed, convicted, and sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit. The following then ensued:
Considering arguments from both sides as well as evidence not available at trial, Governor John M. Slaton commuted Frank’s sentence from capital punishment to life imprisonment.
The case attracted national press and many reporters deemed the conviction a travesty. Within Georgia, this outside criticism fueled antisemitism and hatred toward Frank. On August 16, 1915, he was kidnapped from prison by a group of armed men who were infuriated by the governor’s decision, and lynched…The new governor vowed to punish the lynchers, who included prominent Marietta citizens, but nobody was charged.
I would consider that a case of “murdered for being a Jew,” although it’s obviously far more complicated than a mass shooting in a synagogue.]
A lot of the comments on your earlier post linked to discussions of why the Jews* are hated in a manner that is so much more widely-spread and vicious than hatred for other groups**.
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/10/29/further-thoughts-on-the-pittsburgh-shooting/
Religiously speaking, there is a very good reason why Jew-hate tops all others: no one else claims to be the Chosen People of the Only God of the Universe, and has a history book to support them.
Islam disputes that assertion vehemently, of course, but their claim to holding a monopoly on God is a very late-comer.
Christians are ambivalent about the claim, and denominations swing both directions (pro-Israelite, and very anti-).
Buddhists, Taoists, etc don’t seem to have a consistent view either way, and no reason why they should.
Regardless, all three Middle-Eastern-derived faiths have an eschatological doctrine or twelve in which the ultimate fate of the Jewish people (Israelites) figures strongly, either to vindication or extermination — so some are always trying to accelerate the latter.
(*Jews, of course, are the descendants of the tribe of Judah – one of the original twelve Israelite family groups.)
(**There ways seems to be a rise in Leftist foaming-at-the-mouth over Conservatives in general whenever a Republican administration actually does something to support Jewish people and Israel. Hmmmmm.)
In addition to those, there was a shooting on August 10, 1999, at the North Valley (L.A.) Jewish Community Center by Buford Furrow. Thank God, all the people he shot there survived. He then went on to shoot and kill a postman, for being Hispanic, but who was actually Filipino. Furrow pleaded guilty in exchange for a life sentence without parole. Actually, he got two consecutive life sentences plus 110 years, but I don’t think he minds that, being in with his Aryan Brothers in prison.
There was also an attack at the El Al counter at LAX, by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian-born green card holder, on July 4, 2002. Four people, all Jews, were killed. Fortunately, the assassin was killed by an El Al security guard. That was classified as a terrorist attack, presumably on Israelis, but to the Arab man-in-the-street, Jew and Israeli are synonymous.
I truly don’t understand the opposition to the death penalty, certainly not when there is no doubt as to guilt.
AesopFan — “Jews, of course, are the descendants of the tribe of Judah”. . .
Also Benjamin, some of Ephraim, Menasha, and, of course, the Levites living in the southern kingdom.
The “Chosen People” thing has very little to do with anti-Semitism, since you have to know Judaism pretty well to know about that, and the Greeks and Romans, among whom were many anti-Semites, didn’t. It’s our differences that pisses people off. See my post at
I wonder if the “hatred” of Jews has something to do with Judaism being a precurser and far older (primative?) religion than Christianity. I believe that similar purges of Pagans have taken place in history.
Note, I am not claiming anything in this comment. I am just speculating, because Neo has raised a good question. Why is the hatred of Jews so recurring and so visceral?
Sorry, please add “See my earlier posts on this subject.”
Related: Caveat emptor (they’re at it again):
https://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/273777/correcting-the-adls-false-anti-semitism-statistic
AesopFan:
The amount of misconception about the “Chosen People” phrase could fill a book, and perhaps an entire library. Please see this for a lucid explanation. What’s more, a great many Jew-haters could not care less about the finer points of religion itself. The “Chosen People” excuse is just another excuse.
Mr. Haq committed his hate crimes in 2006 and was charged with Washington state hate crimes. No USDOJ action.
Frazier Glenn Miller committed his hate crimes in 2014 and was never charged with hate crimes. He was convicted of capital murder; maybe Kansas didn’t have any hate crime statutes. No USDOJ action.
Robert Bowers has been charged with 29 counts by the USDOJ including 14 crimes of violence which fall under the “hate crime” rubric.
I’m just checking to see if hate crime statutes are really compliant with the equal protection clause. What would Eric Holder have done with Bowers?
I personally think the “Hate Crime” thing is emotional and mostly phony.
Islam disputes that assertion vehemently, of course, but their claim to holding a monopoly on God is a very late-comer.
To my mind, and I have done a bit of reading, particularly “In the Shadow of the Sword,” after which he had to go into hiding, Islam is a Jewish heresy. Muhammed thought he had improved upon Judaism but was infuriated when the Jews of Arabia turned him down.
The “Christ Killer” thing was prominent at one time but I don’t know how long that lasted. Certainly, Protestants and Catholics had each other to kill. The 30 Years War killed 1/3 of Europe.
More recent anti-Semitism has been largely born of jealousy and envy.
Funny how the only people who think anti-Semitism inexplicably springs from an ineffable bigotry are Jews. Meanwhile, there are dozens of Twitter posts from Jews expressing their desire to eliminate all white people. Rabbis are on record as saying one Jewish life is worth 10,000 non-Jews.
Every Jewish group in America is working overtime to flood the U.S. with illegals and a permanent Democrat majority. Over 4,000 Jewish charities and PACs in America alone contribute 75% of all Democrat contributions and around 50% of Republicans’. The only nation actually encouraged to interfere with U.S. elections is Israel. ADL has teamed with Facebook, Google and Twitter to censor free speech, and Amazon is banning books critical of Zionism.
Jews overwhelmingly favor taxpayer-funded abortions, severe gun control, gay marriage, socialized medicine, and vote 3-to-1 for Democrats.
But to get the definitive line on a growing desire to reclaim the ethical and political values of a moral America, visit Unz (who is a Jew) and read pretty much any article from the past six months: My History with the ADL, Holocaust Denial, Oddities of the Jewish Religion, The True Causes of anti-Semitism, 9/11 was an Israeli job … it’s endless. Of course, you better move quickly, because the Jews are gonna shut it down, just like they did with Gab and Daily Stormer, in 3 … 2 … 1 …
Final word: Holocaust Denial is illegal in 17 countries. Imagine, going to jail for having a conversation. That’s a power I don’t care to endorse.
@Amy Armadillo (above) does a very effective job of illustrating the irrationality of anti-Semitism. Pretty much made to order.
Amy:
May God have mercy on your soul.
I once read an article about anti-Semites and it asked one person (a self-admitted anti-Semite) why there was such a systemic dislike of the Jews. He stated (I am paraphrasing) that although the Jews in his country were good citizens, they didn’t intermingle, nor did they adopt the culture of the home country. This person went on to say that this made him believe that Jewish people thought they were “better than everyone else”. Mixed into this were also complaints about the economic success of the Jews in his country which he believed harmed the “natural citizens” of that country. I found this very interesting as it kind of touches on the religious aspect of being Jewish (orthodox belief in keeping Jews separate from Gentiles) and of course this also ties directly with the concept of the Jews being God’s Chosen people. I have to admit my religious views strongly color my beliefs regarding antisemitism (Evangelical Christian). The reason for antisemitism that I put the most stock in is the Biblical reminder that the world hates God so why is it so surprising that the world would hate the people who have loved and worshiped him the most (and the longest)?
The hatred of Jews seems to me to be irrational, beyond all of the various explanations that might be offered. My Hindu and Buddhist friends tend to eat different foods than I do, tend to marry within their traditions, and (in this country) tend to do very well in school and in professional life. No one tries to kill them all. My Muslim friends also have dietary restrictions and marry within their group. In addition, radicals from their tradition want to kill or subjugate everyone else, and yet we don’t reciprocate with the desire to kill them all. (Nor should we.)
I view Jew-hating as a mental illness, probably not diagnosable, but still an illness. In extreme cases it takes this horrifying violent form. In religious terms, it is deeply, deeply evil.
I do see Jew-hatred as a spiritual sickness. In the bible God proclaims that “in thee shall all nations be blessed”. I believe in God and I believe there is a devil, a prince of darkness who is evil. The devil and those aligned with evil, be they angelic or human, hate God and work to defy God’s eternal plan. Even if he is a defeated foe, which as a Catholic I believe he is, he is still working against what God loves. As far as nations are concerned, the Jewish race has been a target for evil, as is evidenced throughout history. Evil is manifestly at work in destroying humans and all creation, wherever and however possible. Ultimately, there is a joyful ending, according to both the Judaic and Christian scriptures.
MikeK,
I agree with the notion that the inspiration for hate crimes legislation is to some extent a manufactured outrage covering for a power play. That said, the legislation, statutes, and penalties are now real, and we must demand that they apply equally to everyone who might targeted for some kind a retribution.
Are they applied the same to victims who are Jewish, Black, or gay? Demand that they are or eliminate them.
My Straussian uncle inlaw claimed that the core of American exceptionalism is the Constitution itself. I think the essence of that notion is contained in the equal protection clause. No classism allowed here!
Andrew McCarthy, at National Review, writes, and I agree with him, that these murders are a state crime and should be punished by the state. I dislike “hate crime” legislation which makes some murders federal cases and most murders state cases. I thought that the South Carolina Bible study murders should have been prosecuted in South Carolina, not in federal court. The only useful purpose of federal, as well as state, charges, seems to be to ensure that the murderer will spend the rest of his life in prison rather than getting some kind of parole in a couple of decades.
I saw a report that attacks against Jews rose significantly. I wonder how many of those attacks were by Muslims. Islam hates Judaism. Muslims kill Jews all the time.
om: Amen. If there is a real person there, not a bot.
One of the most consequential of the internet era’s downsides is that it enables lunatics to find one another.
” … it’s not as though people haven’t puzzled over the subject of anti-Semitism for millennia. I’ve read many books and articles about it, and have come to the conclusion that most of the myriad explanations for it make sense, and yet that its root cause is ultimately mysterious. ”
Well I don’t think it’s all that mysterious if you slice the matter finely enough. And what I mean by that is that much like many other things we have a single name for, I don’t think that hatred of Jews, if we label it in all its manifestations as antisemitism, is a unitary psychological phenomenon. Tacitus appears to have had one view, Apion, and Porphyry, others, and the Muslims and the Nazis, still others.
I’m sure that elitist country club members had still additional explanations and motivations.
One of the interesting quirks of history is that the Karaites don’t seem to have engendered as much “unaided” hostility among gentiles, but according to some sources they were much hated by the “oral Torah” Jews of Spain who sought the assistance of the Kings of Castile (I think it was) in persecuting them out of existence.
But again of course, as we know from previous discussions, it is difficult to define just who is, or what necessary and sufficient attributes must be possessed by any particular person in order to be an “authentic” Jew. Some would appear to be of the opinion that one need not even be religious in order to be included in the circle of solidarity: something that seems passing strange to “outsiders”; especially those of us from traditions that esteem the (so-called) legacy of the frontier; i.e.,individualism, personal honor and courage, and voluntary affiliation, above almost all other social values.
From my point of view, as an outsider with some “official” education in the matter, it seems obvious to me that the term “Jew” was not always coextensive with the people of the Torah, and that in Hellenistic and later times “Jew” first referred to the Israelite remnant in Judah, and their subsequent descendants, and then to the people of the Talmud. Others have said just that much already in this thread.
But if being a Jew is by and large thought to be an identity that hangs on two hooks, biological descent, and membership in or identification with the Rabbinic tradition, then can one be a Jew, if one is of the first while rejecting the latter?
It seems to me that some have answered for themselves and said, that “yes,” they can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hYw86YM7Nk
I’ve known and lived with and been good friends in my life with so many people who’ve been Jewish — and it’s just always been hard to differentiate them from anyone else. Jewishness just seems such a secondary or tertiary (or less that) characteristic. I just barely notice.
It’s possible that I gt along with them well, for the most part, because they tend to be intelligent.
I have no clue how some hillbilly or janitor comes to fixate on and hate Jews.
What happened to preview and edit?
The root cause is not mysterious, just unpalatable to many. Folks tend to be uncomfortable with looking directly at evidence of supernatural activity and motivations in the events of the natural world.
Satan hates all humanity and takes delight in evil and destruction, thus there are plenty of examples of people being targeted for a multitude of made up excuses. And it is demonically inspired and it is increasing.
But Satan’s hatred of the Chosen people is also strategic. He both hates them because they are the people God has chosen to use, and fears them because what God has said in His word is that He will use them to bring Satan down. And Satan has known this since the Lord prophesied it in the Garden and he (Satan) desperately wants to abort that ending.
In some ways, I tend to think of the Chosen people as akin to the Marines, in that they are on the point of the spear in the great conflict. We are all caught up in the war, but they are on the front lines.
I grew up in an era of anti-Semitism. My father was one of the most bigoted people I have ever known, Like Dirty Harry, he hated everybody. I learned about black anti-Semitism from a nursemaid who raised my sister and me. She was black and lived with my family until I went off to college. She hated Jews. I think it was because of the small merchants who served blacks in the black neighborhoods of Chicago were I grew up. In Los Angeles, where I lived for 60 years. the Koreans have replaced Jews as the small business owners and as the object of hatred by blacks. I think blacks suspect they are being cheated. The solution would be for blacks to open their own small businesses but that does not happen for reasons I decline to discuss.
Another example of someone being murdered because he was a Jew would be the 1984 shooting of Alan Berg.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Berg
And right on schedule we get “Amy Armadillo” the troll, who’s never been here before but comes onto this particular thread to tell us all about the Jews and their beliefs. I’ve noticed many times before that whenever I write a post about Israel or about Jews, it’s not at all unusual for anti-Semitic trolls to come by. In fact, it’s quite ordinary. Some people are quite dedicated to this sort of activity.
Much of what “Amy” writes consists of the sort of anti-Semitic memes you can find on the myriad of anti-Semitic sites dotting the internet purporting to “explain” things like the Talmud, with fake quotes and fake notions, and then attributing them to Jews or to all Jews. Or they take something said by one person who either is a Jew or says he/she is a Jew and then ascribe that to all Jews as though it’s a part of the Jewish religion or culture rather than the opinion of that one person.
Oh, and usually there’s an absence of links, as with “Amy.”
Like Bowers, “Amy” seems to have the idea that the immigration laxity shown in this country by the left and now the Democratic Party as a whole is a conspiracy controlled by Jews. Just like everything else in the world that’s bad is the fault of the Jews.
Yes, the majority (about 70%) of Jews are Democrats. But the majority of Democrats are not Jews. And most of those Jews are secular Jews who do not have anything to do with Judaism except ethnically.
As for estimates of how much of the money donated to the Democratic and Republican parties comes from “Jewish charities and PACS,” “Amy” makes a very extreme statement (75% of Democratic money comes from Jews), but of course she gives no link and anyway there’s no good information on that available. Here’s a list of the top funders in 2018, but the only “Jewish” name or group there is Soros, who is Jewish In Name Only, and certainly contributes nothing like 75% (Soros was raised in a non-observant Jewish family in Hungary and has “wryly described his home as a Jewish antisemitic home.”)
And yet, all the anti-Semites in the world would like to pin Soros on the Jews. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
As for what percentage of Democrats’ money comes from Jews, it is almost impossible to estimate such a thing (and some of the articles that purport to give estimates don’t explain on what they based them). We simply do not know. Researchers who try to estimate the percentages and at least try to explain their methods acknowledge the inaccuracy of such measures, which have to use extremely flawed tools such as whether a name sounds Jewish and what neighborhood the person lives in.
Here’s the best attempt I could find, and it’s admittedly flawed:
Nothing remotely like 75%, even at the highest estimates. And how much of the money Jews contribute to Democrats is actually what George Soros contributes to Democrats?
There are a number of interesting posts about anti-Semitism here. I agree with those who say that different people hate for different reasons but ultimately many people use hatred to give meaning and structure to their lives. If they don’t have an enemy they have to manufacture one.
When I was a child we lived in Rwanda during the beginning of the first wave of genocide around 1961. Living through that period I have come to realize that genocide is a natural human behavior which has been going on for thousands of years. Interestingly, now that the Hutus and Tutsis are trying to live in peace they have decided that the Belgians are responsible for their genocide. Since there are few if any Belgians in Rwanda, they can blame them for all the killing without the need to actually do anything about it. Interestingly, I was there at the beginning of the genocide and I know from personal experience that there were so few Belgians in Rwanda at the time of the genocide that it is ridiculous to blame them for the hatred that one tribe had towards the other – but the fiction is useful since both tribes can now fulfill their quotient of hatred relatively harmlessly.
Based on my experience, I believe that anti-Semitism is not a unique evil, it is just another manifestation of that same dark human trait which has reared its ugly head numerous times throughout history. There are genocides in progress right now. For example, the Muslims are busy exterminating the Christians in Nigeria and the Hindus in Bangladesh. What was shocking about the Nazis was that they arose in Europe among highly educated people who thought that since they understood science and philosophy and were children of the Enlightenment that they were above such primitive behavior.
DNW:
Preview/edit is still there. But every now and then it disappears for one person or another, and then returns.
I have no idea what that’s all about.
It seems to me no accident that Dennis Prager had one of the best responses to this. I generally find his conservatism on the predictable side, but his insight into Jewish Christian relations is generally outstanding. His exceptional insight in this area came to my attention in 2004 during the controversy over Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ. I was exchanging emails with the late University of Manchester academic blogger Norm Geras, who grew up Jewish in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He was quite upset by the film which I liked as a Christian because it unsparingly depicted the brutality and suffering of the Crucifixion. Of all the commentators that either of us read the only one either of us found who was able to see both sides was Dennis Prager. He characterises the problem in exactly the same terms that Scott Adams does the current political divide between Democrats and Republicans – we are watching two different movies. Here is the key quote: “For two hours, Christians watch their Savior tortured and killed. For the same two hours, Jews watch Jews arrange the killing and torture of the Christians’ Saviour.” The whole thing is worth reading in terms of trying to reconcile groups who are seeing two different movies.
http://www.dennisprager.com/the-passion-jews-and-christians-are-watching-different-films/
DNW on October 30, 2018 at 10:20 pm at 10:20 pm said:
What happened to preview and edit?
* * *
Preview disappeared in the move to the new website, and edit has been flaky for a couple of days (appears only intermittently).
The late, great, French philosopher, Andre Glucksmann maintained that the key to understanding antisemitism lay with the antisemite, not the Jew. Now there’s a novel idea. There’s a psychology of hatred, in other words, and the Jew is for nothing in all of it.
As horrendous as the attack in Pittsburgh was/is; and as terrible (and bizarre) as the bombing attempts (or intimidation attempts) were/are, I’m afraid that we’re still being side-tracked. We’re still being distracted.
We’re still losing sight of the ball. Which is:
The conspiracy planned, orchestrated, choreographed, engineered and executed by the Democratic leadership and its cronies in the DOJ, the FBI, and the MSM against the Republican candidate for president in 2016; and following that, its continuation: the soft putsch against the elected president.
(Not to mention, the extraordinary cover-up of this conspiracy, which the MSM is doing its very best to suppress.)
With one week remaining before the most crucial mid-term elections in living memory:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/10/what-we-have-learned-so-far.php
DNW — Think of it this way: You can be an American citizen if you are born one, even if you don’t have the tiniest shred of American history, tradition, or values. And you can be naturalized as an American citizen, and in that case, you will have to learn, and adopt (or at least swear to adopt) American history, tradition, and values.
Judaism is exactly the same. You can be Jewish by birth, in which case you don’t have to care a whit about Jewish history, tradition or values, or you can convert to Judaism, in which case you will have to learn Jewish history, tradition and values, and promise to follow them.
Simple, isn’t it?.
P.S. We don’t say “oral Torah Jews” or “Talmudic Jews.” The correct term is “rabbinic Jews.”
R. S. McCain asks why, after several days, we still know practically nothing about this shooter. I don’t want to see the shooter’s name repeated as a household word, as often happens, but I do want to know whether he belonged to a group of such people, and where he got his evil ideas. News people seemingly have been so busy idiotically blaming Trump that very little investigative work has been done about the man actually responsible.
http://theothermccain.com/2018/10/30/why-do-we-know-almost-nothing-about-pittsburgh-gunman-robert-bowers/
Miklos…”I have no clue how some hillbilly or janitor comes to fixate on and hate Jews.”
If you are looking for anti-Semites in America, you’ll do better to look on a college campus–among both students and professors–than among hillbillies, janitors, or members of the local Rotary Club.
If you are looking for anti-Semites in America, you’ll do better to look on a college campus–among both students and professors–than among hillbillies, janitors, or members of the local Rotary Club.
Yes, and if you doubt that trying to go on the UC, Irvine campus wearing obviously Jewish attire.
Here is an example. Oh, I know it is an Israeli but the attempt to say Israel hate is not Jew hate is a weak reed.
There was also the 2009 Holocaust Museum shooting. The only fatality was a Gentile, but surely it was a fatal shooting animated by antisemitism.
Lets get to the heart of this…
everyting i point out i can reference openly without any hidden anything… its just i cant get the freaking horse to drink. the horse see’s it as its easier to argue agianst something it refuses to look at, than look at it and have a REAL DISCUSSION which includes ALL the facts not just the subset that has been approved for consumption!!!! While despising the left, people, even here, tend to use this technique to put information outside the discussion..
woe be tide the situation where the ANSWER to the question you want is outside the discussion… then you will never know, you will make up stuff, you will listen to people talk about things in sweeping terms but NEVER get clevel enough to ask some specific questions that would topple the card houses, and never know the answers…
in this way, you stay confused, you have no target you have no focus, you cant really argue against something you dont really know much more than the other person who knows less… can you? while theri cup is 1/4 full, you cant win the debate with a 1/2 full cup and ask dumb questions that a full cup can answer – maybe that was too abstract? ie. your still missing half the information so are not really better off than the other sides quarter and so never resolve ANYTHING
to resolve the points you need the crux, the point upon which things turn
otherwise your pissing in the wind and admiring the salty sea air!!!! and your happy just as long as no one points out it isnt sea air… and your happy to stop them, because you already tasted it and it is better to your ego to keep the lie and never having tasted piss, than to fix the problem and stop tasting it (and suffer knowing you had already partaken)
Everybody knows that there were fights in Germany in the beer halls violent fights in which people died in double digit numbers.
Before I put the question forth, I have to point out: That human beings are now such record keepers and savers of minutia we happen to have pedigrees of thought and etymology of words and ideas have provenance, so before you can really delve in to get answers, not being omniscience or immortal, one should examine the lineage and history of the terminologies and meanings (and how they have changed, been hidden, misrepresented, obfuscated, buried, highlighted, etc.)!!!
so we all agree that in the early 1930’s that there was political turmoil in Weimar Germany and that in this turmoil an Austrian socialist named Adolf had an epiphany in his prison cell AFTER READING uncensored Marx, and Engels, and then as all Marxists today do, write exposition and derivative works (every major socialist leader has done this).
we also agree that the large social gardens in Germany that are popular today, were the beer halls where the gregarious Germans would sit, eat, drink beer and listen to music, or speeches, and or more.
So here is the killer question… (If I have to put a money prize in it for answers I will)
1) WHAT specifically was said to the crowd that caused the MURDEROUS riots?
[you know they fought, what were they fighting over, what words were said? our imaginations imagine maybe thugs wandering into the garden beating people, but then how did this lead to a winning argument that would end up ELECTING the Austrian to state]
2) WHY did the fights stop and the rise to power start AFTER that date?
I can answer both… one of the answers puts to shame the idea that Nazism and Communism are different. The point is available, like most history, but people think they know facts when all they actually know is a kind of surface idea.
Something was said at these places to cause the fights. You can go to the history channel, wiki, and more, and you will find all manner of ideas they fought, but you get nothing as to what was said to cause it. ALL you get is what the Weimar state did in response and so on.
The big picture hiding the devil in the details no one bothers to look closely despite arguing over the ideas that these details would put to sleep if they were COMMONLY KNOWN.
Same with Willi, but no one picked up on it!! You may know what the ANTI FASCISTS were fighting AGAINST… NATIONAL SOCIALISM,… but did you realize the reason was they were INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISTS and ANARCHISTS and a national program would destroy the dream of one world communist international and just replace the current varied system with another varied system of socialists who wont cooperate any more than the prior states did and probably LESS.
But who were they fighting FOR? America? The constitution? Freedom? The right to bathroom privacy? They were funding and fighting FOR STALIN, and helping to big a huge self-funded political machine in the USA that exists to this day. We actually know today that the CPUSA was really taking orders from Moscow, and so the old denials and such are now meaningless IF YOU UPDATED YOUR HISTORY FACT BOOK with new information that is derived once the people die and the records are released, or states fall and their archives are opened before they close again
Remember it was Moynihan who wrote in his commission that without these exfiltrated archives, the archives from fallen states, especially Russia, the United states would not know its OWN History so well (That is paraphrasing).
I will tell you the words said, who said them, what day they were said the name of the local paper that put the words out and the name of the newspaper here in the USA that picked it up and printed it.
And it won’t be good enough! [though if anyone wants, like most of my other information, you CAN look at the stuff on microfilm or subscription to the papers archives which I don’t have]
ASIDE: Soviet Story will be on the Blaze network channel I believe on Sunday… I don’t expect people to want to know what they don’t teach and don’t show that can EASILY be confirmed and looked up but isn’t.
Over 4,000 Jewish charities and PACs in America alone contribute 75% of all Democrat contributions and around 50% of Republicans’.
Why not fess up and tell use who in Ron Unz’ trail mix is the source of this factoid? I take it you fancy it is perfectly plausible that the propensity of American Jews to make political contributions exceeds that of American gentiles by 80-fold.
The only nation actually encouraged to interfere with U.S. elections is Israel.
Encouraged by whom?
ADL has teamed with Facebook, Google and Twitter to censor free speech, and Amazon is banning books critical of Zionism.
They’re kind of asleep at the wheel:
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rashid+khalidi&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Arashid+khalidi
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=donald+neff&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Adonald+neff
https://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Cabal-Neoconservative-National-Interest/dp/1932528172
Amy,
I think your posting was better in its original German.
Don’t expect to hear from “Amy” again. Most likely it’s a bot, programmed to search for any Comments section in which certain keywords are used, e.g., “anti-Semitism,” “Israel,” “Jews,” etc. Some of the more sophisticated versions will have a response capability, but the responses will not answer specific questions or comments. Most are not that complex, and only have the one-time dump capability. They’re generally made by Jihadi or Iranian cyberwar outfits, but it’s possible some might come from other sources, like Russia. If there’s no response, or if a non-responsive response comes back, you’ll know it’s a bot.
“. . . many people use hatred to give meaning and structure to their lives. If they don’t have an enemy they have to manufacture one.” [Dennis @ 12:11 am]
Some great anecdotal points in this post. Ultimately, to me such hatred seems to revolve around creating unity be defining a common enemy; the Jews, The “Great Satan,” the Moors, the evil Republicans, conservatives, the Russians (for the Germans in WWII), the Germans (for the Russians since WWII), gays, Blacks, Asians, the list is long.
In the old world there were two major avenues for doing this. The first was controlling the information stream (newspapers, media) and preaching to an otherwise uninformed populace. The second method was inculcation from a young age (control the educational system). Neo, herself, has spoken of these in her many posts on the Gramscian march.
It seems, however, that the great disinfectant has become the internet. It is much more difficult to create such a common enemy when that common enemy can unite, push back and provide counterintel (sometimes dis-information, other times the actual truth). This is what the internet allows. This is the dynamic we are currently seeing in the Democrat not-so-successful attempt to tar the Republican party before the upcoming midterms.
“Othering” is the psychological basis for Jew-hatred.
No small amount of Jew-hatred is nothing less than “displacement.”
That’s when you see in some other party your own faults — whether this suposition is even valid.
The Nazis would be classic in this regard: for they projected upon European Jewry their own worst impulses… world domination and total manipulation.
Most of humanity falls for this tic because it arises out of our youth. Yes, it’s a child’s rationalization for why the world is run by superiors — aka adults — especially their parents — and secrets are kept from them — pillow secrets.
When anyone ages with arrested development you can expect to see variations on this theme.
Lest Westerner’s not know: this EXACT same dynamic plays out in the Orient and the Asia with the paranoia directed against Indians ( dot not feather ) and ethnic Chinese. Like Europeans, those in a paranoid rage start burning everything in sight — with many a mass riot to show for it.
Anti-Chinese riots occur ALL THE TIME in Asia. Like a dog biting man, they don’t make the news.
Fiji was torn apart… essentially a civil war… as the locals revolted against their Indian (commercial and trading ) ‘masters.’
Indians would do well to remember that Fiji was the last island on Earth to give up cannibalism. Stew on that.
Since a fresh crop of children keeps showing up with regularity, one can safely project that “Othering” will never die, can never die. Logic has NOTHING to do with it. Even personalities have nothing to do with it. Adolf would’ve been replaced by another tyrant by Central Casting.
Come to think of it: what of Stalin’s “Doctor’s Plot?”
Yes, all of the doctors involved were Jewish.
This last demonic crusade caused Beria to assassinate Stalin.
Beria well knew that Beria was being teed up for a bullet from behind.
So it was high time for rat poison. (Warfarin)
(It’s with irony that we all remember that Zyklon started out as rat poision.)
We are conceived with a color bias, but diversity or color judgments that deny principles and individual dignity need to be nurtured.
Is it a color bias or, conversely, an affinity for those who are like us with a distrust for (a bias against) those not like us?
As for the nurturing part, I agree, but that nurturng is what permits any group to become the “Great Satan.”
The progressives, however, have been manipulating the historical record in a major way since 1913. Preceding Zinn’s book by 67 years, Charles Beard practically admits to his scheme with the title of his most well known work An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. “An economic interpretation” is in actuality a re-interpretation – the first of its kind for Americans – under the sole basis that money rules all. A People’s History, it can be truthfully stated, is nothing more than the offspring of a much earlier progenitor. – Progressing America
Marx and Engels were the FIRST to concieve of a State Genocide
they openly did it. but we FORGOT that history and the references
i have been trying for years to get those references to be seen
because they explain the answer to the questions here
and do not rely on the ancdotal opinions of people to imagine an answer in qhole cloth or rely on what is very bad very false history that they think is real and wont update!!!
what we forgot is the goal..
we are sitting here discussing things witout a direction and without a MEANINGFUL and an ATTAINABLE goal they are working towards and have always worked towards and will never change, because that change is what they use to change everything else.
the words of the prophets marx and engels and their meanings cant change if they change they will become null and void and something else… this is just the nature of prophecy
read your reasons again, and note how they dont apply unless the person KNOWS or believes they KNOW the target is jewish!!!
However if it was natural, we would be able to apply it withotu said declaration, and we would see a false declaration as such… but we cant…
ALL A JEWISH PERSON HAS TO DO TO AVOID MOST OF THE THEORIES ABOVE IS TO JUST NOT LET ANYONE KNOW THEY ARE JEWISH!!!
however, what they were hunting down was something that could not be hidden, that could not do that… and yet, you guys got your nose so close and love opinions so much you will NOT let anyone drag in some facts and stuff for you to use in your understanding
your adults, your out of school, why learn and who is to teach
blert gets some of it because blert knows the chinese are not jewis, and yet, they are often referred to as the “jews of asia”… he is right, indonesians have rioted and killed chinese for much of the same word games that the left uses / in fact that came at the time Russia was about to do a coupe, and instead China stepped in and everything got messed up for both, and the coupe failed and resulted in some really nasty stuff going on.
you guys never focus on the mechanics, and THATS where your aswers are
in your theories of jews, who tells the unknowing this information
in the past before the dems, blacks, whites, chinese, and others married freely
their problems were less cultural than they were personal…
othello the general was a moor, a very black man
his wife, was a very white lady, he killed her
but note…
the pedegree and etymology of the word racist if accurately expressed is Trostskys history of the russian revolution 1935 talking about white slavics who didnt want to move FORWARDS into the future and loved their culture (race) too much
they could not become new soviet man
ANY GROUP, THAT REFUSES TO GIVE UP ITS PAST AND ASSIMILATE TO THE ONLY THING ALLOWED, SOCIALISM, HAVE NOT PLACE IN THE FUTURE. AS PUT FORTH BY MARX, ENGELS, GEORGE BARNARD SHAW, ETC.
these people sided with the exterminations because they saw these groups as the throwbacks…
it even explains why atheist jews in name only like soros are spared and others are not..
Secular jews who barely follow their faith are the jews who did assimilate to the new order… they even give to that new order, they even embrace that they are the smarter more forward thinking part of the jewish (race)… with some of them calling for an end to the more relgious more refusing to adapt other sects of judaism… like hasidim… – in fact the Atlantic just ran such an article…
it has nothing to do with god, religion, economics etc.
nothing… all answers related to that are people trying to FIND THE MEANING not people who actually know why from clearly written ideas and so on
IF you read the old tracks of marks, and the drawings who are they mostly representing and mostly using? well, in the black population you would use the youths that make the rest look bad… well in the jewish community the group that is easy to do what with is the hasidim… the group which will rather die than assimilate.
diversity is their way of making groups assimilate and average out
not actually diversify!!!
its perversely funny… the ego wants what it wants even when hated!!!
you cant be hated because you wont assimilate, thats not ego boosting,
thats obstinancy as dictated by god and humans dictating how to follow that…
but to be hated for being successful? left handed complement
hated for being too smart? a left handed compliment
all the theories that i read are mostly left handed compliments
and NONE of them explain why rich people who had it all, were the leaders of the ones exterminating them… they had nothing to fear economically.. only the people they were ginning up had that fear by what they were being taught as they TRUSTED the teachers and authorities… but the peope with the ideas are wealthy… they dont see the jews as getting it all or so on…
any real explnation would ahve to explain it alll
for the leaders its that they cant have pockets of unassimilated teaching the rest to oppose them
but they cant tell one set of fools to go after another set of people arbitrarily
they have to be told they are being CHEATED.. nothing else will work
so the leaders who want assumillation and homogeneity to make their plans work (as the attempts before this essential was concieved didnt work), have to get the majority that are assimlated (Borg) to assimilate the others, either by convincing them, or putting social pressure on them
in the final stages they reduce things to polar opposites..
north pole socialism
south pole fascism
everything else is gone…
there is no west from the north and there is no east from the south
there is only the AXIS and which AXIS will be on the arbitrary top
with the other permanently at the bottom
the prize is the planet, future ownership by family and friends,
and potentially, if we are the only ones, a galaxy in 1000 years..
we are in nazi germany again as i said years ago, and said we are moving to the axis
now its easy to see, but harder to stop… once its unarguable, its impossible to stop
this time, the austrian wont win, this time, the international socialists will win
this is a ideological rematch
and the victims are as ignorant as the german people were
and as cocksure too…
they been taught that experience is nothing, despite sauing it counts
they certainly do NOT side with experience over clevel exposition of opinion
they certainly are not curious enough to look stuff up and confirm it
but they sure want the others to be curious, and not lazy, and do the looking up for them
including their opposition.
who has already been loaded up and wont listen
losing stalemate for those who dont know, wont know, wont look, wont update
but love clever opinions..
thats how i see it over the past 40 yeras.
Early in its pages (page 90) A People’s History embraces its heritage, quoting directly from the economic re-interpretation. On page 13 of An Economic Interpretation,(as quoted in People’s) Beard wrote the following:
do you even know beards book exists?
obviously Zinn does and you learned mostly from Zinn
“With your belief that the revolutionary history must be re-written with reference to its social aspects, I am in entire agreement, tho’ I am not sure I should raise unnecessary issues by calling the movement for self-government secondary to this as the primary movement.” The book “The Great Tradition: Constitutional History and National Identity in Britain and the United States, 1870-1960” – page 141 chapter 6
The book Fabian Freeway was published in the 60’s.
anyone know anything about this? i am trying hard to fill in a deep empty hole
take some time (neo please) to read
Bending the twig; the revolution in education and its effect on our children
https://archive.org/details/bendingtwigrevol00ruddrich
by Rudd, Augustin G. (Augustin Goelet)
Publication date c1957
the change to our minds in schools had already started then
if your education came AFTER these times you were part of this revolution
me? i was and wasnt apart… i read what they did not
i read what you all will not!
then go to
The Reinterpretation of Early American History: Essays in Honor of John Edwin Pomfret
C. H. Lincoln, The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (1901), and
Carl Becker, History of Political Parties in the Province of New York, 1760-1776 (1909).
CH Lincoln was already rewriting american history as a class struggle soap opera that far back!!
you dont even know his name..
here compare:
The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776
Lincoln turns the people of the founding era into the first modern American soap opera of class conflict….
Communist Manifesto – https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/
in the 60’s, the media was almost entirely dominated by university-trained journalists, all steeped in the Lippmann school of journalism. So all of this information in books like these which show us where to look, who, what, and so forth; was allowed to be lost. Now we need to re-learn it. – progressing america
blert (above, at 1:03 PM) is on the right track, when referring to riots vs. Chinese, etc.
The rep of Jews is rather like that of Chinese: industrious, smart achievers (“go-getters”).
However, Jews tend to stick out more than do Chinese, because so many Jews are so utterly *colorful* (compared with *relatively* BORING Chinese).
Even when Chinese get wealth/ power, they are generally seen as trying to lay low.
When Jews get wealth/ power, they’re rather more likely to ham it up.
So, when things are going peachy, almost everyone is in a great mood toward Jews, and many see them as an outright *blast* (e.g. in the US, esp. c. 1954-1963, and in the dot-com boom).
Gentiles outright bask, in the talent of Tom Lehrer, Lenny Bruce, or Woody Allen.
But when things go south (for a major segment of the population, e.g. the lower-middle class), Jews are the juiciest possible targets.
Hitler was dismissed as “a clown”, until the Depression.
The Gentiles who are hurting nowadays wonder, “if GOLDMAN could get a bailout, where’s mine?”
And, righties resent that Blankfein was an early supporter of gay marriage.
(I doubt that Chinese magnates let themselves get well-known, for popping off about contentious issues.)
And, add to this, Israel has super-rich (oil-laden) enemies, with the coin to buy megaphones for hate propaganda (esp. to lure Lefties into sympathy for the Palestinians).
All the above is plenty, to help righty and lefty Jew-haters to feed upon each other.
im tired
but here, go read this
this shows that the whole idea of hyphenated americans
african americans
chinese americans
etc
started as far back as January 1, 1916
the YEAR BEFORE THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
in a period in which what hitler did was actually acceptable among the wealthy and left… it was AFTER that that their programs became cryptic…
given that this was baked into the schools after Dewey went to the soviet union, you guys are very very late
so late you dont know that a lot of your education was co-opted… you read what, but why bother, they told you and taught you NOT TO. and your a good student
the left started the hyphenated thing in the 1800s for feminism and wealthy to know whose families you belonged to.
hyphenated americans like african american goes THAT FAR BACK
now, how you gonna change anything when the peiple you want to convince knows this stuff, and you dont, and you come off as an ignorant idiot becasue you cant quote and reference the right things to unloke their comisseration
you dont even know whence and where these ideeas began
you dont care, you will figure it out and make it up
not like you can make up the nams, thinkers, and papers
so all you have to do is come up with a natural sounding explanation
and do the work of covering it up FOR THEM
they dont have to invent the cover, your going to by inventing a reasoning sans facts
Humans are social animals, and thus come hard-wired for status. I think this is at the root of this ‘evil’ and envy is what you get. I put evil in quotes because I’m not a religious person and generally don’t refer to things as evil or not evil. Rather I think it’s simply in our range of emotions that lie under our civilized exterior. History is replete with examples, on both the personal level and social level.
Watch three toddlers happily playing and then introduce a new toy. ‘Mine’ will be heard. I see it as the early version of status seeking.
As adults, this instinct may get ‘civilized’, but actually not much. We’re all still prone to envy and may secretly rejoice when others get brought down. Why? There are two ways to get status – by building yourself up or bringing others down.
And, by far, bringing others down is the easiest and, sadly, commonest choice.
The “Christ Killer” thing was prominent at one time but I don’t know how long that lasted.
With regard to the Catholic Church, until 1965:
As a carefully protected boomer baby girl in the South (a scion of generations of hillbillies,) and a Southern Baptist (a very pro-Israeli denomination,) I could not wrap my mind around the willingness of the German people to propagate the atrocities of WW1. Inconceivable!
Then I read Jerzy Kosinsky’s The Painted Bird and believed I’d gained some insight. I was fascinated by the claim that many bore no ill will towards the Jews, but believed that they had crucified Our Lord and well, karma is a bitch. No justification, of course, but some small understanding of why a people tolerated such barbarity. I have no answers for you, and little understanding, but seek more.
A fascinating blog post from a former Pittsburgh resident now living in Jerusalem:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/in-pittsburgh-hatred-of-jews-is-nothing-new/
In the context of the latest atrocity, she describes being the target of not infrequent anti-Semitic incidents while growing up in the next neighborhood over from the posher Squirrel Hill.
In other words, she’s upset about the massacre but she’s not terribly surprised….
@ aNanyMouse,
Interesting comment, but I believe that although there may be overlap in the two “antisemitisms” – hatred of Israel, and hatred or extreme resentment of “Jews” (as they are conceptualized or identified in the mind of the particular hater) whom one imagines inhabit one’s own society – are highly differentiable and separate phenomena.
@Richard Saunders on October 31, 2018 at 5:04
That’s a reasonable suggestion, but I’m not sure it covers the case in detail – as I am sure it was not actually meant to.
The question then arises: how do you know if your progenitors were “authentic” Jews, and that you are therefore … well, blah blah entitled to be recognized as a member in good standing by all fellow members, and granted all the rights and privileges appertaining thereunto, and so on and so forth …?
I may be mistaken but it seems, if I recall correctly, that this issue has come up in Israel itself with regard to the right of return – if that is the terminology.
Re, Rabbinic Judaism as the proper terminology. Yes that’s right, I guess. Been 30 years, and most of what I have seen recently has been from Messianic Jews using terminology relevant to sorting out the various … scriptures … if all of them are properly called that by their own adherents. And by that I mean, I don’t know precisely what status the Talmud has in the mind of an average, if there is such a person, observant Jew.
By way of rough parallel, none of the writings or commentaries of the “Fathers” of the Church (Clement or Ignatius for example), nor the “doctors” (Aquinas or Duns Scotus for example) , no matter how generally understood to be enlightening or authoritative in certain regards, have the status of sacred scripture or revelation per se.
I’ve never been to Pittsburgh. I don’t know the town. I don’t know Pittsburghers as a culture, I don’t even know how many minutes Pittsburgh actually is from the famous Mason Dixon line, “I used to joke that being 15 minutes from the Mason-Dixon Line”. I guess it’s not far from the Maryland border, though it appears nearer to West Virginia.
I do gather from her essay that the events she reports began about 18 years ago when she was a Freshman. She graduated one assumes about 14 years ago, or approximately in 2004.
and that
– I moved to Israel used to be that I didn’t want my children to be called kikes. That was the truest answer
– ” … a new black friend nervously explained to me the terrible meaning of the word I had just been called.”
– She mentions that students she associated with came from various neighborhoods, ” … including those that had active branches of the KKK (under another name)”
– A teacher or teachers referred or called to her as “Jew” instead of using her name.
– A teacher is reported to have said to her that, ““You Jews think you are better than everyone else,”
– That black students there, were the ones who informed her that , “other students could not put bacon on me during assemblies ”
Geez, I don’t know.
Does this make sense? This seems to me to have been inconceivable 40 years ago, much less 14.
Draping bacon on a Jewish student as … what a sport of some kind? A teacher calling out, “Hey Jew!” or something along those lines?
Active branches of the Klu Klux Klan under a cover name[s] in various Pittsburgh neighborhoods?
Does this sound right or reflect the experience of anyone commenting here?
DNW:
Sounds like Manju has a sister…
“Does this sound right or reflect the experience of anyone commenting here?” [DNW @ 7:21]
Short answer, No. Grew up in Pittsburgh left and returned in 1988. My office, two blocks from the Tree of Life, has been in that community for 13 years and I have Jewish clients. Never heard anything anecdotally or on local news reports about clandestine KKK activity. One of my colleagues was a Jewish woman whose daughter went through high school there; never heard anything like this from either of them as well. My children went to a magnet high school and my wife taught there for 22 years; again, absolutely nothing like this ever in the rumor mills. I note she is also particularly vague about the names of both about the high school she supposedly attended and the high school in the community.
Twelve years of my time out of Pittsburgh was spent in Montana; I got to know what bulls**t smells like. I detect its pastoral fragrance here.
BTW, DNW, Pittsburgh sits about 60 miles north of the Mason-Dixon line (PA’s southern border). It serves as the border between both Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia (WV also has a northern panhandle about 30-40 miles from Pittsburgh.
Ann,
By the time something is pronounced by a Council, it is merely a clarification. Pope Clement VI issued 2 papal bulls defending the Jews against them being responsible for the plague. He even offered them papal protection in Avignon.
Let’s go back even earlier (thanks to Wikipedia) :The Church attitude to the mistreatment of Jews is not new, though the experience of the Holocaust brought on an urgency to its renewal. Around 400, St Augustine, one of the most influential and foundational figures of Catholic theology, preached that the Jews must be protected for their ability to explain the Old Testament. Around 598, in reaction to anti-Jewish attacks by Christians in Palermo, Pope Gregory the Great (c 540–604) brought Augustine’s teachings into Roman Law, by writing a Papal Bull which became the foundation of Catholic doctrine in relation to the Jews and specified that, although the Jews had not accepted salvation through Christ, and were therefore condemned by God until such time as they accept salvation, Christians were nevertheless duty-bound to protect the Jews as an important part of Christian civilization.[9] The Bull said that Jews should be treated equitably and justly, that their property rights should be protected, and that they should keep their own festivals and religious practices.[10] Thus, in the Papal States, Jews enjoyed a level of protection in law.[9]
~
Although the ComPost uses the same language as you do, it’s a misrepresentation.