Flawed "Expert" for Presbyterian "Zionism Unsettled"

This week the  Presbyterian Church USA will vote on a controversial motion to divest from certain companies that do business with Israel.  The chief force behind the motion is the Israel Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church USA which earlier this year issued a controversial, biased,  and error- ridden report and DVD Zionism Unsettled.

While the study guide has been thoroughly critiqued, not as much attention has been given to the accompanying DVD.  The watchdog organization CAMERA notes

a DVD that accompanies Zionism Unsettled. In an on-camera interview, Irving Wesley Hall ... reports that prior to the Six Day War, Israelis and Jews did not care too much about Jerusalem.

Up until the 1967 conquest of Jerusalem, it was not regarded by any element of Israeli society or any of the streams of Judaism as somehow central to God's plan for the Jews. But that all changed in 1967.

The notion that the city was unimportant to Israel and to all of the "streams of Judaism" prior to the Six Day War is, to put it politely, an outrageous misstatement of fact.

Hall, apparently, has no academic expertise in the Middle East or Jewish history or theology, though he has made a video documentary "Onward Christian Zionists" and written a not- very-funny, 800 page political satire attacking Christian Zionism, which promoted by a bizarre series of videos with Hall wearing a clerical collar..\

A little web search would have shown the Presbyterians Hall's extreme and uniformed views.

In an article on the CrossCurrents website Hall asserts that Christian Identity and Zionism are equally racist theories. He favorably quotes at length from antisemitic authors Jonathon Cook and Gilad Atzmon on a book by Shlomo Sand (Zand) The Invention of the Jewish People,

Hall favorably quotes Atzmon

the largely accepted assumption that the Judaicised Khazars [14] constituted the main origins of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe

Of course, the Khazar theory is not only not "largely accepted," it is widely discredited.

Hall even writes writes

Remarkably not one of Zand's academic colleagues has seriously disputed his findings. 

This, too is whopper.

Simon Schama, University Professor at Columbia University, wrote that Sand's book is characterized by

many such twists of historical logic and strategic evasions of modern research in this book. To list them all would try your patience.

his book prosecutes these aims through a sensationalist assertion that somehow, the truth about Jewish culture and history, especially the 'exile which never happened,' has been suppressed in the interests of racially pure demands of Zionist orthodoxy. This, to put it mildly, is a stretch.

Anita Shapira, head of the Weizmann Institute for the Study of Zionism at Tel Aviv University, wrote

Sand bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations, while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear.

She adds that Sand

drag[s] history into a topical argument, and with the help of misrepresentations and half-truths to adapt it to the needs of a political discussion

Israel Bartal, dean of the humanities faculty of the Hebrew University, called Sand's book

bizarre and incoherent

and Sand's 

…treatment of Jewish sources is embarrassing and humiliating

 Hall seems to have asked the notorious, rabid antisemite Israel Shamir in 2008, well after Shamir had been widely denounced by Palestinian activists Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish warned pro-Palestinians to stay clear of him (2001) and well after British antifascist organizations Searchlight and Hope Not Hate reported on Shamir's antisemitism, holocaust denialism and links to far-right organizations (2004).

Hall is clearly a flawed expert for a flawed group that promotes a call for boycott, divest,and sanction pretending that it is about Israeli abuses while actually being a movement which fundamentally rejects the existence of Israel and the right of the Jewish people for self-determination.

More Resources:

• Why Reinhold Niebuhr Supported Israel , by Gustav Niebuhr and Elisabeth Sifton, Huffington Post, May 7, 20114
• A Statement on Zionism Unsettledfrom Katharine Henderson, president of Auburn Theological Seminary
• An Open Letter to the Presbyterian Church, Rev. Chris Leighton, Executive Director of the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies.
• The True Agenda: the End of the Jewish State of Israel, Presbyterians for Middle East Peace.
•  Outrageous resource guide, The Jewish Chronicle, February 14, 2014
  
• Troubling Presbyterian Document, Editorial, The Jewish Week, February 12, 2014
• Outrageous resource guide, The Jewish Chronicle, February 14, 2014

Libertarian Anti-Semitism

I just came across a very interesting mini-essay "Documenting Anti-Semitism Within the Libertarian Movement" by an unidentified Jewish libertarian. It certainly rings true from what I know of the libertarian movement. But the extent of anti-Semitism appears to be greater than I had thought.

He writes

In recent years, as the libertarian movement has grown, so has the anti-Jewish movement within this clan of activists supposedly concerned with promoting liberty and freedom for all of humanity.

 ...In the U.S., the libertarian movement, broadly speaking, consists of think-tanks, Ron Paul activists and organizations, and those affiliated with the Libertarian Party.

The anti-Semitism in the libertarian movement has manifested itself in all three categories at alarmingly high levels. It's difficult to imagine how any libertarian activist or scholar can envision success for their movement with such anti-libertarian sentiment and malicious bigotry in its midst.

The essay concludes with this observation:

Jewish libertarians or classical liberals -- or others who are pro-equal rights (pro-decency, really) should refrain from further participation in the libertarian movement

 The author of the document has also written a useful essay on Ron Paul's Disdain for Jews and Israel.

We are all Seismic Shock--a shocking case of attempted internet censorhip

Seismic Shock is a valuable UK-based site by a theology student which has featured well-informed critiques of anti-semitic tendencies about certain Christian theologians. Now, it seems that one of those he criticized has retaliated by apparently using his position as a pastor to get the police to intimidate the young blogger into removing his blog.

The minister in question is Rev. Stephen Sizer, a prominent critic not only of "Christian Zionism, "but of Jewish self-determination. Like many other critics of "Christian Zionism," Sizer has a pre-Holocaust theology, which revives many of the age-old anti-Semitic memes of Christian theology.

This episode seems to indicate that he recapitulates the anti-democratic tendencies of an older Christianity as well.

This guest post by Seismic Shock give the background

As some people have noticed, I’ve been rather quiet in blogging about the Reverend Stephen Sizer’s activities of late.

After all, what more can be said of a man forwards emails from Holocaust deniers, shares platforms with Holocaust deniers, and shamelessly flaunts his anti-Zionist theology before Iran’s apocalyptic Holocaust-denying regime? As Iranian pastors are arrested and house churches closed down, why is the Khomeinist regime translating Sizer’s book on Christian Zionism into Farsi? How many more times can I point all this out?

Yet there’s another reason why I’ve been quiet, and whilst I’ve held my tongue and my pen for a while, now is the time to speak.

At 10am on Sunday 29th November 2009, I received a visit from two policemen regarding my activities in running the Seismic Shock blog. (Does exposing a vicar’s associations with extremists make me a criminal?, I wondered initially). A sergeant from the Horsforth Police related to me that he had received complaints via Surrey Police from Rev Sizer and from Dr Anthony McRoy - a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology - who both objected to being associated with terrorists and Holocaust deniers.

(Context: Sizer has associated with some very nasty terrorists and Holocaust deniers; McRoy has delivered a paper at a Khomeinist theological conference in Iran comparing Hezbollah’s struggle against Israel via suicide bombing with the Christian’s struggle against sin via the atoning death of Jesus, and describes the world’s most prominent Holocaust denier as an “intelligent, humble, charismatic, and charming” man who “gives quick, extensive and intelligent answers to any question, mixed with genial humour”).

The sergeant made clear that this was merely an informal chat, in which I agreed to delete my original blog (http://seismicshock.blogspot.com/) but maintain my current one (http://seismicshock.wordpress.com). The policeman related to me that his police force had been in contact with the ICT department my previous place of study, and had looked through my files, and that the head of ICT at my university would like to remind me that I should not be using university property in order to associate individuals with terrorists and Holocaust deniers (I am sure other people use university property to make political comments, but nevermind).

With my research on Reverend Sizer’s associations with terrorists and Holocaust deniers making its way into a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature, I was quite content to hold my peace. However, now that Reverend Sizer is now misrepresenting what has happened in my case in order to intimidate others, now is the time to speak up.

A Christian blogger - “Vee” of LivingJourney, who is based in Australia - linked to my blog as a resource for Christians to learn about anti-Semitism in the Church, including “lots of info on Stephen Sizer and Sabeel”.

Rev Sizer left her this comment:

Dear Vee,

You must take a little more care who you brand as anti-semitic otherwise you too will be receiving a caution from the police as the young former student of Leeds did recently. One more reference to me and you will be reported.

Blessings
Stephen

Sure, Stephen Sizer managed to somehow arrange a police visit to me from within the UK, but does Sizer genuinely think he can use police on the other side of the world to this effect?

Why is Reverend Sizer claiming that I received a police caution, when the police stressed I did not receive a caution? Is Sizer deliberately misrepresenting the same police force that he originally used to his advantage?

Who is Reverend Sizer reporting to, and why does Reverend Sizer genuinely feel he has the power to close down debate by threatening police action? Why call the cops rather than answer his critics?

Political and theological disagreements should never be accompanied with threats of litigation or police action, but instead with logic and open debate.

Understanding Von Brunn

The murderous assault on the Holocaust Museum by John Von Brunn should not be treated as just an isolated event. And, it probably won't since the murdered of Dr.Tiller comes from a similar environ.

Von Brunn is a reminder that there is a vibrant far right and that antisemtism was not been vanquished. (Unfortunately, there is also antisemitism on the left and, worse, a wider tolerance for it.)

There is going to be lots of reporting and commentary in the progressive media, but I want to recommend a blog that has some of the best coverage of Von Brumm. Check out the site of Adam Holland.

I suspect that over the next several years is going to be far more important to understand the far right than we are used to. It is not going to be enough to just thinks of them as "kooks" and "nutcases." In the next week or two, I'll be discussing some books, new and old, that I think will help in that task.

Muslim Friends of Genocide

What is the connectin between Arabs and Muslims, on the one hand, and Terrrorism on the other was the ostensible subject of a meeting at Wichita Stat Monday evening? My busy schedule prevented me from attending, so only a few quick observations and a recent news story.

Stereotyping all Muslims or all Arabs as terrorists is wrong and should be resolutely opposed. Repressing people because of their religioius views is wrong--whether it is Muslims who are being repressed or Muslims who are being repressed.

The reality is that there is a powerful, transnational movement in the Arab and Islamic worlds that is profoundly anti-democratic, imperialist, and, openly genocidal in its aims.

Via Mick Hartley

A delegation of senior Middle Eastern leaders has travelled to Sudan to express international support for Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, who is accused of war crimes in Darfur.

Officials from Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah joined Syria's parliament speaker and the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group for talks with al-Bashir in Khartoum, Sudan's capital, on Friday.

The visit comes days after the International Criminal Court at The Hague issued a warrant for al-Bashir's arrest on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan's western Darfur region.

Ali Larijani, Iran's parliament speaker and a member of the international delegation in Khartoum on Friday, said the ICC arrest warrant is an "insult directed at Muslims".

Not that any of them ever expressed any concern for the Muslims killed or raped in Darfur - or those thrown off their land and forced to live in camps, maintained by humanitarian groups funded almost entirely by the West. Or their fate if the aid agencies threatened by al-Bashir are forced to leave.

Though fellow Muslims aren't Bashir's only friends:

The UN Security Council, at its first meeting since the arrest warrant was issued, failed on Saturday to agree on a statement asking Sudan to reverse the decision to expel the aid agencies.

The key powers at the UN Security Council - Russia, China, France, the US and Britain - met to discuss a statement which called on Sudan to reverse the expulsions.

But diplomats say China, which buys Sudan's oil and sells it weapons, objected.

A delegation from the African Union and the Arab League is due to ask the Security Council to suspend the war crimes case against Sudan's president.

Leonard Zeskind on the Society of St. Pius and St. Mary's Kansas

Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen the local media note the Kansas connection to the controversy over the Pope's recent move to bring Catholic traditionalists back into the fold.

Leonard Zeskind discusses the connection in his latest blog post.

I am looking at a copy of the title page from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the notorious Czarist forgery that has been part of the anti-Semitic stock in trade for more than a century. This particular edition was translated into English by “Victor E. Marsden,” and was published in 1934. And it was “Item: 6012,” its price was listed as $5.00, and it was sold by the “Immaculata Bookstore” in St. Mary’s, Kansas in 1993. The Immaculata Bookstore being part of St. Mary’s Academy & College, which described itself as one of the “Traditional Catholic Schools of the Society of St. Pius X.

Zeskind concludes

In an interview with Salomon Korn, the vice-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Korn concludes that, “As long as Pope Benedict XVI doesn’t send a clear signal that all Catholics must support the Second Vatican Council, things simply cannot return to normal.”

And it is on that small patch of ink that the truth of the matter resides.

West Bank village has Holocaust exhibit

At a time when Muslim Brotherhood and other extremists are openly calling for another holocaust against the Jews and when Western pseudo-leftists invoke the hoocaust to demonize Israel, it is extremely refreshing and encouraging to read this story


Naalin holds Holocaust exhibit

As the world commemorated the Holocaust Tuesday, a small village in the West Bank held a surprising exhibit memorializing the most tragic event in modern Jewish history.

Naalin, a village that has become the symbol for the Palestinians' battle against Israel's construction of a separation fence in the West Bank, erected a display of photographs purchased from Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and invited the public to learn more about the persecution of the Jews.

Residents gaze at Holocaust images in Naalin (Photo: Khaled)

Mohammad Amira, a member of the village's Land Defense Committee, said hundreds of people visited the exhibit by early afternoon. He said many had praised the initiative.

"People are surprised at what they see here; there are people who are seeing images of the suffering in the Holocaust for the first time. There are people who didn't know anything about Jewish history," Amira said.

Regarding the decision to present the exhibit to residents of Naalin, many of who have been harmed by the construction of the separation fence, Amira said, "We thought the public should understand the pain and suffering the Nazis caused the Jews.

"Unfortunately, we are paying the price for the immense pain suffered by the Jews during the Holocaust. There is no comparison between our suffering and that of the Jewish people in the Holocaust, but everyone should understand that we are suffering too, as a result of what the Germans did to the Jews."

'Jewish pain has strength'
Khaled Mahmid, who heads the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education in Nazareth, said he believes the Arabs "must understand the Holocaust – the power and strength that the Jews' pain has."

He added, "All violence Palestinians perform on the Israelis is not effective, causes suffering, and summons Holocaust anxiety among the Jews."

"The Holocaust," Mahmid said, "was a horrible and methodical murder of six million innocents, which affects all of the citizens of Israel even today. The Palestinians need to understand that the Jews have a defense mechanism deriving from the horrid murder in the Holocaust."

He said the two-state solution would only have a chance to succeed if the Palestinians made an effort to understand this "profound pain", and relinquished all acts of violence "that stirs existential anxiety in the Jews." Mahmid added that the violence exhibited by both sides is a direct result of the Holocaust.

Regarding the exhibit Mahmid said, "The Koran orders us to acknowledge the Holocaust and understand it. The Jews must remember that many of them were saved during the Holocaust thanks to their brothers in the Arab lands. We must overcome Hitler's affects together."

The unnoticed exremism in Palin's blessing

Video of a pastor blessing Sarah Palin with protection against witchcraft has been the rounds. Moti Rieber at FedReb catches something that most observers haven't noticed.

Here's what the Pastor says

The second area whereby God wants us, wants to penetrate in our society is in the economic area. The Bible says that the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. It's high time that we have top Christian businessmen, businesswomen, bankers, you know, who are men and women of integrity running the economics of our nations. That's what we are waiting for. That's part and parcel of transformation. If you look at the -- you know -- if you look at the Israelites, that's how they work. And that's how they are, even today.

Moti's comments are spot on.

In case you need a scorecard, that is a pastor at Palin's church saying that the Christians need to act like the Jews and run "the economy of nations" and "that's how they [the "Israelites"] are, even today." That, my friends, is classic, no-holds-barred anti-Semitism. And she was sitting there for it, and she was blessed by this pastor later in the event.

Remembering the Warsaw Uprising

Leonard Zeskind reminds us that we must re-tell the story

On April 19, 1943—the day of the first night of Passover sixty five years ago—the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto launched an armed revolt. Faced with little material help from the non-Jewish populations surrounding them, as well as open opposition from Polish anti-Semites, these Jews fought with pistols, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails the heavy artillery, noxious gas, fire and air power of the German army and its minions. Despite the fact that this was the first open urban revolt against Nazi rule in Europe, the bravery of these Jewish fighters was met with less than an enthusiastic response by the Allied command. These acts of armed opposition, and others like it, should put an end forever to the myth that the Jews of Europe walked quietly and without protest to their deaths. And their story must be told and retold in every generation.

Mainstreaming anti-Semiitsm

I've recently come across two disturbing examples of mainstream media outlets whitewashing two of the most notorious anti-Semites in American history.

US New & World Report publishes occasional "collectors editions" on special topics for news stand sales. I picked up "Mysteries of History" Secret Societies."

In an article on "America's Cult Culture," Philip Jenkins describes William Dudley Pelley as "a religious activist of the 1930s." Pelley was, in reality, the leader of the Silver Shirts, one of the largest and most active Nazi group in the United States with more than 15,000 members at its peak.

The Economist, in a review of Amity Shlaes book on the Great Depression, seems to vindicate Henry Ford's antisemitism.

Ms Shlaes tends to look at the Depression in terms of the conflict between business (good) and politics (bad). At the time, though, Roosevelt's view that the “lack of honour of men in high financial places” was at the root of the trouble seemed like a statement of the obvious, rather than a political pose. Even Henry Ford had been uttering warnings that “the Jews of Wall Street”, as he so nicely called them, had stored up trouble in the 1920s. The Depression appeared to prove him right.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (August 15) I've had an exchange of emails with Philip Jenkins. He writes:

USNWR took my description of Pelley from a book in which I wrote at length about his Nazi and anti-semitic activity. The article that appeared under my byline was abstracted from that book, but I do not believe I was consulted about the final text, which left the Pelley phrase out of context. (Nor did I have any idea it was to appear as a separate article). I am trying to find exactly what happened from my publisher.

Your comments about Pelley's Nazi politics are entirely correct, and I share them fully.

In short, this is a bizarre matter, and I look forward to clearing it up.

Prof. Jenkins was kind enough to send me an extract of his writings and I am informed that he has an outstanding reputation as a scholar, so I credit his explanation.

Nontheless, it is troubling that the editorial staff of one of our leading news weeklies would not realize that describing Pelley as a "religious activist" was highly inaccurate and troubling.

Minor Update August 18. In the third paragraph, I originally wrote "Dudley" instead of "Pelley" in the second paragraph.

Yom HaShoah Event: : Escape Under Fire

Yom haShoah Ve'Hagvura or Yom HaShoah (יום השואה yom ha-sho’āh, יום הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה-Yom ha-zikaron la-Shoah v'la-Gvura), "Holocaust Martyrs' Remembrance Day" or, literally, "Remembrance day for The Holocaust and Heroism." It is held every year in remembrance of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust

Wichita's Community Yom HaShoah event features Sobibor Escapee and Survivor, Philip Bialowitz

Philip Bialowitz's message is one of survival, hope and history. He was born in Izbica, Poland in 1929. He is one of only eight remaining survivors of the Nazi extermination camp, Sobibor, where an estimated 250,000 Jews were murdered. He participated in the famous revolt at Sobibor, which led to the Nazi's discontinuing killing operations at the camp. Bialowitz's story was featured in the movie "Escape from Sobibor".

"Most people only dream their nightmares. However, my fellow survivors and I actually lived this experience."

Bialowitz will be sharing his story with the Wichita community on Wednesday, April 11 at the Newman Univeristy De Mattias Fine Arts Center. The program will begin at 7:00 pm, and there is no charge for entry.

The Mid Kansas Jewish Federation is sponsoring this event in conjunction with Newman University, Wichita State, Inter-Faith Ministries, Congregation Emanu-El and Ahavath Achim Hebrew Congregation.

On April 15 at 3:00 PM, the movie Fateless will be shown at the Murdock theater. This looks like an extremely moving film.

Something new about the anti-Tiller, anti-Morrison vendetta

By now you are probably familiar with the latest chapter in the Kansas Christian right's vendetta against abortion doctor George Tiller and Attorney General Paul Morrison and seemingly anyone who gets in their way. I think I've found an illuminating connection that shows just how extreme Kline and his allies are.

First, the quick background. Shortly before leaving office and after having been resoundingly defeated by ex-AG Phill Kline brought 31 misdemeanor charges against Tiller which were thrown out by the court. This last week, some of the right-wing pastors brought a crowd to Topeka to push for the passage of a bill directing the Attorney General to bring charges against Tiller. This was based on the questionable interpretation of an obscure 1879 law. Although the House Federal and State Affairs committee rushed through the resolution, by midweek, Republican House leaders had backed away from the resolution. House Democrats had caught the committee violating House rules, meaning that the bill would have needed a 2/3 vote to proceed.

Web discoveries. Mainstream media pays attention to news releases, rallies, and legislative action. Progressive bloggers like Diane Silver at In This Moment have done an excellent job of monitoring the press and covering the controversy. (see here , here, and here.) There's an extra step that is often over-looked. Today's right-wing has an internet presence and there's a lot that can be learned there.

The anti-Tiller campaign has a website Charge Tiller.com. Here's something surprising. The website, which has gathered about 3400 petition signatures, isn't owned by Operation Rescue, Kansas Right to Life, or any similar Kansas-based group. It is copyrighted by an Ohio organization called Women Influencing the Nation and designed by a Kentucky web design firm, Bonaventure Design.

Women Influencing the Nation describe themselves in this manner

An entire generation has now been misled and deceived in the areas of abortion, contraception, relationships, morality, homosexuality, education, medical ethics and politics. WIN will strive to give voice to the families who so desperately work to reclaim the forgotten truths for our children and grandchildren. WIN defends the full teachings of the Catholic faith and the dignity of all women.

They go on to say that their goal is

to give this country back to God.

ChargeTiller.com isn't the first WIN project. In 2004, they set up website See the Passion , ran commercials on 175 radio stations, and circulated a petition.

The petition shows just how extreme WIN is

We know that the enemies of Christian civilization -- who are identifying themselves for all to see by announcing themselves as the enemies of this movie project -

Elsewhere, WIN proclaims

This extraordinary movie and its producer, Mel Gibson, were under intense, public attack from all the worst elements of the major news media and the entertainment industry. Powerful forces in Hollywood, New York City, and Washington D.C. were trying to prevent this movie from getting in our local theaters!

The Passion of The Christ movie was threatened with obstruction and even censorship by some of the most powerful behind-the-scenes forces in New York City, Washington D.C., and Hollywood. These are the same forces which supported the absolutely blasphemous 1987 movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, -- a movie which viciously falsified the Gospels, defamed Christ, the Apostles -- and made Judas the good guy and hero!

Bonaventure Design has some interesting connections to the radical traditionalist Catholic extremists recently portrayed in a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report. According to the SPLC, this movement "is characterized by open anti-Semitism and blames Jews for conspiring to destroy the Catholic Church."


Bonaventure lists eight projects in their portfolio.

Except for a site for a fiddle festival and one promoting saying Merry Christmas all the sites appear to traditionalist Catholic of the extreme sort.

Two are included in SPLC's dirty dozen of radical traditionalist Catholic organizations.

• Slave of the Immaculate Heart of Mary

SPLC says"the Slaves are followers of the anti-Semitic priest Leonard Feeney...the Slaves today see the Vatican II reforms as the product of Jewish pressures and argue that the "Jewish nation is at enmity with Our Lord's Plan." They have denounced the Vatican's moves to reconcile with Jews as "capitulation to the tyrannical demands of the most insidious elements within Jewry (e.g., the Vatican audiences granted to the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, anti-Christ Jewish Anti-Defamation League)." In fact, the Slaves say that Jews will be the first people to accept the Antichrist and will quickly join "in launching the most savage persecution of the Church in the history of the world." This kind of ugly rhetoric earned the Slaves a sharp rebuke in 2004 from Bishop John B. McCormack of Manchester, N.H., who called their teachings "blatantly anti-Semitic" and "offensive to all people of good will."

• St. Jospeh Forum SPLC says

A privately run organization dedicated to "addressing the root causes of the crisis in the Church," the St. Joseph Forum specializes in popularizing the writings of the anti-Semitic Irish priest, Father Denis Fahey, through its "Project Awaken" program. In several books, the late Fahey wrote that society and the church had been twisted by "the leadership of the Jews, who wield such enormous power in the modern world through the subjection of man to production and production to finance."

There are still more connections to bad guys. Bonaventure also did the website for NEO-CONNED, a book which contains several articles by racists and antisemites and which is published by another dirty dozen group, the Legion of St. Louis/IHS Press. Other Bonaventure sites are for the Oretes Brownson Society (a 19th century Transcendalist turned right-wing Catholic and anti-Protestant polemicist) and Gerry Matatics (www.gerrymatatics.org), a schismatic Catholic who seems to believes, like Mel Gibson, that recent Popes are illegitimate.

New Issue of Engage

Issue 4 (February 2007)of Engage's Journal is available on-line. Engage is a British-based group which "challenges contemporary antisemitism. Contemporary antisemitism nearly always appears using the language of anti-Zionism. 'Anti-racist' anti-Zionism is often reckless about creating an ideological foundation for, and licensing, more openly antisemitic discourses and movements."

Engage's Journal is for rigorous, academic and political writing on antisemitism. There is also a very fine blog or Forum for shorter, topical comments.

Making Emotional Sense of the Proposed Boycotts against Israeli Academics and Intellectuals - Catherine B. Silver

The Left and the Holocaust - David Rich

Dealing with Anti-Semitism in Britain - Shalom Lappin

Cure worse than the disease: academic boycott of Israel in the light of the academic boycott of South Africa - Mira Vogel

The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: The Far Right, the Far Left and the Middle East – Michael Ezra

The Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council: Good or Bad for Australian Jewry? - Philip Mendes

Globalization & Antisemitism: Muslim Judeophobia in Europe - Avram Hein

Marc Cooper : the unholy trinity

It would be hard to say it better than Marc Cooper

reading today's news reports of the menage-a-trois taking place among Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad....

I would think that any liberal, any progressive, and certainly any radical would have to be sickened to watch Hugo Chavez embrace and celebrate a right-wing fundamentalist, a holocaust-denying obscurantist like Ahmadinejad. Does Venezuela have the right to build an economic alliance with Iran? Certainly. But Chavez calling the President of Iran a "brother" and a "revolutionary" ought to turn one's stomach.

There are, indeed, few regimes on earth more hostile to leftists, socialists, gays, atheists, liberals, and, um, women and, let's say, Jews, than that of Iran. We rightfully worry over violation of civil liberties by what goes on Guanatanamo. But that prison camp looks like Club Med compared to the Iranian judicial system that hangs gays and imprisons young people for holding hands in public.

Ahmadinejad was also friskly patted on the tummy by the rather pathetic Daniel Ortega, who just re-assumed the presidency of Nicaragua (after being voted out in 1990). Is calling Ortega "pathetic" a smear? That's a thought-crime I have been accused of at times from out in the left-field bleachers. Hardly. in Ortega's case, it's going light on him. He will be remembered, eventually, as the grave-digger of the Sandinista movement which he helped lead to power in 1979. Every single Nicaraguan intellectual who joined up with the Sandis back then has since quit. They have been appalled by Ortega's steam-rolling of all internal debate, by the Sandinistas' rampant corruption and grotesque self-enrichment. And by Ortega's, well, pathetic political opportunism which has given him a reptation roughly equivalent to a local boss of the Mexican PRI.

I read that Ortega took the Iranian president on a tour yesterday of the slums and shantytowns around Managua. Perhaps they had time during that ride to explore just how much they might, in fact, have in common in spite of apparent and rather superficial ideological disagreements. Reaching a new cyncial depth, Ortega and his wife (both long-time Marxists) campaigned this time around as no less than Bible-thumping Christians defending family values (this in spite of Ortega hiding behind parliamentary immunity to avoid prosecution on charges of incest from his step-daughter). On the eve of the recent presidential election, Ortega led his parliamentary delegation to vote for a seal-proof ban on abortion -- with no exception for rape, here we go again, incest. That's certainly a measure that Brother Ahmadinejad greets with approval. Some might say that chiding Ortega plays into the hands of the "enemy." But it was Ortega, not me, who ran with a vice-presidential candidate who was a former, and unrepentant, leader of the CIA-backed contras.

In today's news accounts, I see that the miserable folks who live in the Managua slums (among the worst in the hemisphere -- I also toured them with Ortega) were given (by Ortega's ruling party) thousands of portraits of Ahmadinejad to be waved as he rolled through with Ortega. Can you imagine that inidgnity?

I won't go on. I only wonder how hard it must be today to be an 18 or 19 year old college kid who, jolted into consciousness by the war in Iraq, or by the images from Abu Ghraib, to find those sort of psychic links that my generation did. Can you be inspired by the anti-semetic front man for the Mullahs? By the blustering Venezuelan demagogue who now seeks to rule by decree? By the aged Nicaraguan comandante running on the backs of unwed Managua teenagers?

Sometimes, like these times, it's really good to be old.

[For the younger readers, the title of Cooper's blog post "Sunday Morning Sidewalk" is a reference to the Kris Kristofferson song "Sunday Morning Coming Down." which was a big hit for Johnny Cash.]

Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence

Monday, January 8 at 9 p.m. on KPTS Channel 8 and overnight repeat at 4 a.m. (That's for Wichita, check your local listing elsewhere).

Sixty years after the Holocaust, many parts of the world are experiencing a
dramatic surge of anti-Semitism from hate propaganda to vandalism to attacks
on Jews themselves. In Europe, violent acts against Jews and Jewish
institutions have more than doubled since the 1990s. Hosted and narrated by
Judy Woodruff, this documentary explores the roots of anti-Semitism and
examines how and why it continues to flourish today.

Misusing Jesus

Christian Century, a leading Protestant magazine has a very interesting article "Misusing Jesus How the church divorces Jesus from Judaism" by Amy-Jill Levine is a Jewish New Testament scholar who teaches at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

...when Christian congregants, ministers and professors do acknowledge that Jesus was Jewish, they often provide no content for the label. The claim that "Jesus was a Jew" may be historically true, but it is not central to the teaching of the church.

The problem is more than one of silence. In the popular Christian imagination, Jesus still remains defined, incorrectly and unfortunately, as "against" the Law, or at least against how it was understood at the time; as "against" the Temple as an institution and not simply against its first-century leadership; as "against" the people Israel but in favor of the gentiles. Jesus becomes the rebel who, unlike every other Jew, practices social justice. He is the only one to speak with women; he is the only one who teaches nonviolent responses to oppression; he is the only one who cares about the "poor and the marginalized" (that phrase has become a litany in some Christian circles). Judaism becomes in such discourse a negative foil: whatever Jesus stands for, Judaism isn't it; whatever Jesus is against, Judaism epitomizes the category.

This divorcing of Jesus from Judaism does a disservice to each textually, theologically, historically and ethically.

Levine critiques not only the sub rosa anti-Semitism that appears in the Palestinian theologian Naim Ateek of the Sabeel Center, but also in feminist and liberation theologians, and even more surprisingly in such mainstream Christian institutions as
he World Council of Churches press in Geneva; Fortress Press, which is connected to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America; and the Catholic (Maryknoll) Orbis Books.