Why U.S. antisemitism, How serious the Risk?

The threat to Jews in Christendom is real, only its imminence is in question. This is the theme of my blog, Antisemitism and Jewish Survival. My most recent article deals with the lynching of a Jew in Marietta,Georgia by elite citizens from Atlanta. What follows is my response to a comment by one of my regular readers explaining why he feels the case “exceptional,” and not convincing. Our exchange may be read in context to the article, Foundations of Holocaust: American antisemitism and the lynching of Leo Max Frank.

 “Irving”, you and I are not far apart on most issues. While, for example, I do not lump all “evangelicals” into a single ideology I agree with you in general and would like a hyperlink reference to Reverend Hagee’s comment that, “that hitler did god’s will in forcing us into Israel ” As regards Native Americans you are far too gentle in describing US policy as, “inch-by-inch;” mile-by-mile would also not be adequate. As to use of the word, “exterminated,” agree again with its applicability.

Afro-Americans are a different, if related (race) issue. The US Constitution defining Blacks as 3/5th a person, thereby justifying slavery, is an injury that has left scars on both person and country possibly never to be overcome.

Your analysis of the direction of the Democratic Party; your description of the Republican I entirely agree with.

Where I disagree, “Irving”, is your understanding of America as just racist, white-on-others, with Jews classified “white.” I see this as minimizing the threat to ourselves, a conscious or not effort at self-reassurance, an example of Jewish Denial by a person otherwise aware, but unable to take the next step.

I once described a discussion between my father and relatives that expressed more crudely, perhaps, but my own understanding nonetheless. Mid you, this conversation is a childhood memory, the discussion having taken place during or soon after the Shoah ended.

I doubt my parents nor my relatives were familiar with Niemoller but they expressed the same understanding. Responding to their surroundings, and this was Bronx, NY, and a neighborhood justifiably described as a Jewish ghetto, so immediate surrounding were nearly entirely “Jewish,” but I suppose just reading the newspapers, etc provided the insight that fed their insecurity. In essence (I was, after all, only 5 or 6 at the time) my father described Jewish insecurity as, “first they’ll come for the schwartzes…” The Blacks, being more visible than the Jews, were the Jews canary in the mine. We would know it was time to pack and leave. Not that my parents felt this way as time went on. As years pass and nothing happens feeds doubt, clouds historical judgment.

However you would classify us, “Irving”, white or not, in fact we are a special category. Race, while a convenient catch-all for eugenics and the halcyon days of the twentieth century never really touched the place of the Jews in Christendom. Which is why I continually remind that the issue is anti-Judaism>antisemitism, the source Christian scripture. Christianity is indelibly stamped on modern Christendom, an inheritance shared by fundamentalist and atheist alike of that background. Antisemitism is indelibly stamped, part of that rich cultural and historical inheritance. Gutter-wise we are called “kike,” “yid; “Pastor Jessie Jackson’s “Hymietown. The perhaps embarrassing to the more educated and sophisticated popular belief that Jews have horns, a tail and that telltale sulphuric odor (another gospel reference, to John).”

But my point is really best proven by the continuing stereotyping of Jews, a tradition born in the early Middle Ages. Your reference to Jews and money, for instance. Frank representing the Jew as despoiler of Christian girls; the 1928 blood libel scare in Massena,New York. Then there is Jews control the media, the cinema; that we conspire to rule the world, as in America as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) described in “detail” in the Elders of Zion, but historically back again to the Middle Ages.

No, “Irving”, we are today more vulnerable than even the Blacks in my father’s description that First they will come for them, then for us. So we have a warning.

The reason, “Irving”, is that the melting pot does mostly work, at least for your whites. And as the white “races” integrate what is left is whites sharing the history of Christianity and, since our skin is similarly colored, whites sharing a Jewish history. Jews are still odd man out.

As regards American social issues, “Irving”, we are close. As regards a measure of security based on our “race,” not at all.