As long as society remains hyper-sensitive about anti-Semitism and racism as the ultimate individual evils, people like Foxman with continue to have adoring audiences.

What Thrasymachus says is true. But at the same time, as long as there are people who dismiss anti-Semitism as a negligeable or non-existent problem, there will be a need for special organizations to publicize and combat it.

Gibson’s language was a bit inflammatory in referring to a “cabal,” but there would seem to be little doubt that groups of liberal Jews are trying to promote the idea of Catholic responsibility for the holocaust, e.g., The New Republic’s promotion of Goldhagen’s writings, which come close to being an outright group condemnation, i.e., racist condemnation of the entire German people and of the Catholic church. Foxman’s organization depends largely on contributions from the people Gibson is referring to, so Foxman leaps in with over the top comments. (Fair disclosure, I have contributed to ADL, though I am by no means a liberal Jew). Foxman should read, or reread W.F. Buckley’s “In Search of Anti-Semitism,” in which true and false allegations are described, and in which Buckley points out the grave damage caused by the misuse of allegations of anti-semitism.

I assume Mr. Auster regards anti-Semitism as just one type of racism? And by the same logic, racism also needs special organizations to publicize and combat it?

Unfortunately, these organizations can never remain sane. It is not in their interest as organizations to only combat the most egregious and irrational outbursts of racism. Instead, they go after rational people honestly trying to come to terms with race – which includes Mr. Auster among others.

I was limiting my remarks here to anti-Semitism, and didn’t want to bring in racism, and thus have to make comparisons and contrasts between them.

I don’t consider the ADL or their mouthpiece Foxman as a credible source on the issue. The only type of “Christian” that meets ADL approval are those found in “The Jesus Seminar” and the ruling hierarchy of the US Espicopal Church. If it is logical to lay the Holocaust at the feet of the Catholic Church, it is equally logical to lay the murders of over 100 million carried out by Marxists over the last century at the feet of Judaism.

The ADL is nothing more than a cabal of leftists intent on destroying what is left of the US. The fury of the attacks directed at Gibson stand in contrast to the rather muted criticism of Farrakhan, the Malaysian prime minister and others from the Islamic world. As with all leftist organizations, the stated agenda (fighting anti-Semitism) is a cover for the real agenda (advancing the establishment of the leftist Utopia, which requires the destruction of Christianity). If the ADL were truly concerned about fighting anti-Semitism, it would be lobbying for the end of open borders and the importation of millions of Muslims - something they resolutely refuse to consider.

” … it is equally logical to lay the murders of over 100 million carried out by Marxists over the last century at the feet of Judaism.”

This is not correct even if one accepts the underlying premise. The Jewish Marxists were atheist Jews who rejected Judaism and Jewishness. Paul Johnson described them as non-Jewish Jews, though I wouldn’t go that far. In any event, one could lay the Marxist murders at the feet of (atheist) Jews, but not at the feet of Judaism.

I was attempting to point out the profound injustice of the underlying premise. Goldhagen and Co. are laying the Holocaust at the feet of Catholicism, despite the fact that the Roman Church resisted the Nazis, often at great personal risk and sacrifice on the part of individual Catholics. While there were Nazis that were nominally Catholic, they ultimately rejected Cathlolicism much as Jewish Marxists rejected Judaism. Likewise, religious Jews frequently opposed the Soviet state and ended up in the Gulag beside their Christian counterparts. Hence, it’s just as wrong to blame Catholicism for the Holocaust as it is to blame Judaism for Marxism.

Readers may be interested in this essay in the current First Things. It is not what you would expect:

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0311/articles/rhonheimer.html

Carl’s last point is well taken.

Is there a general animosity towards Christianity among U.S. Jews? If so, it would not be hard to understand, given the long and lamentable record of anti-semitism associated with Christianity. One gets the feeling that groups like the ADL, ACLU, etc. are very uncomfortable with any overt display of sincere religiosity, and find acceptable only the espousal of programmatic liberalism as a substitute, such as is found in the “mainline” Christian congregations and in Reform Judaism.

Any such animosity on the part of Jews toward the American Christian majority is unjustified and indeed wicked. This is the most philo-Semitic country in history.

The animosity is quite real and is directed mostly at Christianity, though there have been attacks upon orthodox Jewish groups as well. I think the explanation is that the typical ADL-supporting, reform, liberal Jew - like his mainline Protestant or liberal Catholic counterpart - is really a believer in leftist utopianism instead of his own traditional religion. Abe Foxman has rejected the core of Judaism just as Barry Lynn has rejected the core of Christianity. The more perceptive Jewish conservatives like Rabbi Lapin understand that the real danger for their people lies in the destruction of faith for the non-Jewish majority, which creates a fertile ground for ideologies like Nazism. Another danger is, of course, the importation of millions of Muslims whose plans for Jews are quite explicit.

Regarding Carl’s point about “importation of millions of Muslims,” I believe the position of secular liberal Reform Jews has been very pro-immigration, as they imagine this will somehow offer protection by diluting the Christian character of our country. As Carl makes clear, they may be very mistaken in this expectation.

As one whose mother was of the Hebraic persuasion I have long found accusation-clowns like Foxman an unspeakable annoyance and embarrassment and have lately from sheer fwustwation even wondered aloud whether he is on the payroll of the Saudi Entity when I see him snarling at the ankles of people like Mel Gibson or Gregg Easterbrook and meanwhile distracting attention from the genocidal maniacs in our midst. Here are the Foxmans of the world zealously rooting out every molecule in the wider culture that fails properly to celebrate everything Judaic, and meanwhile they have squat to say about glaring Islamists in the Wahhabi-funded mosques sprouting up like mushrooms everywhere, in which actual Jew-murder is celebrated as the highest beatitude. I mean, what issup wid DAT? If Foxman *was* on the Saudi payroll, he couldn’t be doing a better job of creating a diversion while the actual genocidal plasma festers, bubbles, and increases.

I have long thought that Foxman has a screw loose, but his remarks in the article cited by Mr. Auster are really beyond the limit. His apparent endorsement of the “Goldhagen school’s” absurd claims that the Nazis’ hatred of Jews was somehow caused by, or continuous with, the teachings of the Catholic Church, is totally inexcusable. Even the slightest knowledge of Nazi ideas would show that there was no such relationship, that the Nazis, if anything, blamed Jews for Christianity, which they detested…
As for the animosity toward Christians that produces such “theories” I would agree with Mr.Auster that it is not excusable, nor explainable, by past Christian transgressions; Jews did not come to this country because they supposed that it was no different from Imperial Russia. Knowledgeable persons always knew that there have been great differences in attitudes to Jews, between Christian sects and in different historical periods, so that it is impossible and unjust to lump all Christians together as hostile to Jews. Observation suggests that this type of paranoid hostility is actually not characteristic of most Jews, but people of that sort tend to be overrepresented in ethnic “defense” organizations.. not only Jewish ones.

Well, Mr. Foxman’s blatant anti-Christian agenda has become policy in New York City. Schools there now may display a Menorah and the Mohammedan crescent, but no creches. It seems the birth of Jesus has been deemed not an historical event.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35544

I wonder how the school system there will explain our calendar?