It's an odd world where manifesting all of the signs of a lack of bigotry is considered a clear indicium of strong bigotry.

Yes, but look more closely at the numbers. 59% of Jews apparently DON'T think most or many Christians are anti-semitic. At minimum, 59% of Jews are unwilling to say so. That's certainly some progress toward tolerance.

I should clarify that I don't get all that fazed about things like this. I have a (nominally) Christian cousin who's convinced that The Jews Run The World (and has tapes to prove it!); I had a Jewish coworker who, on hearing that I'm a conservative Catholic (from Texas! who's voting for Bush!!), more or less stopped talking to me. I figure folks like that aren't going anywhere any time soon; I just figure that their numbers inevitably decine over time.

After all, how long did it take (has it taken?) Irish Catholics -- Catholics in general -- to pull the lever for the guys who oppose slaughtering kids in utero?

I am a Christian and a strong supporter of Israel and the Jews. Every Christian I know feels the same. Sometimes it's a bit disheartening to hear some Jews feel that in some kind of twisted way that could constitute anti-Semitism! There are, without question, no better friends to the Jews than the Christians. It would be truly wonderful if that were appreciated in any Jewish quarter! And we love them anyway!

Love them to death, sometimes.

I used to be a faithful (though faithless) listener of Garner Ted Armstrong's daily sermon.

He loved the Jews, the Worldwide Church of God had a resident bureau in Israel, but I can understand why a satisfied Jew would not embrace Armstrong's view of their future.

Because, duh, it isn't Jewish.

Harry:

The truly strange thing is that neither is the Jews' view.

Sometimes I think that the Roman poet Horace was right when he said our salient characteristic is credulity. The Democrats have in the last several decades been consistently pro-Palestinian, deferential and conciliatory to anti-Semites generally, and -- most important of all -- hostile to the traditional Jewish values of personal responsibility and of family life. But they label themselves as the Compassionate Party, and the great majority of us are credulous enough to believe them!

Personally, I'll take a congregation of evangelical church-goers over a bunch of bomb-wielding Islamist terrorists every time. I just hope one day my co-religionists will wake up and be able to do the same.

In the long run, it's pretty clear that the future is NOT Jewish.

Given intermarriage with goyim, and the fact that Judaism isn't a proselytizing religion, the percentage of the population that are practicing Jews and identify with any Jewish ethnic heritage is bound to steadily decrease.

Harry:

Two salient points:

(1) Thank God secular atheists never did anything to death to the Jews, right? (For convenience, we'll pretend that the twentieth century and large parts of the nineteenth never happened.)

(2) I have to admit to total ignorance as to who this Armstrong fellow is, so if there's a stinging point in there, I would appreciate enlightenment.

Chris-

We've been through this a thousand times. The atheism/secularism/socialism of the Nazis was a facade, they were really orthodox Christians. The current anti-semitism in secular, statist Europe only exists simply because Christianity was once the dominant belief system. Neat, huh?

And the anti-Christian hatred exposed by the Passion and what not is mere self-loathing...

Michael--

The future isn't SECULAR Jewish.

In my family, my parent's generation's first marriages were all to Jews. After the first marriages, most of them were not. About two Passovers ago--only "religious observance" left in our family, the Haggadah read in English--I realized that Jews were now a minority in the family, especially striking since this branch includes probably the most well-known Jewish name in town. Mind you, my own fiancee isn't Jewish (she's not even white), but I'm not under any illusions about what's happening, either--my Hasidic cousin's (who doesn't come to the get-together unsurprisingly) kids will be Jews and mine won't be. Spengler from the Asia Times understands these things.

At least here in Minneapolis we are mostly spared the embarrassing attempts of secular Judaism to reproduce, like the Ethical Culture Society, which is kind of a furrowed-brow self-parody, summed up perfectly by the sentence "The Ethical Humanist Award was presented in April 2003 to U.S. Senator Jim Jeffords for switching his party affiliation, thus changing the balance of power in Congress in 2001."

Harry:

Garner Ted Armstrong was a heretic, not a Christian. Is that why you listened to him?

Seriously, if the Israelis need friends, where else are they going to find them but here in the US? And who will support Israel with votes and money like the religious community in the US? Can you imagine the mess if Carter or Gore were President right now?

The sins of the past are past - and Chris's point is right on - who is the worst enemy the Jews have ever had? Antiochus Epiphanies IV? Hitler? The czars? Stalin? Anyone in that list look like a disciple to you? The inquisitors were churchmen, but what motivated them? Holiness or politics? Would Jesus have endorsed their actions?

The only enemy of the Jews on that scale here in America was FDR (passively).

A friend of mine who was raised in it describes Ethical Culture as Unitarianism for Jews

Kerry's "Converso" heritage will be an issue
in the election. It will be the nuclear option
of the G.O.P.

jim,

You think F.D.R was their enemy? Try their
messiah (both foreign and domestic policy
began to align to their interests in the days
of F.D.R).

JH - Jews were not admitted to the US in the late 1930s. Had the doors been open, perhaps a million would have come; certainly at least 250,000. While the Republicans would have been horrified, FDR could have done it. He certainly went the other direction with the Nisei. And later in the war, he did little to help them as well.

Who else benefited from the war? Poland? No. the
Czechs? No. The war benefited one group. Where's the thank you?.

By the way, why didn't more leave Europe in the
early 30's? I think they were hedging their
bets?

Brian (MN):

Exactly.

J.H.:

Are you talking about the French ?

If you're talking about the Jews, the "thank you" is that more Jews live in the US than live in Israel.

I am certainly surprised to hear that Democrats abandoned Israel "several decades ago." More recently than that, I think.

jim, I'm certainly the last person to decide who is or is not a Christian. I even accept Orrin as one, though the Christians among whom I was raised would have regarded him as an atheist.

Chris, Garner Ted was the son and heir, until cast out, of Herbert Armstrong, creator of the Worldwide Church of God, a sort of PR agent's dream combination of Lyndon Larouche and Jerry Falwell.

He used to buy half-hours on rural radio stations every day to bring us "The Good News of the World Tomorrow."

Garner Ted had matinee idol looks and -- to Herbert's dismay -- tastes and was the absolute master of the vapid statement.

Ralph--

Sometime in the nineteenth century even Unitarianism became Unitarianism for Jews.

I don't think anyone really cares about either Unitarianism or Ethical Culture these days. I suppose that's my point...

Harry - good point. It has probably been only 20 years or so. The Democrats have been following Europe, which probably started turning away around 1965-70. And you are right about Garner Ted's appeal - he looked like a handsome Harvey Korman. But his dad looked like a constipated frog. And, trust me, they were heretics. Smooth ones, but still well off the reservation.

Falwell wouldn't like your characterization, but it's probably close.

JH: This is a very common misunderstanding of the holocaust. The fact is that only about 600,000 Jews lived in Germany in 1930 and about 25% died in the camps. I do not know the numbers for Austria but I think they were not very different. 3 million Jews lived in Poland. Poland was conquered in a blitzkreig and those Jews were slaughtered. The same was true throughout most of the rest of eastern europe.

The real beneficiary of American involvement in the European Theater was the British Empire, but unlike OJ, I think our course of action was proper prudent and the best we could do under those circumstances and with the resouces we had.