The problem is normal Americans are just as anti-Semitic as normal citizens in the rest of the world. Their ignorance of history, geography, etc. is such that they have no difficulty blaming Israel and Bush et al. for the violence in the Middle East and blaming Jews for Moslem terrorism including 9/11 and IMO is also the cause of 99% of the BDS.

erp:

That is a rather broad statement. Growing up in a Midwestern town where a lot of "normal" people lived, we had a small Jewish population. About all we knew about our friend Rich Feldman is that there were times that he couldn't go with us to a Friday football or basketball game. We really didn't understand why but that was the way it was.

Now the Catholic kids on the other hand, seemed like they were always getting a day or afternoon off from parochial school. We truly resented them for that.

Rick, I've lived a long time and while what you say might be true to you, I'd bet a lot of of the people in your town would reveal themselves as closet anti-Semites if they thought they could get away with it.

I grew up in New York, but have lived in various suburbs and small towns in New England as well here in central Florida. I've also worked with people from all parts of the world. It's the same everywhere.

I'd like to be proved wrong, but the state of the world today only confirms how right I am.. My broad statement stands.

erp;

You've lived near the coasts, not in the heartland. For instance, She Who Is Perfect In All Ways is a native of the MidWest and once we got in to a discussion of this nature and someone brought up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. SWIPIAW had never heard of them. I knew of them because I was a WWII history aficianado, not because I had ever heard of them in person.

Also note that the strongest backers of Israel in the USA are evangelical Christians.

There's a certain group out there for whom hating Bush and hating Israel are as natural as mixing peanut butter and jelly. They can hate both just as equally apart as they do in combination. But those tend to be part of the political/intellectual class that flourishes on both coasts -- you still have the David Duke yahoos in the flyover states who dislike both while coming from the other end of the ideological circle, however, in general when you hear a remark or joke that might be considered anti-Semetic by someone with highly attuned radar, it's based on general sterotypes coming from people who've had little or no contact with Jews in their lives.

They may tell an un-PC story, but very few are going to carry that into support for Hezbollah, Iran or Syria if you questioned them about the current Mideast situation.

Erp: Sorry, the view that most Americans hate Jews was never true, and is certainly not true now. I grew up in a small town in Ohio without any Jews at all (as far as I knew) and I never heard an anti-Jewish statement.

And how many Americans blame Jews for 9/11? A few nuts.

Support of Israel is a national consensus.

erp: one of the more common bumper stickers where I live (one of the redder counties of Ohio) says "My Boss is a Jewish carpenter."

Rick: don't begrudge us our days off; they were fair compensation for the iron discipline of the Ursuline Sisters.

Rick, back in Brooklyn we parochial school kids used to taunt the public school kids all the time.

We didn't even have to wait for the days we had off and they didn't, since we got out 45 minutes earlier everyday and could taunt them from the street while they were in their classrooms.

The pubbies who came to our school for CCD once a week got it the worst, since they were arriving as we were leaving.

Good times, good times.

Jim:

We got 'em back. That was long ago enough that the hamburgers, hotdogs or meatloaf for Friday lunch and dinner were extra delicious, knowing that our Catholic friends would be suffering through meatless - or worse, fishsticks - meals. ;-)

No, Rick; you see, it is precisely because of those meatless Fridays that we have the Strategic Lobster Reserve.

Try living in a Jewish community--Americans don't hate Jews any more than Jews hate Christians.

Welcome home oj. You're right. The population in the U.S. most supportive of Jews and Israel are the Christian Fundamentalists yet they are the very same population most feared by Jews. Go figure!

The argument that people living in the middle of the country aren't anti-Semitic isn't very convincing. especially when the next sentence is ... and by the way, there are few, if any, Jews living in small towns out there anyway.

This one is amazing! A Kiwi e-friend with whom I have more in common than most people I've ever meant, just emailed me that she supports Israel, but hasn't ever met a Jew, nor even seen one that she knows of, in all her life although she's over 60, spent her life as an English teacher and has traveled to Europe and Australia.

Oy.

Welcome home oj. You're right. The population in the U.S. most supportive of Jews and Israel are the Christian Fundamentalists yet they are the very same population most feared by Jews. Go figure!

The argument that people living in the middle of the country aren't anti-Semitic isn't very convincing. especially when the next sentence is ... and by the way, there are few, if any, Jews living in small towns out there anyway.

This one is amazing! A Kiwi e-friend with whom I have more in common than most people I've ever meant, just emailed me that she supports Israel, but hasn't ever met a Jew, nor even seen one that she knows of, in all her life although she's over 60, spent her life as an English teacher and has traveled to Europe and Australia.

Oy.

Erp,

I also grew up in a small Ohio city (10K people). We did have some Jews there - doctors, nurses, teachers, business owners - but what I remember most is that we all got along. Mrs Frankel, a nurse who was a German Jew and survivor of the camps, used to make German Christmas cookies for all her neighbors to celebrate the holidays. Mr Lifer had a huge turkey farm and no children left. He brought over Jewish people from Poland who survived the camps and helped set them up on their own farms and when he died left the farms to all the families. He was Catholic.

What most of the people support about the Jews and particularly about Israel is that they approve of people who pull their own weight and do what has to be done to make it. They do not like people who sponge off others. Israel has pulled its own weight and for that reason gets a lot of support from the fundamentalist Christians.

That is the big difference between the support from the red states of the Midwest and the coastal states. I currently live in NYC and have lived all along the eastern coast and the difference between the Midest and the coasts can basically be spelled out with the attitude to taking care of yourself and your family.

erp:

Like the others, I'm from the Midwest: My hometown of Omaha certainly isn't overflowing with Jewish folks, but it has five or six synagogues and a very nice Jewish Community Center that I used to visit when I was younger and lived nearby (my mom befriended a couple of Holocaust survivors she met there).

I can't recall a single time that I've ever heard any native Omahan make an anti-Jewish comment that was meant as a serious statement and not a joke. My general impression of Americans is that they're much better disposed towards Jewish people than the rest of the world. People from other countries always say that Israel is "overreacting"; Americans say that Israel is doing what is necessary to survive.