The French insistence that the incident wasn’t necessarily anti-Semitic, is itself as depraved as would be Germans insisting the Nazis weren’t anti-Semitic.

The debate itself sullies France.

The first two paragraphs were good, Adam. But what the hell is that last bit supposed to mean. First of all, Madoff has nothing to do with the financial crisis, other than he had to come clean because of it. He’s a serious prick who deserves to rot, but he and his certainly didn’t cause the financial crisis. “you folk” ought to know better.

On another note..

Judging by some of the comments here along with all the things you folk keep insisting on posting…..is it that difficult to see why hatred is rising. Sorry if muslims hated you guys so much throughout history it would be unlikely that any of you would be left today.

Here is a very very mild example of how great things were like for you folk in Europe. Try typing “Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln” into google.

Erm also seeing as there’s a great big crisis going on, which involves a disproportionately large amount of jewish financiers, (Mr Maddoff anyone?), I for one would be a little less smug about things.

Finally, as interesting as it is that Maimonides called Mohammad a madman, it is irrelevant to this discussion. What Maimonides thought of Mohammed or anybody else doesn’t say anything about whether Christians or Muslims treated Jews BETTER between 650 and 1900. The word “meshugah” or madman does, however, appropriately fit anybody who really believes that Jews fared better under Christians.

I would have believed you 20 years ago, but then I stumbled across Maimonides “Epistle to the Yemeni Jews”, a document that describes in great detail the suffering of the Jews under Islam, and one in which Maimonides himself referred to Mohammed as a ‘meshuggah’

Much of the oft-touted Islamic tolerance is just a myth that emerged in the 20th century

Christians who base their antisemitism on Biblical quotations, certainly do have scripture to back their prejudices.

This is the main source:

http://bible.cc/matthew/27-25.htm

On the surface it may appear so. However in Christianity, at least theologically, murder, any murder, distances an individual from Christ and from ’salvation’.

In Islam, ONTH, murder, and even mass murder, can get you fast-tracked to ‘paradise’ and can move you closer to Allah.

The French philosopher Robert Redecker was charged with hate crimes for pointing that out.

How many British Jews have three or more children?

Add the low birthrate to marrying-out [exogamy] and that’s the Final Solution in a nutshell.

Right?

Christians who base their antisemitism on Biblical quotations, certainly do have scripture to back their prejudices.

This is the main source:

http://bible.cc/matthew/27-25.htm

You know, I don’t know that that really IS the main source (at least not from where I stand, which, granted, is a different place from where you stand).

I think that verse in Matthew you cite may well have (had: hopefully this is entirely past tense) greater appeal to, or resonsance to, well, real Jew-haters, organizers of pogroms; the real fanatics and bigots I mean: but in terms of background “mood music” I think there are more important (and more low-key) Christian scriptural references that can be used to generate suspicion (or worse) of Jews.

Not saying it’s not A source, nor an unimportant one, and of course different things have been emphasised more in different places and times…but the thing that has always leapt out at me, above all I think, is the repeated references that use expressions like “for fear of the Jews” (yes, also during the recollection of the events of Passion week), specifically, and above all, in the Gospel of John, that can (presented out of context: as it is a particular group of Jews being referred to, not Jews in general; and in any case those who through this fear have been forced into hiding are also Jews) that (can) have the overall effect of appearing to present Jews in a malevolent and vicious light. There’s a cumulation of references there that could lend themselves to being twisted in such a way.

The other thing is: at least in modern times (do I mean post-Vatican 2? I don’t know. My childhood experience and religious education were at the non-happy-clappy semi-calvinist but nonetheless very anti-intellectual end of the Church of England on an East London council estate. I only discovered the Catholic Church much later on) in this part of the world is the way that – not the Jews – but, rather “their God”: by which I mean “the God of the Old Testament” [as opposed to "the God of the New Testament"] is often presented by Christians as being brutal, vicious, wrathful, and so on; which I think has the indirect implication of saying that “those who follow the God of the Old Testament” (and I know all of these terms are rather simplistic and troublesome, hence my use of loads of quotation marks) are implicitly like that, or at least tolerant of all that smiting and so on. (Private Eye’s presntation of anything to do with Israel frequently, attempting to be jocular, takes that sort of line: but the great Judy of Adloyada has also illustrated instances of this “Old Testament Bad and Vicious God, New Testament Kind and Loviog God” on her blog from the Telegraph and the BBC.

I must say, the first time I read the Bible all the way through (having had a lot of this background mood-music about what to expect) I was really quite surprised: and make of this interpretation what you will: yes, smiting and punishments, and so so there for sure (but, well, I’m an Ulsterman: the world is tough, that is only to be expected, really, althogh I do grant that Northern Ireland is the only place I know where villages welcome travellers with big signs announcing that The End is Nigh) – but actually I thought “the God of the Old Testament” came off really bloody well; he was extremely patient and kind and protective of his people – and what struck me about them, as presented there, was that..they repeatedly, really repeatedly, disobeyed what they were told to do, often in really quite foolish or short-sighted ways (golden calves and all that), and were constantly shown to be stubborn and “stiff-necked” (is that another potentially antisemetic adjective? I’m not sure. It is used a lot in the Bible – mainly, I think, the Old Testament, to describe Jews), and put their own intentions before those of God for much of the time.

Pretty much like everyone else, really, I s’pose. Except no other people gets a book about them granted such stature…