THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, February 18, 1983 5
Christian Clergyman Cuts to Root of Anti-Semitism in America
(Continued from Page 1)
But that is not the im-
portant point. The impor-
tant point is that "Se-
mites" and "Aryans" do
not exist. Racially, the
concepts are a fraud.
Politically, the concepts
are a disaster.
As usual, the common-
sense use of the word is
sound. Antisemitism (the
correct spelling of the word)
means what the inventor of
the word (the Jew-hater
Wilhelm Marr) intended it
to mean: hostility to or
hatred of Jews.
How actively does anti-
Semitism have to be ex-
pressed before its presence
is recognized? Even Jewish
defense organizations seem
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KEREN KAYEMETH LEiSRAR
to disagree as to the degree
of "anti-Semitism" in
America today. One organ-
ization says it is on the rise.
Another organization re-
ports a decrease for 1982.
What are we talking about?
At risk, and without
being insensitive to the an-
xieties of Jewish citizens
who suffer intimidation or
affront, I would like to ex-
press again my continuing
frustration that most Jews
and Christians — like most
academics — have a very
superficial understanding
of the depth of the problem
of anti-Semitism. People of
goodwill, even supporters of
the exellent work of the
American Jewish Commit-
tee and/ or the Anti-
Defamation League, tend to
recognize anti-Semitism
when it is overt, wilful and
malicious. Thereby the
covert levels of Jew-hatred
tend to be ignored.
But — and this is the
heart of the matter across
the centuries — the overt
expression of anti-
Semitism is of deadly im-
portance only if or when
the Streichers, Hitlers,
Husseinis or Arafats at-
tain political power. Until
then the most serious
problem is camouflaged
anti-Semitism, anti-
Semitism often unrecog-
nized and unchallenged.
When the power of the
state is controlled by wilful
anti-Semites — as in the
Third Reich or in the PLO's
dream of a new state — a
potentially genocidal situa-
tion has been reached. We
are not in that situation in
America, yet the problem
has deep roots in gentile
America.
It ought to be obvious that
the situation when anti-
Semites come to power is
different from one in which
90 percent of the overt ex-
pressions of anti-Semitism
are in fact actions by
juvenile delinquents, even
if some of the juvenile de-
linquents are immature
40-year-olds in the KKK or
American Nazi parties.
The danger to us in
America is that attention
may be drawn away from
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the real depth and difficulty
of anti-Semitism, which
American Christianity
shares with the Chris-
tendom of the old world. The
leaders of the NSDAP, the
German Nazi anti-Semitic
and terrorist movement
that came to power in 1933,
were helped to power by
evoking old fears and prej-
udices against "the Jew."
(The fact that "the Jew" was
a mythic figure, with little
likeness to the Jews of his-
tory, is beside the point.)
Those fears and prej-
udices were fixed, culti-
vated and propagated by
the Christian preachers
and teachers, and ex-
pressed in laws for 1,500
years of cooperation be-
tween church and state.
Upon that stratum of
Christian theological anti-
Semitism there was built up
a second layer: anti-
Semitism expressed in lan-
guage, jokes, caricatures,
tales about the fireplace —
anti-Semitism precisely
called Kulturantisemitis-
mus. Under this rubric of
cultural anti-Semitism
come Shakespeare's
Shylock, Dicken's Fagin —
not to mention the
Philadelphia Inquirer's and
the Washington Post's car-
toons of Begin and Sharon.
The most pervasive
anit-Semitism in Chris-
tendom is the theological.
The most insidious,
accepted unthinkingly by
all kinds of people without
personal malice (as yet), is
cultural anti-Semitism. On
top of these two strata has
arisen modern, ideological
anti-Semitism — anti-
Semitism as a political
weapon of demagogues.
But it is a serious mistake
to concentrate all attention
to anti-Semitism upon its
overt expressions. It's a mis-
take unless or until those
overt expressions are ex-
pressions of a major politi-
cal force.
What is anti-Semitic?
The moderator and clerk
of the United
Presbyterian Church,
seizing upon and expand-
ing the media's often
careless and sometimes
,false reports on the Israel
Defense Forces police ac-
tion against terrorists in
Lebanon, called upon the
White House to suspend
all aid to Israel. Why do
supposedly educated
men believe the worst
that can be said of the
Jewish state?
Why are such people, cer-
tain of their own righteous-
ness, so dangerous on any
issue involving the survival
of the Jewish people?
Make no mistake. This
was not the first or only evi-
dence of their hostility to
"the Jews." And, let us be
blunt — in America today
they are in fact far more
dangerous to the Jewish
community and its concerns
than are Frank Collins and
other buffoons in the
KKK/American Nazi net-
work.
What is anti-Semitic? In
connection with a recent ac-
tion on behalf of Soviet
Jewry a Roman Catholic
educator responded that he
didn't see why he should
stand up for Soviet Jews so
long as the Jews were op-
pressing Arabs in the West
Bank.
What do those separate
situations have in com-
mon, granting for the
moment the hostile in-
terpretation of Israel's
military government?
Answer: "the Jew."
If one were to say that he
would do nothing whatever
to help the Polish people
and Solidarity because a
reactionary Roman
Catholic government in El
Salvador is engaged in
murder and terrorism, is
there anyone who would fail
to sense the anti-Catholic
bias?
Needless to say, neither
the Presbyterian church
leaders nor the Roman-
Catholic educator are
unique. Every section of
American Christianity has
leaders, along with a few
who have confronted the
Holocaust and its lessons,
who have not yet faced the
truth of their own anti-
Semitism. They would not,
of course, ever be found
engaged in overt and vulgar
anti-Semitic actions.
But their preaching and
teaching, and their active
hostility to Israel's survival,
show that they still carry
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