4 | FEBRUARY 3 • 2022 

PURELY COMMENTARY

C

ookies and crack(ers), 
Oh, my! Those of us 
who are snackologists 
are more than familiar with 
the words cheddar cheese, sour 
cream and onion, chocolate 
chip and oatmeal 
raisin.
The first 
term lends 
itself to many 
expressions not 
food related. The 
second, with 
the parenthesis 
observed, lends a 
few more.
Many a businessperson 
has had to worry that a 
partner may be caught with 
his hand in the cookie jar or 

the till. Nothing could lead 
to a business downfall more 
quickly.
These days, one must not 
only be a smart cookie but 
a tough cookie to keep a 
formidable presence in society. 
Not to sound cynical, but there 
are folks of dubious character 
out there!
Do not be quick to accept 
“that’s how the cookie 
crumbles” as an explanation of 
a plan gone wrong. Investigate 
and complain if necessary.
Home buyers usually try 
to avoid the cookie-cutter 
neighborhoods and try to find 
homes with distinctive appeal.
Some food items that are 
unusual may go down well 

until we discover 
that we have consumed 
snake or cricket or a similar 
“delectable.” Then we may end 
up tossing our cookies.
Crackers — the word in 
its pure form — has not as 
many references. We know 
of the cookies called Animal 
Crackers, and, of course, there 
is the Marx brothers’ movie 
of the same name. In it, they 
show people going crackers.
Other forms of the word are 
far more common; let’s look 
at some. Did you ever try to 
get through a course without 
cracking a book? Your grade 
may then have sounded like 

the crack of 
doom. Teachers and 
parents must often learn to 
crack the whip to get desired 
results.
A good comedian can crack 
you up. A good argumentative 
opponent may be a tough 
nut to crack. If you meet 
with success in an attempt 
at something new (having a 
crack at it) you may wish to 
crack the cap on a nice bottle 
of wine.
If you make a mess while 
sampling snacks, you may be 
a slob, but that would be a 
crummy and crumby thing for 
me to point out. 

Sy Manello 
Editorial 
Assistant

for openers

Not Just Snacks

T

he man who took 
a rabbi and three 
congregants hostage in 
Colleyville, Texas, on Jan. 15, 
believed that Jews control the 
United States of 
America.
He told his 
hostages, as 
one revealed 
in a media 
interview, that 
Jews “control the 
world” and that 
they could use their perceived 
power to free Aafia Siddiqui, 
a Pakistani convicted in 2010 
for trying to kill American 
soldiers and plotting to blow 
up the Statue of Liberty. The 
hostage-taker also demanded 

to speak to New York’s Central 
Synagogue rabbi, Angela 
Buchdahl, so that she would 
use her “influence” to help get 
Siddiqui released. 
 By invoking Jewish “power,” 
the gunman, later identified 
as Malik Faisal Akram, a 
44-year-old British national, 
seemed to echo Siddiqui’s 
antisemitic views that Jews 
were responsible for the 9/11 
terrorist attacks and had 
infiltrated American political 
and nongovernmental 
organizations. During her 
2010 trial in New York, 
Siddiqui demanded Jews be 
excluded from serving on her 
jury. 
 As a scholar of Jewish 

history, I know that myths 
concerning “Jewish power,” 
“control” and “conspiracy” 
have circulated in America 
since before the Civil War 
and continue until today. 
They provide a simple, albeit 
imaginary, explanation for 
bewildering social changes 
that people find hard to 
explain and confront.

ANTISEMITIC LITERATURE
As immigration brought 
Jews in larger numbers to 
America’s shores, particularly 
from Russia, one of the first 
overtly antisemitic books 
ever published in the United 
States, Telemachus Thomas 
Timayenis’ 1888 book, The 

American Jew: An Exposé of His 
Career, warned darkly that 
Jews had “acquired a hold 
on this country such as they 
never secured on any nation 
in Europe.”
Actually, Jews comprised 
much less than 1% of the 
population at that time. Still, 
Timayenis, seen as “the father 
of antisemitic publishing in 
America,” claimed that they 
controlled Wall Street, the 
clothing and tobacco trades, 
politics, journalism and more.
Timayenis and his 
antisemitic books were largely 
forgotten for almost a century. 
Now, however, they are readily 
available through the internet.
A republication of one of 

Jonathan 
Sarna

column

The Results of Antisemitic 
Conspiracy Theories

