Never Again

NORMA SHERRY

Together Forever Changing

An Article

Never Again

Calling someone, “Jew Devil” is far different from saying, “I detest Israel ’s treatment of the Palestinians’”. One is blatantly, patently Anti-Semitic, the other is a disagreement with the politics of Israel ’s decision-makers. One does not necessarily have anything to do with the other, and one can surely disagree with the politics of its countrymen without being unpatriotic or in this case, anti-Semitic. For the sake of this discussion, let it be understood I am addressing anti-Semitism and not anti-Israel.

In the 50’s and 60’s, the expression, “Never again”, was very common in Jewish communities. Fear embodied every Jewish family, every Jewish citizen. Metaphorically, it is comparable to the fear those who lived through the crash of ’29 have of never having enough financial security – only imagine that fear a hundred times greater. We all know these folks; they may be our grandparents, or our parents. They never spend beyond their means; they never have enough put away, no matter how many tens of thousands of dollars they may have squirreled away. They have a healthy and somewhat paranoid distrust of banks and bankers; they never disclose their political affiliation, and they do not discuss religion with strangers. They are excessively private about their personal finances, even when they appear confused and bewildered with the state of their affairs, they will remain steadfastly mute and reluctantly forthcoming when it concerns discussing their money.

For Jews and their children who were born in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, fear of divulging their Jewish heritage was inborn. Anti-Semitism was not relegated to Hitler and Eastern Europe . Jewish children were ridiculed, beat up, and ostracized for no reason other than the fact that they were Jewish. Families shortened their names, Americanizing them so their names wouldn’t divulge their origin. “Nose Jobs” were part of the growing-up experience for many Jewish children. Sixteen was the golden age when a visit to the plastic surgeon was a given.

Much like the European Jews of years past, American Jews worked hard at camouflaging and assimilating themselves.

It was common in those days to have “restricted” communities; the not-so euphemistic term that meant, “No Jews allowed”. As the years progressed, Anti-Semitism became less blatant. For some, there truly was an evolution of growth and an acceptance that Jews are just people – that there are some good and some bad just like every other sect of people. The outward fences started diminishing. But the inner prejudice, the slang expressions that are distasteful at best and deplorable at worst, remained; the snickers and private jokes continued; the innate disdain and distrust, for the most part is still very much with us.

It was with us when a boatload of Jewish refugees escaping Hitler’s extermination camps were turned from our shores, as it was from all the shores of the free world. It was with us when Charles Lindbergh said that “Jews were the greatest danger” to the United States, and when he wrote in the Reader’s Digest, referring to Germany’s acceptable reason for warring was, “…the infiltration of inferior blood”. It was with us when automobile magnate, Henry Ford, worked to promote mass hatred of Jews. In his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford ran 91 consecutive weeks of essays blaming Jews for all the ills of America and describing Jews as, "parasites . . . sloth’s . . . lunatics and apostles of murder."

It was with us when Martin Luther defined Jews as, “miserable and accursed people”, or when he said, “Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people.” Martin Luther’s Anti-Semitism is legendary and grotesque in its ugliness. History also records these sentiments as he warned his faithful followers:

Therefore, be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously...

Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel and wear no thread of clothing, which they have not stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus, they live from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and robbery, as arch-thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent security.

It was with us when 125 million sets of the McGuffey Readers were used to teach four-fifths of all children for three-quarters of a century its purposeful Anti-Semitism. It is with us again with the publishing of the McGuffey Eclectic Reader, which is now a staple of teaching within the confines of the religious right and home-schoolers. It is not only Anti-Semitic; it is sexist and racist, as well. Its pages are filled with warnings to students about the perils of rejecting Christianity.

Christianity is championed as the McGuffey Reader emphasizes, "There are no principles but those of CHRISTIANITY, to be depended upon in cases of REAL DISTRESS." (Capitalization’s are McGuffey Reader’s) It denigrates Jews for reading the Old Testament and teaches that by doing so it is, “bordering on superstition..." It instructs its students that the rise of Christianity was a result of Jewish infidelity to God. The instances of Anti-Semitism are reinforced continually and are too numerous to recount in this writing.

Strikingly absent in other Christian school texts are any mention of Jews or any of their contributions to American history. In fact, the only references to Jews are to Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, who is referred to as, 'an atheistic German Jew'. The third reference, obviously intended to instill Anti-Semitic sentiments teaches that the crucifixion of Jesus was at the demands of the Jews and that Pontius Pilate merely gave in to their clamor.

It was with us when Rev. Billy Graham told Pres. Richard Nixon that the Jews had a “stranglehold” on America . It is with us when the Anti-abortion group, Operation Rescue and Life Dynamics, listed “Jewish doctors” as the leading performers of abortion. It was with us when Rev. Jerry Falwell said to his congregants, “A few of you don’t like the Jews and I know why. He [sic] can make more money accidentally than you can make on purpose.”

It was with us when Pat Robertson proclaimed, “Jews are spiritually deaf” and “spiritually blind”, and when he said, referring to Israel, that the Jews occupy the land as temporary caretakers for the true Christians. It was with us when Rev. Bailey Smith preached, “It’s interesting at great political rallies how you have a Protestant to pray, a catholic to pray, and then you have a Jew to pray. With all due respect to those dear people, my friends, God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew. For how in the world can God hear the prayer of a man who says that Jesus Christ is not the true Messiah? That is blasphemy.”

It was with us when Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, devout Muslim, and most eloquent speaker and pastor rebuked Jews and blamed them of horrendous acts. Farrakhan has publicly denounced Judaism as a "gutter religion" and charged that Jewish doctors injected the AIDS virus into black babies; he said Jews were “bloodsuckers” and accused them of “… plotting against us…”

Sadly, history records a plethora of Anti-Semitic rantings: Voltaire complained that Jews are “... the greatest scoundrels who have ever sullied the face of the globe”; H. L. Mencken said, 'The Jews could be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of”; Henry Adams: 'The whole rotten carcass is rotten with Jew worms'; H.G. Wells: 'A careful study of anti-Semitism, prejudice and accusations might be of great value to many Jews, who do not adequately realize the irritation they inflict'; Immanuel Kant: ‘All their talents and skills revolve around stratagems and low cunning ... They are a nation of swindlers'. Dostoyevsky, George Orwell, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot were all unabashedly, virulent, and profoundly anti-Semitic, in T.S. Eliot’s case, even after the Holocaust.

Today, we hear terms and expressions like: Anti-Zionism; Jewish media; Left-wing, Jewish liberal; Humanists; Israeli-Imperialism; that the Jews own all the newspapers, all the banks; that they own all the department chains; that they run the diamond district, the fur district; that they control all the precious metals; and, that they’re ruining our country.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe and in the United States . Revisionists’ claim six million Jews never were put to death in the Holocaust; more preposterous claims such as those by Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton Gibson, are that the Holocaust is “fiction – maybe not all of it, but…”

Rumors abounded after 911 that mysteriously Jews didn’t show up to work that day, that 911 was retribution to the U.S. for their misguided support of the Zionist country, Israel . However outlandish and absurd these contradictions to the reality may be, there remain individuals willing to propagate such falsities for the mere chance to rid us of the bothersome, loathsome Jew.

It has been said that wherever there are Jews there will be anti-Semitism. But it doesn’t have to be that way; we have the power to say “Never Again”. It is time for all good men and women everywhere to revile these abhorrent, execrable, deceitful deceptions.

Anti-Semitism is a plague, a scourge upon our humanity; so too is bigotry and prejudice, and narrow-mindedness, and lying, and betrayal, and the mistreatment of our elderly and most senior citizens, homelessness, and abused children, and hunger, and illness, and pollution, and despoiling of our air and our earth. So too, is injustice, crimes upon humanity, war, abuse, disease, deplorable living conditions, the lack of medical care, and slavery, detention, and oppression, tyranny, totalitarianism, to be denied free will, free speech and freedom, torture, poverty, persecution, false imprisonment, and racism, fanaticism, sexism, intolerance, and discrimination.

It is up to us, each and every one of us to make a difference, to stop the blood-letting, the brutality, the savagery, the vicious, senseless vulgarity. It is up to us to say, “Never Again”.

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