Spare Jews (and others) the cult of victimization

A day without reading a quote from Abe Foxman is a day without reading the newspaper. The head of the Anti-Defamation League is in there without fail, purportedly defending Jews against disparagement. Now and then he has something real to discuss, but as often as not he must fill the space by magnifying slights and sometimes manufacturing them.

Foxman has become a major irritant to many non-Jews, but he drives Jews even more nuts. I'm Jewish and don't recall voting for any spokesman. And I have lots of company in finding Abe Foxman's daily pronouncements to be intensely aggravating.

Case in point is his recent carping on Chevrolet's sponsorship of a Christian music-and-worship tour. What do the media do but speed-dial Foxman, who of course has comment. "I'm a little uncomfortable with a major commercial venture going into propagating religion," he says. Oh? "Evangelical Christians believe they have the truth, so they are selling a product because it's God's product? I find it troubling." Why is that your business?

If anyone has an issue here, it is Christians — some of whom might not want religious worship tied in with moving Silverados off the lot. But whether they consider it acceptable or not is strictly their call. Chevrolet has decided to ignore Foxman, which is the right response. (My own feeling at being left out of an advertising campaign is nothing less than gratitude.)

Nearly every religious and ethnic category now has a group of paid defenders looking to justify their continued employment. In an excellent article at www.reason.com, "E Pluribus Umbrage," Tim Cavanaugh describes "a Mad Monster Party of advocacy groups dedicated to rebutting every real and imagined racial or ethnic slur." The anti-defamation industry, he writes, "attracts the talented and the warped, passionate crusaders and transparent self- promoters."

There are anti-defamation groups supposedly representing Mexicans, Italians, Latvians, Arabs, Poles, Celts and just about everyone else who can be hyphenated to "American." American Hindus Against Defamation has protested the inclusion of Sanskrit shlokas (hymns) in an orgy scene in the movie "Eyes Wide Shut." You noticed the shlokas, of course.

Cavanaugh pays special attention to the Catholic League, which started off as an advocate of socially conservative views but has turned into "the champion of an abused religious sect in a relentlessly bigoted environment." Catholic League President William Donohue likes to call anti-Catholicism the "anti-Semitism of the elites" — avoiding the painful reality that his main foes are liberal Catholics.

The cult of victimization clearly attracts a diverse following, but with $40 million a year to work with and an especially tragic history to exploit, Foxman's ADL stands out. While many of its campaigns rate as trivial — the Anti-Defamation League actually protested the naming of Hurricane Israel — some are downright appalling.

In 1994, the ADL stupidly rushed into the center of a feud over fighting dogs and missing ornamental rocks in a Denver suburb. In it, the ADL immediately backed a Jewish couple's charges that their neighbors were vicious anti- Semites. The neighbors, subjected to hate mail, death threats and the loss of a job, sued the couple and the ADL for defamation. Last year, a federal judge upheld most of a $10 million judgment against the ADL.

Then there was Foxman's famous letter to President Clinton supporting a pardon for Marc Rich, the fugitive crook. Rich had sent the ADL a $100,000 donation a few weeks earlier. Foxman expressed hurt and shock at the insinuation, totally believable, that he had been bought.

The ADL's most toxic contributions are the "rising tide of anti-Semitism" letters sent to potential contributors. I've been on those mailing lists and can testify to the monthly doses of skinheads and Nazi insignia meant to frighten mostly older Jews into writing checks.

As for the young people, defining Jewish identity as a torment of persecution and death sends them walking out the door. What can they do when Foxman issues batty warnings about a "big eruption" of anti-Semitism in New York, and the media treat him not as a lunatic or publicity hound, but as a serious spokesman?

The media really have to help out, because Foxman has no "off" switch. Reporters can be lazy, and there are the pressures of the slow news day. But they should question whether it's their job to slake a man's unquenchable thirst for media attention.

Jews are now into the eight-night festival of Hanukkah. Few gifts would be more appreciated than eight consecutive days of no Abe Foxman.

Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is fharrop@projo.com.

>My point was that the Israelites, even when they had their own kings, were always under threat.

OK, I understand your point.

>By comparison, they have never had it better than here.

That's certainly true. It is interesting to contemplate that todays combined Israelites (who are 99% Celtic Europeans and Americans, and 1% Jews) are quite similar in comparative size to their combined Israelite ancestors in ancient times (who were ~60% Northern Kingdom and ~40% Southern Kingdom).

Today the Israelites are 1/6 of the global population while at the time of David (for comparison) they were about 1/10th. Not a large difference in the grander scheme of things, but times are better for them all, as you point out. And indeed, better for most of their free world.

>#1 Most Americans and Europeans are not Celtic. Those of more or less "pure" Celtic ancestry are a small minority in both areas.

Wrong, I'm afraid. The concept of "pure Celtic ancestry" is mythical, deriving primarily from the mostly British attempt to define "Celt" very narrowly, primarily to some people living in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall and Brittany. They base that definition of the limits of the Roman Empire. While those people are indeed Celts, that narrow (and very commercial) definition ignores most of Celtic history which is based primarily in continental Europe.

>#2 Celts are not Jewish.

Nor did I ever imply they were.

>They are a branch of the Indo-European or Aryan language group. Nothing Semitic about them at all.

To deny that Jews are not Semitic certainly goes against every genetic and historical understanding. Where then does the phrase "anti-Semitic" come from with regard to Jews?

Language is a terribly innacurate way to try to determine anything about who is who. While it is popularly taught in classrooms, often in easy "meet the science requirement" classes for non-scientists, no serious archeologist uses language to determine migratory patterns and peoples identity.

>#3 The theory that the Jewish population of Palestine ever totaled 10% of the world's population is ludicrous.

I didn't say that either. I was talking about the ISRAELITE population. The worls ISRAELITE and JEW are not interchangeable. But then, it's not every day you get to learn something new. {ggg}.

>If they had ever had that amount of population they would have been major world powers,

But the Israelites of Davids time were a major power. To say world power is thinking pretty big, but due to limitations of transportation and communication there were no world powers then in the way we think of them today.

However big powers then like big powers today are defeated in war by other big powers. Thus the Assyrian capture of the Northern Kingdom, and all that followed.

>Don't even try. This guy's a Johnny one-note who is OBSESSED with this nonsense.

Sigh. I suppose TRUTH can be an "obsession" when it steps on someones delicate toes.

Maybe you would be so good as to point out SPECIFICALLY where you find "nonesense". Let's take the first 5 paragraphs first to keep it organized. Your move:

3-MINUTE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES

Four Thousand years ago, Abraham (a great-great grandson of Shem, a son of Noah) and a small group of Hebrews (of which there were & are many varieties) migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan (~Palestine). Several generations later, around 1853 BC, his Grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel) and his 12 Sons and families moved to Egypt. As offspring of Shem, they were called "Shemites" or "Semites", as were his many other offspring.

~1453 BC, now as the 12 Tribes of the 12 Sons of Israel, and over 3 Million strong, these Semites bailed out of Egypt in the well-documented overland EXODUS and fled back to ~Palestine. But the Tribes "couldn't all get along" there, so ~922 BC these 5 Million Israelites split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.

(In actual numbers, 5 Million people is about the same size as Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Israel today, and was 10% of the estimated 50 Million world population at that time. The world population is now ONE HUNDRED TIMES as large. Compared to todays 6 Billion people, the Israelites relative population would have been over twice as large as the United States of America!)

The very large Northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of 10 of the Tribes. Inheriting the Kingly names which applied to all 12 Tribes before the split, the Northern Kingdom (alone) becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel or House of Israel, (also House of Joseph, House of Ephriam, House of Isaac, and House of Omri), and is led by the northern Tribe of Ephraim.

Two hundred years later these Northern Israelites were taken into captivity by the Assyrians (~722 BC) and relocated to the northern Fertile Crescent area of Iraq/Iran. They were not diligent in updating their eMail addresses, thus were called, by some, the "Lost Tribes", or "Lost Sheep" or "Lost Children" of the Kingdom or House of Israel. (However at ~1/12 or more of the worlds population it seems unlikely they would actually disappear, or get "lost". The global population now ~75 Million.)

A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts. These Celts mixed with (and fought against) each other, and with other scattered Israelites (proto-Celts) who had escaped from Egypt by sea nearly a thousand years earlier, before the overland Exodus. Also, with other Israelites who migrated from Palestine after the overland Exodus but before the Assyrian captivity and who had already established numerous outposts in Europe and elsewhere.

These Millions of Celts grew to become Tens, then Hundreds of Millions as they migrated in waves westward and northwest to Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, Collosse, to what is today Hallstatt, Austria and Neuchatel, Switzerland (where exist major Celtic digs and museums) and beyond, to totally dominate Northern and Western Europe. These Celts (also as Cimmerians, Scythians, Danaoi, Massagetae, Milesians, Masilia, Sarmatians, Germani, Goths, Franks, Gauls, Lombards, Belgae, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vandals, Danes, Normans, and other assorted "Barbarians") are the rootstock of today's Europeans and Americans who became the backbone of global Christianity.

The much smaller Southern Kingdom was made up of the Tribe of Judah & a mix of Levites and Benjamites. It was also known as the Kingdom of Judah or House of Judah. These Southern Israelites (aka Judeans) were taken captive in ~587 BC and removed to Babylon. Only ~50,000 Judeans returned to Palestine ~70 years later. They and their offspring are called Jews.

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