Dr Jim West: Maybe They Would Like to be Spit On Too…

Orthodox Jews in Jersualem that is, who have been around and about lately spitting on Franciscans. Just imagine the outcry if Christians wandering around Jerusalem started spitting on Jews. Cries of racism and anti-semitism would fill the air. Let Franciscans, though, get a face full of Jewish spit and you can’t find a word of it in the American Press. It’s only the Italians who bother to tell the despicable tale.

What’s so galling about the disposition of some adherents of Orthodox Judaism is their apparent belief that they can treat others as poorly as they wish but no one should treat them badly or even whisper the fact they they are just as racist as their foes.

A friend of mine and I once got into a fairly heated argument about the Jews. He said, ‘what you don’t understand is that they bring a lot of this on themselves.’ I said, ‘that’s the same thing as saying a rape victim brought it upon herself. You can’t blame the victim for the vile ignorant evil of their attacker.’ Hence, whatever cause the Orthodox may give, they will forever remain unjustified in their wicked treatment of the priests following the order of St. Francis. The ‘persecuted’ have become the ‘persecutors’. As is always the case. Even among the Jews.

I have received emails from a Jerusalem cleric on the subject that Dr. Jim West reports above. The spitting has been going on for a long time, and I have the impression that a lot of Christian clergy suffered in silence for the sake of interfaith amity and in the hope that they could work with the Israeli government to improve the situation. Now decades later, the problem is worse, and the Israeli government does nothing or hopes that the Christian clergy, who often report about Zionist mistreatment of Palestinians, will disappear.

As a Jewish studies expert, I have to point out that Western Europeans and Americans often have a false view of Jewish history in Eastern Europe.

Under Russian rule in particular, Ethnic Ashkenazim were a frustrated former or disenfranchised elite of Commonwealth Poland.

Jewish anger at loss of status turned toward violence against non-Jews almost 100 years before the German mass murders of Jews started after the German Army initiated Operation Barbarossa in 1941. Sphere: Related Content