Jewish Archives - Page 3 of 64 - The New Antisemitism

August 7, 2023 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Jewish World Domination Explained!

One of the major accusations against Jewish people worldwide is that we want to control things from politics to the Media to Hollywood to the banking system. We have been accused of wanting to take over the world for centuries, but the one piece that put Jewish world domination on the map more than anything is probably the early 1900s Russian hoax plagiarized from the previous work of French author Maurice Joly, “The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.” It was officially debunked in the early 1920s but is still in circulation today in many languages and is known as “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel described the Protocols: “If ever a piece of writing could produce mass hatred, it is this one. . . . This book is about lies and slander.”

Attributed to a cabal of Jewish leaders, the agenda of the Protocols calls for a global Jewish takeover: “By all these means, we shall so wear down the GOYIM that they will be compelled to offer us international power of a nature that, by its position, will enable us, without any violence, gradually to absorb all the State forces of the world and to form a Super-Government. In place of the rulers of today, we shall set up a bogey which will be called the Super-Government Administration. Its hands will reach out in all directions like nippers, and its organization will be of such colossal dimensions that it cannot fail to subdue all the nations of the word.” (Protocol V.)

Frankly, I find it eerily reminiscent of the biblical promise of a New World Order (Revelation 13 and 17.) All one would have to do is switch the main protagonists, and it would fit the times we live in. They also claim to control the Press: “We must compel the governments of the goyim to take action in the direction favored by our widely-conceived plan, already approaching the desired consummation, by what we shall represent as public opinion, secretly prompted by us through the means of that so-called “Great Power”—the Press, which, with a few exceptions that may be disregarded, is already entirely in our hands. (Protocol VII.)

The accusation of Jewish world domination precedes the publication of the Protocols, as Jews were accused of creating and spreading the 14th Century Black Plague to destroy Christian Europe and take over the continent. The pamphlet lays out a precise plan for takeover but keeps all the players, including the author, anonymous. Not one name is mentioned. Not the name of leaders, victims or even co-perpetrators. This might very well be a factor in the survival of such a piece of trash for so long when all other propaganda works have come and gone.

The Protocols can be applied to Jewish people through time without risking becoming obsolete; in the mind of antisemites, that is! Additionally, some have applied the plot of the Protocols to modern days, claiming erroneously that the Jews were behind the latest pandemic. They also paint a picture of Jewish greed and Jewish banking control.

True, there are a lot of Jewish people in the financial world, and many of them are or have been extremely successful and, as a result, have amassed large fortunes. This is based on what is known as shrewdness. Jewish people are shrewd. They are good at business transactions which helps them make good profits. Incidentally, this is not exclusive to Jewish people. There are plenty of successful Gentiles in the world, but shrewdness might be more prevalent among Jewish people, for which they really shouldn’t have to apologize. Jewish philanthropy is one of the highest in the world. Jewish people can actually be very generous with their money. This is based on two traditions: tzedakah (charitable giving) and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).

This concept of Tikkun Olam really warrants our attention if we want to better understand the predominance of Jewish people in the most influential segments of society because, at the end of the day, influential Jewish people are not trying to take over the world, but they are seeking the betterment of the planet one innovation at a time.

Consider this, Between 1901 and 2022, out of the 900 people who receive the honor, 211 were Jewish. That’s about 23% of all Nobel Prizes ever given to people. Keep in mind that Jewish people make up only 0.02% of the world population, and NO, the Jews do not control the Nobel Prize organization!
So, Tikkun (Repairing) Olam (The World) is a Jewish concept that transcends various levels of religiosity on the wide spectrum of Jewish identity. Assigning it to the Tanach (G-d’s Law), the Talmud (Oral law) or even Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), Jewish people recognize that the world can use improvement. Tikkun Olam was even recognized by the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson as the duty of every human being, and not only the Jewish people. Additionally, religious Jews believe that every one of the 613 mitzvot (commandments) prescribed in the Torah are representative of Tikkun Olam. Could we then assert that Tikkun Olam is within the fabric of every Jew, religious or not? Possibly!

The desire to make this world a better world is commendable. One certainly doesn’t have to be Jewish to seek and practice Tikkun Olam. This being said, when we look at Jewish innovation over the centuries, and certainly over the last few decades, we must admit that many improvements came from Jewish people. The world is indeed a better place because of inventions like drip irrigation, the laser, pacemakers, stainless steel, the polio vaccine, word-processing computers, mobile phones and Google®, to name just a few.

It is entirely possible that there exists a certain jealousy between some people and the Jewish people. Coupled with the longest hatred of antisemitism, Jewish inventions and innovations, instead of being praised, are seen as means to an end, that end being world domination. This is ludicrous! To be sure, I do not adhere to all the Jewish concepts derived from Tikkun Olam, but the idea of contributing to our world to make it a better place is part of my personal modus operandi. I am Jewish, but the last thing on my mind is to take over the world.

There is a promise of a final Tikkun Olam coming in the future. As much as we strive to make this world a better place, the Bible tells us that G-d will send His Messiah to judge the world and restore it to what it was meant to be in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden.) Only the Messiah will fulfill Tikkun Olam perfectly and for all eternity. Our people patiently await Him, and in the meantime, they seek to contribute to their own version of Tikkun Olam.
The Messiah already paid us a visit to bring peace to the hearts of men (Isaiah 52:13-53-12), and He will return a second time to bring peace to the world and settle Tikkun Olam once and for all. Only Mashiach can truly repair the world because He is the One who created it in the first place.

In the meantime, let’s not accuse the Jews of seeking to take over the planet. We are not looking for a takeover, but we might be guilty of looking for a makeover!

July 1, 2023 By Olivier Melnick 8 Comments

Holocaust Denial Is Pure Evil?

As unfathomable as the Holocaust was to those who entered the death camps at the end of WWII, it is all the more unthinkable even to contemplate the idea that the Holocaust never happened. Of all people, General Eisenhower understood that very well when he visited a death camp with General Patton after the war. When he spoke to members of Congress who had just visited Buchenwald in 1945, he said, “You saw only one camp yesterday. There are many others. Your responsibilities, I believe, extend into a great field, and informing the people at home of things like these atrocities is one of them… Nothing is covered up. We have nothing to conceal. The barbarous treatment these people received in the German concentration camps is almost unbelievable. I want you to see for yourself and be spokesmen for the United States.”

Furthermore, in a letter to General Marshall, also in 1945, he also wrote, “While I was touring the camp, I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops the tendency to charge these allegations merely to “propaganda.”

General Eisenhower somehow understood that the human race is such that if the Holocaust could be erased, minimized or denied, people would find ways to do it. He was very concerned about preserving the memory of such carnage for future generations. In spite of his efforts and that of others, Holocaust denial is a real thing in 2023.

Of all the people who spent years hunting Nazis post-WWII, Simon Wiesenthal understood that bringing those criminals to justice was critical but not enough. In his book The Sunflower, he said, “Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.”

Wiesenthal was so right! Especially as we move forward into the 21^st century and both criminals and surviving victims are in their mid-90s. Soon, very soon, first-hand accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust will be a thing of the past, and the historical revisionists will be one step closer to making the Jewish catastrophe completely disappear from the annals of history.

So was Elie Wiesel in Night, the memoir of his time in Auschwitz, “For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time,”

One of the most known Holocaust deniers is David Irving, who has written several books on the Third Reich and who has described the Holocaust as “limited,” “experimental,” “not systematic,” and “an invention of the allies.” He was exposed in a book by Jewish historian and antisemitism expert Deborah Lipstadt. In Denying the Holocaust, Lipstadt called Irving a Holocaust denier. This led to Irving suing her and Penguin Books. Irving was found by the judge to be an antisemite, a racist and a falsifier of the historical record. He lost, but unfortunately, that was just one battle against Holocaust denial that was a victory, but certainly not the war.

Why are people not trying to deny American slavery or the Russian Gulag? I am not in any way suggesting that we should deny these two other human tragedies or any others, but I am wondering why such focus is on the Jewish tragedy.

To be honest, I am not wondering why such focus is on trying to erase the Holocaust from history. Satan will invest all his efforts in trying to ridicule, minimize, ostracize and even demonize Jewish existence. He would be thrilled if he could convince some that the Holocaust never happened or was grossly exaggerated by the Allies or Jewish people to justify pushing for the creation of a Jewish state.

One way to fight Holocaust denial is through education: at home, at school, through movies and even in churches and mosques. Some have said that people talk too much about the Holocaust, but a survey taken two years ago shows otherwise.

63% of Millennials and Gen Z didn’t know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.
48% of Millennials and Gen Z couldn’t name one single concentration camp.
56% of Millennials and Gen Z were unable to identify Auschwitz.
11% of Millennials and Gen Z believe that Jews caused the Holocaust.
49% of Millennials and Gen Z have seen Holocaust Denial on Social Networks.

Please do not tell me that we are speaking too much about the Holocaust after you consider the result of that survey. As first-hand accounts are becoming a rarity, the memory of the Holocaust is in our hands. Our generation is now responsible for continuing the fight for the preservation of historical truth and for the respect of the memory of the six million.

Holocaust Denial is pure evil, it is an insult to the victims and the survivors. When we see it, read it or even hear it, if we remain silent, we become the new bystanders of the 21^st century. Bystanders at such a critical crossroads in human history as at any other time are becoming co-perpetrators.

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” (Elie Wiesel).

June 26, 2023 By Olivier Melnick 7 Comments

144,000 reasons to share the Gospel with your Jewish friends

Our Bible is replete with numbers, adding numerical precision to God’s counsel. Incidentally, we can tend to focus on parts of the Bible that do not have specific numbers and ignore those other parts that have precise numbers given to us for a reason. Unless otherwise specified–as in the seventy weeks of Daniel– we should always take biblical numbers literally.

So, what are we to make of God’s description of the 144,000 men from Israel in Revelation? Keeping with the context, in Revelation 7:1-8, they will be 12,000 Jewish men from the 12 tribes of Israel. They will not be Jehovah’s Witnesses or any other group of men. There is no reason to believe that they are spiritual Israel either.

Some have argued that tribal identity is no longer identifiable since–to the exception of the Levites who carry their tribal identity in their names like Cohen or Levy– all records kept inside the Temple in Jerusalem were destroyed when that very Temple was destroyed in A.D. 70. So, today, the vast majority of the Jewish people do not know their tribal origins and will not be able to discover it by any other means. While this identity is lost to men, it was never lost to our omniscient God, and since He will personally hand-select the 144,000 men to become world evangelists during the Tribulation, we ought not to worry about who they are.

On the other hand, we ought to rejoice and be very grateful that even during such a time of turmoil on planet Earth during the Tribulation, God will provide a way out of eternal damnation through the powerful evangelistic ministry of these 144,000 preachers of the Word. The future of some of our loved ones left behind will depend on the witness of these evangelists.

In Revelation 14:1-5, we read again about the 144,000, this time towards the end of the Great Tribulation.

1 Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. 3 And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth. 4 These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These have been purchased from among men as first fruits to God and to the Lamb. 5 And no lie was found in their mouth; they are blameless.

We can learn several things about these men from the two passages:

• Revelation 14:1 tells us that they will receive the special seal from the Lamb and the Father on their forehead as they will be set apart for a very special ministry. That seal will also protect them from harm during the Great Tribulation, also known as the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble,” since it will focus primarily, but not exclusively, on the Jewish people.
Revelation 14:1, “having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads.”

• Revelation 14:3 explains to us that they have been purchased. Yeshua paid the price for these men with His own blood, so they belong to Him.
Revelation 14:3, “the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth.”

• Revelation 14:4 adds that these 144,000 Jewish men will be pure as not having defiled themselves with women. There is no reason to look at this part allegorically. This speaks of virgin men set aside for celibacy and service to God.
Revelation 14:4 “These are the ones who have not been defiled with women, for they have kept themselves chaste.”

• Revelation 14:4 also tells us that these men will be obedient to the call that they have received from the Lamb. They will be persistent and consistent against all odds.
Revelation 14:4 “These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes.”

These men will turn out to be the greatest evangelists the world has ever known. Incidentally, since the Jewish people have been scattered by God into the Diaspora, we can find Jewish people all over the globe, and they usually speak at least two languages and often more. What a great asset to their evangelistic endeavor during the Tribulation. They will be unstoppable and through their ministry, many people will come to a saving knowledge of Yeshua the Messiah.

These men will be Jewish men left behind as unbelievers after the pre-tribulational, pre-millennial Rapture of the Church. They will become believers after the Rapture and then start their evangelistic ministry. Now, the one thing we cannot do as believers is to set a date for the Rapture. Yeshua Himself warned us. Nobody knows the day or the hour and we shouldn’t try to figure it out.
Matthew 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.
Acts 1:7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;

Yet, there is something that we should do and be very excited about doing. When we look around us, no matter what country we live in, most people get the impression that we truly are in the last hour of the end-days. It is surprising to see that Yeshua hasn’t already returned to snatch the Saints and allow for the Tribulation to start. But God doesn’t wish for anyone to perish.
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

While many will never accept Yeshua as the Son of God, Savior of the world and Messiah of Israel, He is longsuffering and is giving the world more time to come to Him. Considering the times we live in, it might not be an exaggeration to believe that some of the Jewish males we encounter and share the Gospel with will become part of the 144,000. This is supposed to be an encouragement to all believers. Today, whenever we share the Gospel with a Jewish man, you could be planting a Gospel seed in the heart of one of the future 144,000. We would be investing in future kingdom work way beyond the Rapture. Along those lines, we also ought to start praying for the 144,000 and their ministry.

So, aside from seeking to bless the Jewish people and in return, be blessed by the God of Israel according to the promise given in Genesis 12:3, we truly have 144,000 reasons to share the Gospel with Jewish people today. We truly live in exciting times!

June 4, 2023 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

The White House Strategy to Combat Antisemitism Should Start with CUNY!

On May 25th, the White House unveiled a new strategy to combat antisemitism in America in a 60-page document. In President Joe Biden’s words, “Toward that aim, my Administration has developed the first U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. It represents the most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history. It also brings Americans together—regardless of our backgrounds and beliefs—to stand united against the hate, racism, bigotry, and violence that have long haunted our Nation. The Strategy outlines a whole-of-society effort to combat antisemitism, including unprecedented, coordinated, and bold actions that will be implemented across government agencies, as well as calls to action for public officials, private sector leaders, and Americans from every sector, industry, and walk of life. “

In principle, I have to applaud that statement. It seems to show that a great effort is being made to combat the oldest hatred. After all, it is extremely alarming to know that 2.4% of the U.S. population is the victim of 63% of all hate crimes in America. This task force is part of a broader committee known as the “Interagency Policy Committee on Antisemitism, Islamophobia, and Related Forms of Bias and Discrimination.” It has been tasked with combatting antisemitism as its first order of business and has partnered with a myriad of various organizations to do so on as many levels as possible, and again, we should all be very encouraged…If, indeed, this new endeavor truly leads to change. Sadly, I have my doubts.

When it comes, to antisemitism, the number one challenge is education, and, for those interested in fighting the beast of Jew hatred, there are more than enough resources online, in printed form and even in person. Additionally, they announced that “in 2024, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will launch the first-ever U.S.-based Holocaust education research center.” There is great potential for continued education on the Holocaust and its ramifications into the 21st century. This should equip people to debunk history revision and holocaust denial. Again, education is available, but it will only change the landscape if people who learn also take action.

It is not the first time that words have been spoken against the evil of antisemitism. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have claimed multiple times that “America will not tolerate any antisemitism” and that “antisemitism will be punished by law.” Sadly, these have been spoken words but followed by very little action unless the event that led to the statements was important enough to draw the attention of the general public – like the tragedy of the Pittsburgh Synagogue murders in 2018. Even then, not enough has really been done.

Another of the greatest challenges in combatting antisemitism is identifying acts of Jew-hatred as such. When a man took hostages in a synagogue on Shabbat in Colleyville, TX, in 2022, the FBI immediately came out to denounce the crime, but without declaring any antisemitic connection. In their defense, they quickly changed their story. Many incidents take place in America on a daily basis and when the Jewish community witnesses the lack of recognition and lack of any enforcement, they simply don’t report antisemitism anymore. Why would they if nothing or very little gets done?

As the White House is promising action against antisemitism like never before in America, they have an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is. On May 12, there was a graduation ceremony for the the law students’ class of 2023 at City University of New York (CUNY). The school has a reputation for being very liberal, which is their right in our beautiful country. They got into trouble last year for letting graduate Nerdeen Kiswani who has called for “the destruction of Israel,” and invited people to “globalize the Intifada.” One would think that this year, they would have tried to be a little less controversial, let alone not so anti-Jewish.

Enter Fatima Mousa Mohammed to deliver the graduation speech at CUNY 2023 Commencement ceremony. Her 12-minute speech was laced with racism, CRT and antisemitism. A graduation speech is an awesome opportunity to encourage, challenge and inspire the graduating class. It should be seen as an important responsibility and a tremendous honor. Her speech turned out to be none of that, unless, of course, she wanted to encourage people to ostracize and demonize Israel. It is a sad day we live in when people use any platform they can to denigrate the Jewish state with antisemitic tropes. CUNY trains the next generation of legal experts, lawyers and judges. Where is this world going?

Some of the statements that Miss Mohammed said were, “The continual white supremacy that continues to oppress and suppress people in this nation,” and ” I want to celebrate CUNY Law as one of the few if not the only Law School to make a public statement defending the rights of its students to organize and speak out against Israeli settlers colonialism,” “This is the Law School that passed and endorsed BDS on a student and faculty level,” “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshippers, murdering the old, the young, attacking even funerals and graveyards as it encourages lynch mobs to target Palestinian homes and businesses as it imprisons its children as it continues its project of settlers colonialism expelling Palestinians from their home carrying the ongoing Nakba,” “Leading the fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism and Zionism around the world.”

Amid all the statements that are not based on factual truth, she also declared, “We must practice a discipline of truth and courage.” While I agree with this statement, I am not certain that this is what she had just accomplished in her passionate speech. There are a few things that troubled me with her graduation speech, and the reason for my discomfort is the choice of venue for such a declaration. It is absolutely true that we must uphold freedom of speech in America; otherwise, we become a police state with no freedoms at all as a result. Yet, free speech being upheld should never occur if and when it places people at risk for their lives. Some questions we need to ask ourselves after listening to the words of Miss Mohammed are:

• Was her speech encouraging and positive, seeking to make a better world?
• Why was she wearing a Palestinian scarf around her neck?
• Why was there so much cheering from the student body?
• Of all her cries against injustice in the world, was Israel disproportionally represented?
• Were all her complaints about Israel killing Palestinians accurate?
• How did the speech receive faculty approval prior to being delivered (or did she change it at the last minute)?

In their defense, the CUNY Board of Trustees made a statement in which they clearly condemn the speech:

“The remarks by a student-selected speaker at the CUNY Law School graduation, unfortunately, fall into the category of hate speech as they were a public expression of hate toward people and communities based on their religion, race or political affiliation.”

I applaud them for coming out so quickly to denounce the hate-filled speech. Circling back to the new White House strategy to counter antisemitism, what took place at the 2023 CUNY commencement ceremony is a perfect example of the normalization of antisemitism and that it falls into the incidents that the White House needs to identify, analyze, and denounce. But, beyond denouncing the hate, we must start to bring those who promote it to justice and have them pay for their crimes. Maybe I live in a utopian universe, but I still have faith in the human spirit. My prayers go out to our current administration for the hard work that lies ahead of them.

May 23, 2023 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

The Myth of the Greedy Jew Exposed!

The ritual murder of Christian babies for blood to make Passover matzoh and the killing of Christ are two of the most enduring accusations against the Jewish people. Both are easy to debunk if one is interested in historical truth instead of accepting unfounded antisemitic tropes. Not far behind, and still benefitting from immense popularity around the globe, is the false accusation that Jews are very greedy, and as a result, they control most of the financial institutions of the world.
Painting the Jewish people as greedy lovers of money continues to be a pervasive accusation. Most of the time this is accepted at face value without any desire to check the facts. Statements describing Jewish people, such as “It’s all about the Benjamins!” or “The idea that Jewish people are not into money is ridiculous.” are very damaging.

Another damaging way to paint the Jewish people as greedy is in jokes that people tell, linking Jewish people with greed, extreme wealth and bank control. These jokes represent the perfect illustration for what I describe in my new book as “desensitization“–one of the ten criteria defining the normalization of antisemitism. I have heard these jokes for over fifty years in multiple countries and social settings. People truly believe that they are funny when they are indeed very damaging. Just as retelling a racist “joke” promotes more racism, so retelling these “jokes” promotes more antisemitism.

Are there Jewish people who are greedy and love to control money? Of course, there are; but it is not because they are Jewish, but rather, because they are flawed people with selfish, self-serving agendas. Greed can also be found in non-Jews, but nobody is going around telling the world that Gentiles want to control the financial world and have a lot of money in their pockets, and yet, Gentiles constitute 99.08% of the world population. Is it possible that there is more than meets the eye when Jews are accused of greed and bank control?

In all honesty, there are a lot of Jewish people in the financial world and many of them are or have been extremely successful and as a result, have amassed large fortunes. This is based on what is known as shrewdness. Jewish people are shrewd. They are good at business transactions which helps them make good profits, and again, this is not exclusive to Jewish people. There are plenty of successful Gentiles in the world, but shrewdness might be more prevalent among Jewish people, for which they really shouldn’t have to apologize. Additionally, Jewish philanthropy is one of the highest in the world. Jewish people can actually be very generous with their money. This is based on two traditions: tzedakah (charitable giving) and Tikkun Olam (repairing the world).The question remains, “how did we get to where most people believe Jews love money?” For an answer, we must travel back to the Middle Ages, when it became increasingly difficult for Jews to be part of a guild, own their own business and even own slaves making agriculture almost impossible. Not necessarily by choice, the Jewish community became deeply involved in money lending. The process took a while, but the results are at the core of this very old diatribe.

Christians were not allowed to borrow money from other Christians, but ONLY from Jews, who in turn would collect the money back with interest. This was pretty much the only way that the Jewish people could earn a living when all other fields of labor were forbidden to them or made very difficult to enter. Kings of Europe started taxing the Jewish moneylenders on their profit. Taxes kept increasing, so the Jewish moneylenders had to keep pace and increase their interest rates. The process went on for a while and gave birth to the myth of the “greedy Jew.” Some Jewish moneylenders did raise their rates too high, trying to take advantage of needy Christians, but they were not in the majority and ended up with a poor reputation in both the Christian and Jewish communities. Again, these happened to be greedy first and Jewish second.

As moneylending increased, antisemitism amongst the masses became more of a reality. Poor peasants, always in need of money and often borrowing from Jewish moneylenders, ended up building resentment as they were borrowing from “unbelievers”. It almost always led to physical abuse and killings of Jewish people. Princes and nobles would protect the Jewish moneylenders as long as they could benefit from them, but if the borrowers and/or mobs attacked the Jewish community, the princes and nobles would easily abandon “their Jews”. By the end of the thirteenth century, Jews had been expelled from France, England and most of Germany, mostly because of issues in money lending.

We need to refrain from telling jokes about Jewish people liking money. If and when we hear such a joke, we ought not to laugh but immediately correct the person, privately if at all possible and in love. This is not based on facts but on a myth borne out of financial hardship and tension during the Middle Ages. Some might argue that all ethnic jokes are told in poor taste, and I tend to agree with that statement. Unfortunately, as poor taste as it is to paint the Irish as lucky or the French as obnoxious, these false accusations have never led to the killing of Irish or French people. In the case of the Jewish people, it is a different story. Human nature mixed with unfounded jealousy and misinformation has always led to antisemitism, and antisemitism, too often, has also led to the murders of innocent Jewish people.

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