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Dishonoring Christian
religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism. Spitting on
the
cross, an especially on
the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been
obligatory from around
AD 200 for pious Jews. In the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic
hostility was a real
one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to spit so
that the reason for
doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto their chests, not
actually on
the cross or openly
before the church. The increasing strength of the Jewish state has
caused these customs to
become more open again but there should be no mistake: The
spitting on the cross
for converts from Christianity to Judaism, organized in Kibbutz
Sa'ad
and financed by the
Israeli government is a an act of traditional Jewish piety. It does
not
seize to be barbaric,
horrifying and wicked because of this! On the contrary, it is
worse
because it is so
traditional, and much more dangerous as well, just as the renewed
anti-Semitism of the
Nazis was dangerous, because in part, it played on the traditional
anti-Semitic past.
This barbarous attitude
of contempt and hate for Christian religious symbols has grown in
Israel. In the 1950s
Israel issued a series of stamps representing pictures of Israeli
cities.
In the picture of
Nazareth, there was a church and on its top a cross - almost
invisible,
perhaps the size of a
millimeter. Nevertheless, the religious parties, supported by many
on the Zionist "left"
made a scandal and the stamps were quickly withdrawn and replaced
by an almost identical
series from which the microscopic cross was withdrawn.
Then there was the
long-drawn-out battle about Christian influence in elementary
arithmetic.
Pious Jews object to the
international plus sign for it is a cross, and it may in their
opinion,
influence little
children to convert to Christianity. Another "explanation" holds; it
would then
be difficult to
"educate" them to spit on the cross, if they become used to it in
their
arithmetic exercises.
Until the early 1970s two different sets of arithmetic books were
used
in Israel.One for the
secular schools, employing an inverted "T" sign. In the early '70's
the
religious fanatics
"converted" the Labour Party to the great danger of the cross in
arithmetic, and from
that time, in all Hebrew elementary schools (and now many high
schools as well) the
international plus sign has been forbidden.
Similar development is
visible in other areas of education. Teaching the New Testament
was always forbidden,
but in the old time conscientious teachers of history used to
circumvent the
prohibition, by organizing seminars or sending the students to
libraries (not
the school libraries, of
course). About 10 years ago there was a wave of denouncing such
teachers. One in
Jerusalem was almost sacked, for advising her history pupils, who
were
studying the history of
Jews in Palestine around 30-40 AD, that it would be a good thing if
they would read a few
chapters of the New Testament as a historical aid. She retained her
post only after humbly
promising not to do this again.
However in recent years,
anti-Christian feelings are literally exploding in Israel (and among
Israel-worshipping Jews
in Diaspora too) together with the increase of the Jewish
fanaticism in all other
areas too.
The real enemies of
truth here, as in many other aspects of the Israel reality, are the
socialists, "liberals",
"radicals", etc. in the USA. Imagine the reaction of the US
Liberals,
and of such papers as
The Nation and New York Review of Books, not to speak of
the
New York Times if
in any state whatsoever, the government financed spitting on a Star
of
David? But when here in
Israel, the government finances the spitting on a cross, they are
and will continue to be,
quite silent. More than this, they help to finance it. United
States
taxpayers, who are of
course mostly Christians, are financing at least half the Israeli
budget, one way or
another, and therefore the spitting on the cross too.
Professor Israel Shahak
is an Israeli citizen, former concentration camp inmate during
WW II, and the founder
of Israel's Human Rights League. His new book "Jewish History,
Jewish Religion" about
Jewish hatred and contempt toward Gentiles, is highly
recommended.
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