Merry Christmas Goes Out of Fashion at The Gap,
National Post [Canada], December 11, 2002
[NOTE: Donald Fisher, the founder and CEO of The Gap clothing chain, is Jewish]
"Staff at Gap clothing stores have been told to wish customers 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas'" Global National sent undercover cameras into a store in Calgary yesterday to see how the advisory is working ... The advisory follows other recent controversies over 'inclusive' language at Toronto City Hall, where the Christmas tree was, for a while, renamed a 'holiday tree'; the Canadian Royal Mint, which ran an ad about 'The Twelve Days of Giving'; and the Royal Ontario Museum, which uses the terms Common Era and Before Common Era instead of the more traditional AD and BC on the James ossuary, an exhibit believed to have contained the bones of the brother of Jesus. Leigh Bridger, an Ottawa high school teacher whose students told her about the advisory, is concerned overly sensitive merchants are smothering the spirit of Christmas, and the meaning of tolerance. 'They [The Gap] hire these students for the Christmas rush, and they won't let them say Merry Christmas,' she said. 'I think tolerance is a two-way street. If the policy was like, 'Use sensitivity, guys,' that's fine. If there's someone who's obviously Muslim -- and there's certain indicators in terms of dress for women -- you're not necessarily going to say Merry Christmas. But if somebody comes with a list and they say they're buying Christmas gifts, why shouldn't that student be allowed to say, 'Well, have a Merry Christmas?' ... Gap Inc. is a global company with annual sales of nearly $14 billion from its Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy stores."

Jewish Groups Challenge Ordinance,
Newsday, November 12, 2002
"Two Jewish groups filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday challenging an ordinance banning anyone but the city from holding events or erecting displays at a downtown plaza during the holiday season. City officials had said the ordinance, which was passed in April, was intended to encourage economic development by keeping Fountain Square uncluttered during the year's busiest retail season. The ordinance prevents the Ku Klux Klan from erecting a cross in the square, as it had done for several years in the 1990s. In 1993 a federal judge granted an injunction blocking city attempts to prevent Klan displays. The lawsuit was filed by Chabad of Southern Ohio, a nonprofit religious organization, and Congregation Lubavitch, which want to continue erecting a menorah on the square. The suit calls the ordinance an unconstitutional 'administrative scheme.'"

Historian to claim England practised Jewish 'ethnic cleansing',
Ananova, October 1, 2000
"A controversial historian will claim on a BBC television programme that England was the first country to conduct 'an act of ethnic cleansing on its Jew'". Simon Schama, a British Jew, is set to spark a new row by making the claim in an episode of the History of Britain series. In it, he'll say King Edward I's expulsion of Jews in 1290 and his execution of hundreds of the elders of the community made England the 'first country to perform a little act of ethnic cleansing'. Another programme mentions that a British chronicler became possibly the first person to use the term 'holocaust' in referring, approvingly, to atrocities against the Jews under the reign of Richard I a century earlier. Researchers on the programme said last week that finding the reference gave them a 'visceral shock'. Schama stresses the support of the Church and the populace for anti-Semitic violence and describes an incident when a ship's Jewish passengers - expelled from England - were deliberately drowned 'to the entertainment of the crew and all who heard about it'. Schama's emphasis on the poor treatment of Jews in England in the Middle Ages will anger traditionalists who have already attacked his programmes for denigrating England and the English, reports the Observer. Conservatives say English 'self-esteem and self-image' will 'take another knock' and that 'the great achievements of this nation are being run down' and there is said to be anger that the BBC has broadcast such programmes."

Not Walt Disney's World Anymore,
by Chuck Baldwin, Toogood Reports, December 19, 2002
"CNS News recently reported, 'Walt Disney World in Florida has eliminated its 28-year tradition of offering on-site religious services to Christian guests.' The report continued by saying, 'Disney is now advising Christian guests to find other places of worship, some of which are miles outside of the Magic Kingdom's boundaries.' Walt Disney must be turning over in his grave. His once family-friendly theme park has become a cutting edge proponent of anti-family activities, including hosting annual 'Gay Day' festivities that draw tens of thousands of sodomites from all over the world. This event is billed as 'America's Biggest Gay and Lesbian Vacation Experience.' Beyond that, Disney [Jewish] CEO Michael Eisner recently boasted that as many as 40% of Disney's employees were homosexuals or lesbians ... [T]oday's Disney seems to delight in flaunting immoral lifestyles. Beyond that, Disney has now decided to expel Christian activities from its park."

Judge refuses to remove monument,
UPI, Nov. 19, 2002
"Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore said Tuesday he will not move a 5,300-pound granite Ten Commandments monument he installed in the state's judicial building in July 2001 and he will appeal a federal court ruling that said it was unconstitutional ... 'We ask Chief Justice Moore to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the judicial building and to stop imposing his personal religious views on the people of Alabama,' said Richard Cohen, executive director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, representing plaintiff Stephen Glassroth."

Palestinian Christians face ethnic cleansing,
by Abe Ata, National Catholic Reporter, November 22, 2002
"The Palestinian Christian is an endangered species. When the modern state of Israel was established there were about 400,000 of us. Two years ago the number was down to 80,000. Now it’s down to 60,000. At that rate, in a few years there will be none of us left. Palestinian Christians within Israel fare little better. On the face of it, their number has grown by 20,000 since 1991. But this is misleading, for the census classification 'Christian' includes some 20,000 recent non-Arab migrants from the former Soviet Union. So why are Palestinian Christians abandoning their homeland? We have lost hope, that’s why. We are treated as non-people. Few outside the Middle East even know we exist, and those who do, conveniently forget. I refer, of course, to the American religious right. They see the modern Israel as a harbinger of the Second Coming, at which time Christians will go to paradise, and all others (presumably including Jews) to hell. To this end they lend military and moral support to Israel. Even by the double-dealing standards of international diplomacy, this is a breathtakingly cynical bargain. It is hard to know who is using whom more: the Christian right for offering secular power in the expectation that the Jewish state will be destroyed by a greater spiritual one, or the Israeli right for accepting their offer. What we do know is that both sides are abusing the Palestinians. Apparently we don’t enter into anyone’s calculations. The views of the Israeli right are well known: They want us gone. Less well known are the views of the American religious right. Senator James Inhofe, R-Okla., said: 'God appeared to Abraham and said: ‘I am giving you this land,’ the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.'” House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, was even more forthright: 'I’m content to have Israel grab the entire West Bank. … I happen to believe that the Palestinians should leave.' There is a phrase for this: ethnic cleansing. Why do American Christians stand by while their leaders advocate the expulsion of fellow Christians? Could it be that they do not know that the Holy Land has been a home to Christians since, well … since Christ? Do not think I am asking for special treatment for Christians. Ethnic cleansing is evil whoever does it and to whomever it is done. Palestinian Christians -- Maronite Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Armenians, Baptists, Copts and Assyrians -- have been rubbing shoulders with each other and with other religions -- Muslims, Jews, Druze and most recently Baha’is -- for centuries. We want to do so for centuries more. But we can’t if we are driven out by despair. What we seek is support: material, moral, political and spiritual." (Abe Ata is a ninth-generation Christian Palestinian born in Bethlehem. He is a visiting Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne in Australia and author of 11 books, including Intermarriage between Christians and Muslims.)

As evangelical Christians cheer, preacher gives money to back Israel,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, November 25, 2002
"They came to honor Israel, at a time when the Jewish state feels particularly isolated in the world. Some 5,000 cheering parishioners of the Cornerstone Church here watched Sunday night as Pastor John Hagee presented $1.5 million for Israel-related causes to the president and CEO of the United Jewish Communities, Stephen Hoffman. Beamed across the world on 26 satellites, Hagee assured the millions in his audience that 'Seventy million evangelical Christians in America stand by Israel in their day of trouble. Israel, you are not alone. We are Zionist. If a line has to be drawn, draw the line around both Christians and Jews. We are one. We are united. We are indivisible.'”

Chanukha Q&A,
ADL (Anti-Defamation League)
[This Jewish lobbying agency's efforts include the pathologizing of Christmas; here it posts a list of "how-tos" to get Christmas references out of the school system, like the following:]
"Is it acceptable for a public school administrator to decorate his office with a Christmas tree and a nativity scene? You have the challenge of communicating two messages. First, you need to let the principal know that, while you understand and respect his beliefs, displaying a nativity scene on school grounds is illegal since it is an unambiguous religious symbol. In order to maintain the legal separation of church and state, he, in his role as school principal, cannot appear to favor one religion over another or create an environment in which students may feel that he harbors a particular bias that may color his decisions in his role as school authority figure." [The ADL encourages watchdogs to report references to Christmas in the schools here]

The 'Holiday Tree' PC Canadians Rule Out Christmas,
xtramsn, November 26, 2002 [Note who is included below in the hero's role: Jewish groups that have been in the vanguard of destroying Christmas]
"Christmas is becoming an endangered word in parts of Canada in a rash of politically correct behaviour - such as renaming a Christmas tree a 'holiday tree' - that even non-Christians dismiss as silly. Toronto city officials began the flap last week when they called the 50-foot (15.2 meter) tree set up outside City Hall a 'holiday tree.' That sparked much derision and prompted the city's mayor to set the record straight. 'Our special events staff went too far with their political correctness when they called it a holiday tree,' said Mayor Mel Lastman [who is Jewish]. 'They were trying to be inclusive and their hearts were in the right place, but you can't be politically correct all the time.' The mayor plans to introduce a motion in city council this week that will officially put the word Christmas in front of the word tree in all future city documents. The name change led to complaints from Christians and left many non-Christians wondering what all the fuss was about. 'To take a generic term, slap it on a symbol that really only has significance to one religion..and then say we're being multicultural does not really fit,' said Anita Bromberg of the Jewish group B'nai Brith Canada. 'Whatever you call it, it's still a Christmas tree ... The Royal Canadian Mint has a commercial in which it changes the old holiday standard 'Twelve Days of Christmas' to 'Twelve Days of Giving.' But Mint spokesman Phil Taylor said the wording was merely meant to "position coins as a great gift for the holidays for whatever faith.' 'It's the same kind of over the top political correctness," said Bernie Farber, Ontario executive director of the Canadian Jewish Congress."

Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights,
Chicago Sun-Times, November 27, 2002
"Heaven help the unsuspecting families who wander into 'Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights' expecting a jolly animated holiday funfest. The holidays aren't very cheerful in Sandlerville, which is why the PG-13 rating mentions 'frequent and crude sexual humor.' The MPAA doesn't mention it, but there's also a lot of scatological humor in the film, in keeping with Sandler's inexplicable fascination with defecation, flatulence and bodily fluids. If this is not a family film, what is it? Well, the audiences for 'Jackass' may enjoy a scene where Davey, the hero, slams a sweet little old man into a Port-a-Potty and shoves it down a hill. When the geezer emerges at the bottom, he is still alive, but covered from head to toe with excrement. Then Davey sprays him with a garden hose, and he freezes solid. Ho, ho. Davey (who looks like and is voiced by Sandler) is 'a 33-year-old crazy Jewish guy,' the film informs us, who is up before the judge on the latest in a long series of brushes with the law, this time for drunkenness ... I can understand why Sandler might want to venture into 'South Park' territory with a raunchy animated cartoon, but not why he links it to Christmas and Hanukkah. The advertising will inevitably use holiday images, and in the minds of most people those images will not suggest a film this angry and vulgar. There is also an odd disconnect between Sandler's pride in his Jewishness, which is admirable, and his willingness to display the obnoxious behavior of this particular Jewish character to an audience that may not get the point."

'I believe in Santa', says PM,
The Age (Australia), November 29 2002
"Prime Minister John Howard today declared he believed in Santa Claus and said any childcare centre planning a Santa boycott was a slave to political correctness. Some Victorian kindergartens and childcare centres have banned Father Christmas, replacing him with figures such as clowns to avoid offending minority groups. Mr Howard said the move was ridiculous and said believing in Santa was one of the wonderful things about childhood ... The prime minister also attacked department stores which skipped traditional nativity scenes as part of their festive decorations, saying they had also caved in to political correctness."

Israelis arrest pastor after W. Bank protest,
Deseret News, November 30, 2002
"A United Methodist pastor from Washington state was among a group of protesters detained after demonstrating against Israel's construction of a security fence near the West Bank town of Tullkarem. The Rev. Gordon Hutchins said he was released Nov. 19 after four days in custody and rejoined the Lutheran group he had been traveling with. 'The people of Palestine are being systematically destroyed,' he told United Methodist News Service. 'The objective of Israel is ultimately to be the only people in this country.'

Court Reverses Cincinnati Ban on Menorah Display,
ABC News, November 30, 2002
"A U.S. Supreme Court justice has struck down the city of Cincinnati's ban against a Jewish display of the menorah on a downtown square -- and all other religious exhibits -- during the holiday season. Justice John Paul Stevens ruled late Friday that the city may not enforce its restriction against such displays, which was designed primarily to block the Ku Klux Klan from erecting a cross on Fountain Square as it has several times during the Christmas season in the past. In upholding a decision Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott, Justice Stevens said the city was denying citizens' rights to use the square as a 'public forum.' Judge Dlott called it an 'offensive violation' of free-speech rights for the city to confine the use of Fountain Square to a city-sponsored display, including a huge Christmas tree, during the seven-week period ... When the Ku Klux Klan has put up Christmas crosses in the past, the city has been forced to protect them from protesters who have dismantled them on several occasions. Such disorders have discouraged people from shopping downtown, the mayor said. Chabad of Southern Ohio, the Jewish organization which sought to overturn the city restriction, had applied for a city permit to erect a 10-foot-high candelabrum known as a menorah during the eight days of Hanukkah, which began Friday."

Jews follow Jesus between worlds. 'He Is The Messiah,'
gomemphis.com, November 30, 2002
" They are avoided by most Jews and misunderstood by many Christians. Though they share beliefs with both faiths, they don't belong to either. They are Messianic Jews - Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah. Twenty years after Memphis's first Messianic congregation moved from a private home into a converted bungalow in East Memphis, B'rit Hadasha Messianic Jewish Synagogue is still a bit of a mystery to most. "A lot of times we feel isolated, like we're between two worlds," says Rabbi Gary Shansky. 'Christians are hungry to hear more about us, but they don't understand why we hold on to those (Jewish) things. But the Jewish world is totally against us. They look at us as being dangerous, like a cult trying to convert Jews to Christianity' ... Messianic Jewish congregations have been accused of being Christians masquerading as Jews. 'That's why we make sure that our congregations have some Jews among their members,' said Evelyn Hamilton with the union in Albuquerque. B'rit Hadasha considers itself more Jewish than not. Fifty-five families belong, with 80 to 100 people attending weekly services, Shansky said. The congregation is about 30 percent Jewish and 70 percent non-Jewish - members with no Jewish bloodline. 'I'm Jewish by birth,' Shansky says, but he doesn't advocate that those who are not call themselves Jews. Those with non-Jewish backgrounds are called simply Messianic believers. They follow the Jewish calendar, embrace Jewish traditions, celebrate the Jewish feasts and honor the Torah. They love and support Israel. Their services are a mixture of English and Hebrew. They have prayer shawls and yarmulkes or skull caps. They use siddurims or Jewish prayer books. They observe the Sabbath on Saturday. And their Torah scrolls are held and protected in a huge ark. 'We feel our faith is very Jewish,' Shansky says."

Ripping Up the Religious Roots of Christimas,
Catholic Defense League for Civil and Religious Liberties, December 4, 2002
" In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled that it was okay to display a menorah on public property because it was situated next to a secular symbol (a Christmas tree) but it was not okay to put a crèche standing by itself on public property. In any event, the current status in the U.S. is troubling. “In New York City, a menorah and a crèche (the latter owned by the Catholic League) are allowed to be erected in Central Park. In Chicago, Daley Plaza is home to both religious symbols. But in Airmont, New York, menorahs are allowed and crèches are banned. The same is true in Birmingham, Michigan. In this instance, the town’s mayor, Seth Chafetz, has unwittingly insulted Christians by saying his city is a model of ‘tolerance and diversity’ because it allows a menorah and a Christmas tree. He mistakenly drew on the 6th U.S. Circuit Court decision in 1986 that banned the nativity scene from being erected in front of City Hall in Birmingham because it was not adorned by secular symbols. In short, he could okay a crèche in the same spot as the menorah."

MP's Christmas card angers Jewish group,
Toronto Star, December 6, 2002
"A Quebec member of Parliament has outraged a Jewish organization for using public funds to send out a Christmas card that shows him posing with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Jean-Guy Carignan, 61, who sits as an independent, but is still a member of the Liberal party, began mailing the card to about 2,000 constituents of his Quebec City East riding on Tuesday. The cards were printed and paid for by the House of Commons and sent out under the postal exemption that allows MPs to mail constituents for free. The photo was taken in Ramallah in May, when Carignan and eight other MPs went to the Middle East. Toronto-based Palestine House paid for the trip. He says the image reflects his desire see a resolution to the Middle East conflict. But the image drew an angry reaction from officials with B'nai Brith Canada, who thought the card was a practical joke when it was first described to them. National president Rochelle Wilner said that both Jews and non-Jews would find the use of taxpayer dollars for the card offensive, particularly during the holiday season."

The Creativity of Tina Brown,
First Things, August-September 1995
"Is there a bathroom or den in any university town in America that is not graced with Saul Steinberg's New Yorker cover of a map showing Manhattan as the center of the world? ... Ms. [Tina] Brown and those she has brought on board to create the new New Yorker are of the arrested adolescent school of journalism in which "creativity" never gets beyond self-congratulatory daring in defying putative taboos ... In his more recent efforts, [David] Remnick has deployed his talents in bashing the Pope and celebrating Elaine Pagel's polemical outbursts against Christian hangups about good and evil ... Among the other instances of 'creativity' at the new New Yorker, the cover of the issue coinciding with Holy Week this year was notable. It was a crude cartoon of an Easter bunny crucified on an IRS return. Unlike the cover with the amorous Hasid, this occasioned little comment locally. One might think that has something to do with the Jewish presence in New York publishing, but it possibly has more to do with people having become accustomed to Ms. Brown's juvenile delinquencies. It's just Tina being daring again, don't you know ... The cartoonist, Art Spiegelman, said he didn't know why the Catholic League was upset, since all he was trying to do was criticize Republican proposals for a tax cut that would 'crucify' the average American. Ah well, that's different. We thought it was an egregious trashing of the cross of Christ but, now that Mr. Spiegelman explains that it was all in the good cause of scoring a partisan point against those dreadful Republicans, that puts it in a quite different light ... For the Christmas issue, Mr. Spiegelman had done a cover of a urinating Santa Claus, but Ms. Brown killed it. Some things are still sacred, after all."

Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies in Mid-Twentieth-Century American Intellectual History,
by David A. Hollinger
Paper | 1998 | $17.95 / £12.95 | ISBN: 0-691-00189-8
Princeton University Press
[Book blurb]
"This remarkable group of essays describes the 'culture wars' that consolidated a new, secular ethos in mid-twentieth-century American academia and generated the fresh energies needed for a wide range of scientific and cultural enterprises. Focusing on the decades from the 1930s through the 1960s, David Hollinger discusses the scientists, social scientists, philosophers, and historians who fought the Christian biases that had kept Jews from fully participating in American intellectual life. Today social critics take for granted the comparatively open outlook developed by these men (and men they were, mostly), and charge that their cosmopolitanism was not sufficiently multicultural. Yet Hollinger shows that the liberal cosmopolitans of the mid-century generation defined themselves against the realities of their own time: McCarthyism, Nazi and Communist doctrines, a legacy of anti-Semitic quotas, and both Protestant and Catholic versions of the notion of a 'Christian America.' The victory of liberal cosmopolitans was so sweeping by the 1960s that it has become easy to forget the strength of the enemies they fought. Most books addressing the emergence of Jewish intellectuals celebrate an illustrious cohort of literary figures based in New York City. But the pieces collected here explore the long-postponed acceptance of Jewish immigrants in a variety of settings, especially the social science and humanities faculties of major universities scattered across the country."

Jews, Gays Suing Methodist Home For Hiring Bias,
[Jewish] Forward, AUGUST 9, 2002
"Jews and gays have joined as plaintiffs in a lawsuit here that may test the limits of state-funded institutions in delivering faith-based services. Filed July 31 in the Superior Court of Fulton County, the suit claims that the Decatur, Ga.-based United Methodist Children's Home refuses to hire any Jews, has fired qualified workers for being gay and requires counselors to condemn homosexuality in violation of accepted professional standards. The lawsuit challenges state funding for the home and alleges encouragement of religious indoctrination and discrimination in employment practices. The foster-care facility receives over one million dollars a year from the state. The seven plaintiffs include an openly gay rabbi, a Jewish man who alleges he was not hired by the home because of his religion and a counselor who says she was fired by the home because she is a lesbian. Also named in the suit are the state of Georgia's Department of Human Resources and the department's commissioner, Jim Martin. 'I am in this lawsuit to support Jewish values," said Rabbi Joshua Lesser, founder of Congregation Bet Haverim, a gay and lesbian synagogue in Decatur, two miles from the home. Lesser also said he joined the suit as a taxpayer 'and to support the separation of church and state.'"

War Against Christmas Competition 2002 [IV]: South Park Offensive,
by Kevin Beary, Vdare, December 23, 2002
"Among the younger generation, South Park’s 'Mr. Hankey, The Christmas Poo' is fast becoming a staple of Yuletide viewing - right alongside A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. 'This [Christmas] episode has an important moral lesson,' Comedy Central's South Park producer Matt Stone tells us in the prologue ... This irreligious recital sets the tone for the entire episode. The recitation from Luke is immediately followed by a rehearsal of the South Park school's Christmas play, 'The Birth of Jesus,' in which Mary moans as Joseph tells her, "Come on, Mary: push!' With a pop! a purple infant comes out of the girl playing the Blessed Virgin. This scene is, of course, meant to desanctify and mock the birth of Christ. The hero of the episode is Kyle, a Jewish boy who is unpopular at school because of his mother’s efforts to suppress the celebration of Christmas there. (She succeeds). Mr. Hankey, a turd wearing a Santa Hat, issues from the toilet bowl in Kyle’s house. He sings, dances and writes the word Noel in excrement on the bathroom mirror. Kyle tells his schoolmates about the apparition of Mr. Hankey, but they deride him. The boy is sent to the school counselor, who has him put into a straight jacket and a padded cell. However, when the school audience riots while viewing a 'happy, non-offensive, non-denominational Christmas play,' one of the children says: 'Everyone is fighting and my best friend is in an institution, just because we didn't believe in Mr. Hankey' ... The “Hankey” episode ends with a scene inside the South Park Public Access television station studio. The studio is empty save for a figure meant to represent Jesus Christ. He is alone at a big birthday table, singing 'Happy Birthday To Me' in front of a birthday cake with lighted candles. The Christ-figure blows out the candles of his cake and is left in pitch blackness."

[FURTHER CONTEXT TO THE ARTICLE ABOVE]
Jewish kid hitting the big time on TV's outrageous `South Park',
Jewish Bulletin (from Jewish Student Press Service), April 17, 1998
"As Seinfeld sings his swan song, another Jewish character -- a foul-mouthed 8-year-old -- is emerging big-time on the small screen. Though he lacks Jerry's comic genius, receding hairline and outrageous salary, he too has the word 'Jewish' stamped across his resume. He is Kyle Broslofski, from the cartoon show 'South Park.' Taking mostly adolescent and young-adult audiences by storm, the show appears on Comedy Central, the all-comedy cable network. From flaming farts to gay pets, Kyle and his pals push TV's boundaries just as far as they damn well please ... With 4.5 million viewers tuning in each week, 'South Park' is the most popular series in the history of Comedy Central. 'South Park' was born in 1995, when Brian Graden, then an executive at Fox, commissioned Matt Stone, 26, and Trey Parker, 28, to create a holiday video for him to send to friends and colleagues. The two former University of Colorado film students took on the project and used construction paper cutouts and stop-action animation to produce 'The Spirit of Christmas' .... 'It's hard to be a Jew on Christmas,' wails Kyle. References to Kyle's Jewishness have been plentiful in other episodes as well. Most characters latch on to the fact that Kyle is Jewish; it is the trait that defines his character. Kyle is the Jewish kid in the same way that Cartman is the fat kid or Kenny is the poor kid ... Stone, who believes that viewers can, and do, relate to Kyle. 'I can totally sympathize with Kyle,' Stone said in an interview. 'I mean I'm pretty much him.' Stone does the voice-overs for Kyle, chooses his story-line and adventures and is responsible for his personality. Though Stone did not grow up wearing a green cap with earflaps, like Kyle, he knows exactly where Kyle is coming from. 'We're both reactionary, short-tempered and impatient,' Stone said. But the similarities don't stop there. He was born in Houston and raised in the suburbs of Denver. Stone's mother is Jewish, his father Irish and he, like Kyle, considers himself 'ethnically Jewish, but that's about all.'" Stone's annual experience during the holiday season gave him the idea for the Christmas special. "On Christmas Day for my entire life, I've had nothing to do.'"

[MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALAN BOOKBINDER!]
Controversial Virgin Mary film defended. Alarm has reportedly been sparked among Catholics,
BBC, December 22, 2002
"A BBC One programme about the Virgin Mary has been criticised by a Catholic bishop as 'crude and offensive' guesswork. But the film's producer Alan Bookbinder has defended the decision to question the virgin birth. The documentary, to be screened on Sunday evening, questions the Mary of popular imagination. It portrays her as a poor and downtrodden girl, who might have conceived Jesus as a result of being raped ... [T]he Catholic Church said the documentary sparked 'serious alarm'. The RC Bishop of Portsmouth, the Right Reverend Crispian Hollis, accused the programme of offensive speculation which misrepresented a figure respected by millions ... The BBC documentary raises doubts about other traditions, including the birth of Jesus in a stable at Bethlehem and the presence of three wise men. The programme said the traditional image of Mary as a blue-eyed, blonde haired woman wearing expensive blue robes was probably wrong. Mary is revered in the Catholic faith She was probably a hard-working uneducated girl in simple tunics who had an arranged marriage with Joseph aged 13, the programme claims. The programme also questions the Biblical story of Mary's divine conception of Jesus Christ. It reports a version of the event put forward by a second-century historian, who claimed Mary was raped by a Roman soldier."

[MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM WILLIAM PROPP!]
A Scholar Rips Handel’s Messiah,
by William H. C. Propp [Propp is also Jewish],
Bible Review, December 2002
"Every December, concert halls and churches throughout the English-speaking world resound with the strains of George Frederic Handel’s mighty Messiah. For centuries, music lovers have gone home humming the arias and choruses that Handel’s librettist, Charles Jennens, lifted from the 1611 King James translation of the Bible. For this, we may all shout 'Hallelujah!' But here and there in the crowd leaving the concert hall, we spy a biblically literate pedant muttering 'Bah, humbug,' and fretting that, even if the singers’ diction was impeccable, the audience may have missed what the Bible actually says ... Jennens could write with fond condescension, 'Handel’s head is more full of maggots than ever' ... Throughout Jennens juxtaposed New Testament verses with Old Testament passages that the church had traditionally viewed as anticipating Jesus, sometimes lightly adapting the text. (For example, Jennens would change the tense and/or pronouns to imply that Jesus Christ was the subject.)5 At the time, European theologians of the Enlightenment were starting to question the Christian approach to Scripture as divine revelation. With Messiah, Handel and Jennens produced a musical reaffirmation of the conservative view ... However transcendent the average listener finds the soprano aria 'I know that my Redeemer liveth,' here the Grinchy scholar really grinds his teeth ... But I can’t imagine anyone wanting to sing my version. Okay, that’s enough. I’m done being Scrooge. Please forget everything you’ve read here before you attend another performance of Messiah. Sit back and enjoy the music. Although early critics deprecated Messiah as a gross vulgarization of Christian dogma, and though even Jennens complained that Handel had let him down, time has validated the composer’s own appraisal: 'I did think I did see all Heaven before me and the great God Himself.'"

[MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM LEONARD PEIKOFF!]
Christma$ should be commercial, [$ sign in original title]
by LEONARD PEIKOFF [Peikoff is Jewish and "founder of the Ayn Rand Institute." Ayn Rand was also Jewish]
Globe and Mail, December 24, 2002, Page A15
"Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity and the enjoyment of life. Yet the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (such as 'Love thy neighbor') that no one takes seriously. In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post-Civil War America created the happiest nation in history; people wanted to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on Earth. And Christmas (which wasn't a U.S. federal holiday until 1870) became the vehicle for this feeling. Ancient people celebrated the winter solstice as the time when days begin to lengthen, indicating the Earth's return to life. But early Christians condemned these feasts; awaiting the end of the world, they scorned earthly pleasures ... For the first time, gift-giving became a major feature of Christmas. Christians had denounced it, but Americans would not be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, they were rich enough to afford presents, had the productive apparatus to advertise them, and were so content they gave gifts on an unprecedented scale. Although St. Nicholas (and a feeble Dec. 5 holiday connected with him) has been around for a long time, Santa is a U.S. invention ... Santa implicitly rejects Christian ethics ... Santa's no champion of unconditional Christian love. On the contrary, he is for justice, and gives only to good children. The best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. America's tragedy is that its intellectual leaders have tried to replace happiness with guilt by insisting that the spiritual meaning of Christmas is religion and self-sacrifice for Tiny Tim or his equivalent. But the spiritual must start by recognizing reality. Life requires reason, selfishness, capitalism. That's what Christmas should celebrate -- and underneath the pretense, so it does. It's time to take the Christ out of Christmas, and turn the holiday into a guiltlessly egoistic, pro-reason, this-worldly, commercial celebration."

[THE BLIND CHRISTIAN OF THE YEAR AWARD GOES TO "THE CHRISTIAN COALITION OF AMERICA"]
The Christian Coalition and the Jewish Community,
by Ronn Torossian, October 18, 2002, Israel Report (Arutz Sheva)
"As a political consultant, I often am perplexed at the attitude of the Jewish community to many of the conservative causes that I work for. As one who works for The Moledet Party, Zionist Organization of America and many others, at no time I have been so perplexed as in my current position as Media Director for The Christian Coalition of America. As Israel faces terrorist bombings day after day, Anti-Semitism like we haven't seen since World War Two, assimilation and so many other evils, Abraham Foxman and many others tell us 'Beware of the Christians, they want you to convert.' As one who speaks with the Coalition's President ten times a day and maintains a working relationship with Pat Robertson and all of the leading Evangelicals in the United States, I can personally tell you that never once has the leadership of the Coalition asked me to convert ... As I managed the hundreds of media correspondents, and made statements on behalf of the Christian Coalition countless times this past weekend at the organization's annual conference, I felt at home, and in fact more at home than I do in many Jewish events ... The Christian Coalition has 2 Million pro-family supporters, and have influence in the White House. I know on a first hand basis that their Pro-Israel rally this past weekend at which 10,000 people attended had more influence on The White House and world leaders than the Jewish community's pro-Israel rally did a few months ago. One Christian rally does more than 100 Jewish rallies ... As a God fearing Jew, I see eye to eye with them, not only on their Israel agenda, but also on their pro-family agenda, and urge the rest of the Jewish community to join me, and utilize real politick when analyzing their support. Pass the bible, pass the ammunition, and pass the Christians your tickets to Israel, for while we condemn them, they are going and spending money keeping Jewish families safe and financially secure in the Jewish state. When the other issue comes up, let's deal with it. Till then, urge them to support us and let's help them."

[FROM PAPER EDITION]
Price, Stanley. There's Snow Getting Away from It [Book Review of White Christmas: The Song that Changed the World, by Jody Rosen],
Jewish Chronicle (UK), December 6, 2002, p. 32
"No Christimas haters should be put off by [Jody] Rosen's title ["White Christmas. The Song that Changed the World"]. Her book is much more than just 'the story of a song.' She cleverly uses 'White Chrismas' [written by Irving Berlin] as a focus to explore the phenonenon of Jewish assimilation into Americn life in the first half of the twentieth century ... As Rosen shows, in the world of entertainment and culture, it was more a take-over than an assimilation. In that golden era of musical theatre and film, almost the only truly successful gentile was Cole Porter. The Jews owned most of the theatres and almost all of the movie studios. For the Jews there was truly 'No business like show business,' another Irving Berlin hit. America has always been the most comfortable place to be Jewish, and this fascinating book emphasizes Berlin's contribution to this process of subtle Judaisation -- what Rosen calls a 'Yankee Doodle Yiddishkeit.' Rosen quotes, as follows, from Philip Roth's 'Operation Shylock': 'God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and then he gave Irving Berlin 'Easter Parade' and 'White Christmas,' the two holidays that celebrate the divinity of Christ -- and what does Irving Berlin do? He de-Christs them both! Easter turns into a fashion show and Christmas into a holiday about snow.'"

‘Donahue’ for Dec. 17,
MSNBC, December 17, 2002
[Transcript of the "Phil Donahue" Show]
Today's Guests: Al Mohler, Shmuley Boteach, Michael Brown, Joe Hough, REVEREND MOHLER: You know, the real question, given our understanding of what God thinks about human beings that are sinful, the real question is how can any be saved. Not how can any bear God’s judgment. And the reality is that God made provision for us to find salvation through Jesus Christ ... DONAHUE: What does the rabbi say about this? RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH, NATIONAL TALK RADIO HOST: Well, Phil, sadly, Reverend Mohler is a spiritual racist. And it’s not enough for him for Jews to be at the back of the heavenly bus, and not only can they not drink from the good old water fountain, he wants nothing less than a spiritual lynching. The Jewish soul is going to burn in hell forever and ever. And think about how perverse this is. You take a Middle Eastern Jew named Jesus, one of the greatest teachers the world has ever known. You give him blond hair and blue eyes. You then put a Ku Klux Klan outfit on him with a hood and a white sheet, and you make him into the chief enforcer of anti-Semitism the world has ever known ... DONAHUE: But if that faith-You know, then if everybody gets, goes to heaven, then this or that particular faith doesn’t have anything to sell. If it doesn’t matter which faith you’re in, then who gets the most contributions? BOTEACH: But this transcends issue, Phil, of just people making decisions about faith. We are talking about Jews being persecuted, slaughtered... DONAHUE: I agree with you. BOTEACH: ... massacred, turned to bars of soap (ph) because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism. The Holocaust didn’t take place in Buddhist Europe or in Hindu Europe. It took place in Christian Europe. By their fruits you shall know them."

On the Political Stupidity of American Jews,
by Irving Kristol, Azure, Autumn 1999
[Mr. Kristol is one of the most prominently credited Jewish "neo-conservatives" in today's political life]
"It is a fairly extraordinary story when one stops to think about it. In the decades after World War II, as anti-Semitism declined precipitously, and as Jews moved massively into the mainstream of American life, the official Jewish organizations took advantage of these new circumstances to prosecute an aggressive campaign against any public recognition, however slight, of the fact that most Americans are Christian. It is not that the leaders of the Jewish organizations were anti-religious. Most of the Jewish advocates of a secularized 'public square' were themselves members of Jewish congregations. They believed, in all sincerity, that religion should be the private affair of the individual. Religion belonged in the home, in the church and synagogue, and nowhere else. And they believed in this despite the fact that no society in history has ever acceded to the complete privatization of a religion embraced by the overwhelming majority of its members. The truth, of course, is that there is no way that religion can be obliterated from public life when 95 percent of the population is Christian. There is no way of preventing the Christian holidays, for instance, from spilling over into public life. But again, before World War II, there were practically no Jews who cared about such things. I went to a public school, where the children sang carols at Christmastime. Even among those Jews who sang them, I never knew a single one who was drawn to the practice of Christianity by them. Sometimes, the schools sponsored Nativity plays, and the response of the Jews was simply not to participate in them. There was no public 'issue' until the American Civil Liberties Union—which is financed primarily by Jews-arrived on the scene with the discovery that Christmas carols and pageants were a violation of the Constitution. As a matter of fact, our Jewish population in the United States believed in this so passionately that when the Supreme Court, having been prodded by the ACLU, ruled it unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a public school, the Jewish organizations found this ruling unobjectionable. People who wanted their children to know about the Ten Commandments could send their children to heder. Since there was a powerful secularizing trend among American Christians after World War II, there was far less outrage over all this than one might have anticipated. The Jewish campaign against any suggestion that America was a Christian nation won one battle after another; eventually it made sufficient headway in the media and the legal profession—most importantly on the Supreme Court—that today there is widespread popular acceptance of the belief that this kind of secularism, which is tolerant of religion only so long as it is practiced privately and very discreetly, was indigenously and authoritatively 'American,' and had always been so ... Jewish day schools have become more popular, and the ritual in both Reform and Conservative synagogues has become more traditional. But this Jewish revival does not prevent American Jews from being intensely and automatically hostile to the concurrent Christian revival. It is fair to say that American Jews wish to be more Jewish while at the same time being frightened at the prospect of American Christians becoming more Christian. It is also fair to say that American Jews see nothing odd in this attitude. Intoxicated with their economic, political and judicial success over the past half-century, American Jews seem to have no reluctance in expressing their vision of an ideal America: A country where Christians are purely nominal, if that, in their Christianity, while they want the Jews to remain a flourishing religious community. One can easily understand the attractiveness of this vision to Jews. What is less easy to understand is the chutzpah of American Jews in publicly embracing this dual vision. Such arrogance is, I would suggest, a peculiarly Jewish form of political stupidity. For the time being, American Jews are getting away with this arrogance. Indeed, American Christians—and most especially the rising Evangelical movements—are extraordinarily tolerant, if more than a little puzzled, by this novel Jewish posture. And the lack of any negative Christian reaction has only encouraged American Jews in the belief that they have discovered some kind of universally applicable formula for dealing with non-Jews."

Christmas fails PC test in more public schools, An increasing number of public schools nationwide are becoming no-Christmas zones this year in an effort by school officials to accommodate different cultures and not offend non-Christians,
Washington Times, December 20, 2002
"Last week, several elementary teachers in Sacramento, Calif., said they had been banned from using the word 'Christmas' in class, and a mother in San Diego was barred from reading a Christmas story to a fourth-grade class. In New York, some school administrators asked teachers to limit holiday decorations to generic messages, such as 'Happy Holidays' or 'Season's Greetings,' and some city schools barred Nativity displays but allowed exhibition of the Jewish menorah and the Islamic star and crescent. As a result, a lawsuit has been filed. Meanwhile, music and band teachers in Maryland, Virginia and Michigan are not having students sing or play some carols, such as 'Silent Night' and 'The First Noel.' Instead, music selections are kept 'very secular' with songs such as 'Let It Snow,' 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'Jingle Bell Rock.' Critics of such school policies say they have had enough. 'We're at this point where no one wants to offend anyone, but you know what, I'm offended when teachers don't mention Christmas or pretend like it's not there,' said Karen Holgate, director of policy at the Capitol Resource Institute, a pro-family public policy center based in California. 'You will always offend someone whether you like it or not, that's just the way life is. So we need to get over this once and for all and learn to tolerate each other's differences."

A gloomy Christmas in Bethlehem,
Ha'aretz (Israel), December 23, 2002
"The Christian holiday of Christmas will start tomorrow night in Bethlehem in the shadow of Israeli tanks. The town of Bethlehem, holy to Christians worldwide, is still under curfew, and only the traditional convoy of the Latin Patriarch will be allowed to reach the Church of the Nativity. Instead of tourists, there will be Israeli soldiers in the city; instead of decorations and holiday cheer, a feeling of siege and war will be in the air. As far as the Israel Defense Forces are concerned, it will be just another busy day that soldiers hope to get through peacefully. Christians around the world are monitoring Israel's ability to allow free access to the Christian holy sites and freedom of religious worship during a difficult period of terror attacks ... During those years, the ruling concept was that the Christmas holidays were not merely a local event, but a showcase for Israel worldwide. Apparently, that concept is fading, along with Israel's good name in the world. This most important religious rite now appears to be at the mercy of the Israeli government, which can grant or deny the right to hold the ritual. True, the official formalities of the ceremonies will not be disturbed: The convoy will pass on time and the mass will be held as usual. But the formalistic side is incomplete without allowing believers from the territories, Israel and the world to freely attend the events at the holy site. As happened last year, the government decided to prevent Yasser Arafat from attending the ceremonies in Bethlehem, fearing that he would exploit the visit to restore some of the authority and leadership of which Israel has deprived him. This is also a blinkered approach, which regards the Christmas holiday as an alien event that can be handled in an uninspired military manner, ignoring the global symbolism of the holiday. It is impossible to ignore the contribution of Palestinian terrorism to the sad situation in Bethlehem. But even under those circumstances, it seems that the Israeli government is not doing enough to guarantee the rights of Christians to celebrate their holiday as they would like in an area under the IDF's complete control."

Russian city puts face of Christ on its flag,
The Washington Times, December 23, 2002
"Americans are not the only ones wrestling with religious symbols in public places. One Russian city has chosen to put the face of Jesus Christ on its regional flag, causing both joy and consternation among its residents, who include Christians, Muslims and Jews. The new flag may also indicate that Christ has become politically correct in a country on an official search for its Orthodox roots. Penza, an industrial center of more than 1 million people 400 miles southeast of Moscow, has officially adopted a simple, emerald-green flag with Christ in its center. 'The Orthodox Church, the Catholics and the Cossacks support it,' Culture Minister Yury Leptev told broadcast network NTV, which reported that the face of President Vladimir Putin had been considered for the flag. Local Muslim and Jewish communities, Mr. Leptev said, were in favor of the new version, which replaces a design emblazoned with the city's coat of arms: three sheaves of wheat surrounded by gold filigree and red accents. Communists were opposed to the new flag, Mr. Leptev said, 'even though some of them go to church' ... 'It's untimely,' a spokeswoman for Berl Lazar, one of two chief rabbis in Russia, told the newspaper. 'It looks fake,' said a Moscow-based Muslim official. 'Jesus was not born in Penza. You need to ask why he is on the flag.' But Mr. Leptev, the culture minister, defended the choice, saying a local legend justifies using the image of Christ on the flag. According to the story, Ivan the Terrible stopped in the city on his way through the region in the 16th century and promised to present an icon of Jesus to the citizenry upon his return."

A Christian in The Holy Land. Interview with the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem Michel Sabbah,
Newsweek, December 23, 2002
"When Pope John Paul II appointed Michel Sabbah as the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem in 1988, it was the first time the Holy Land’s indigenous Roman Catholics were led by a fellow Palestinian. Previously, Rome had always sent an Italian to fill the sensitive post. Some 20 percent of Palestinians are Christians, including Yasir Arafat’s wife, Suha, who was born into a Christian family before converting ... [Newsweek repoter] BORGHESE: Is it difficult to be a Christian in Israel, and are people heeding the Holy Father’s call for Christians not to leave the Holy Land? SABBAH: Christians live like others. They’re Palestinians, and as a result life is hard and they suffer; their liberty of movement is limited. They’re humiliated and reduced to begging for their daily bread. Some have left, especially those who are economically able to do so. Others remain by principle, and because they want to stay faithful to their homeland and to the church ... [QUESTION]: Is it difficult being a Christian Palestinian in a predominantly Muslim and Jewish land? [SABBAH]: Christians are part of Palestinian society, and the Palestinians are Christians and Muslims. No one is going to flee because of Islamic influence, but because of the lack of work, or the political tension provoked by the curfew. But there is no Muslim persecution of Christians, and in fact they share the same hope of one day having an independent state. [QUESTION]: Don’t you see a desire on the part of Muslims to dominate and convert other faiths? [SABBAH]: Just a moment. This isn’t easily understood in the West. We Palestinians know how to live together and how to understand this relationship. We are one people, even if there are some difficulties. ... [QUESTION:] The Israelis, too, are under attack. They are being overwhelmed with continuing acts of terrorism. [SABBAH]: Under attack, by whom? Israel occupies and attacks someone else’s land and finds resistance. Israel is not being attacked. When Israel ceases to attack and to occupy [the Palestinian territories], they won’t suffer any further counterattacks. If Israel wants to end violence, it only needs to end occupation. I’m 200 percent certain of this, and I’ve said it many times."

Israeli Chief Rabbi Condemns Christmas Celebrations by Jews in Israel,
tbo (Tampa Bay Online), Associated Press, December 24, 2002
"Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau on Tuesday urged Jews in Israel not to celebrate Christmas or New Year's Day, warning that such observances threaten the identity of the Jewish state. Lau encouraged Christian Israeli Arabs, foreign workers and immigrants to mark the holidays. But he said Jewish families should not 'be swept into keeping a way of life that is not their own, while obliterating and losing their self-respect.' In recent years, small numbers of Israeli Jews have begun celebrating Christmas, putting up lights in shops and even trees in homes. The trend began with the influx of thousands of Christians - many of them married to Jews - in the early 1990s as part of a wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union. At the same time, New Year's Eve has become a major party night at Tel Aviv hotels, despite threats by local rabbis to punish the establishments by removing their approval to serve kosher food. Interest in Christmas has grown since fighting with the Palestinians broke out two years ago and Christian foreign workers replaced their Palestinian counterparts in jobs. Israel has also undergone a type of cultural globalization - expressed in a desire among many Israelis to take part in what they view as a world holiday. Such expressions grate on the nerves of many Israeli Jews, particularly Lau. 'Why should we have anything to do with Christmas or New Year's Eve, in the shade of the Christmas tree?" Lau asked in a statement issued on Christmas Eve. "We never imagined that even in our independent country of the Jewish nation, foreign cultures would threaten our identity as a people and a nation' ... According to Israeli government statistics, 142,000 Christians live in Israel, including 115,000 Christian Arabs. The figures do not include the West Bank and Gaza Strip."

PHILOLOGOS. Putting the X Back in Xmas,
[Jewish] Forward, December 27, 2002
"Nitl was indeed a word for Christmas among German- and Yiddish-speaking Jews, the difference being that among Yiddish speakers it was the only word used, whereas German Jews quite naturally also used the German word Weihnacht ... Can it be that the explanation of the "I" in nitl is not the gradual, unconscious vowel shift of linguistic process but the sudden shift of conscious decision? Or to put it differently: Might nitl have been a deliberate Jewish pun on the natl of natalis or natale, on the one hand, and German/Yiddish nit, 'no' or 'nothing,' plus the diminutive —l, on the other hand? Given the Jewish attitude to Christianity and Christian holidays in medieval times — which, like the Christian attitude toward Judaism, was hardly positive — it is perfectly possible that Jews deliberately played on the name of the day celebrating the birth of Christ so as to make it mean 'little nothing.' Interestingly, so he informs the readers of his Web site (http://web.mit.edu/rjplaut/www/), Rabbi Plaut is currently writing a book on 'American Jews who proclaim their Jewish identity precisely during the Christmas season' by a 'wide spectrum of social activities, most often shared with fellow Jews,' such as 'going out to a Chinese restaurant or a movie, gambling in Atlantic City, or traveling to Florida and the Caribbean.' I wonder if the rabbi is aware that one of these activities — gambling in Atlantic City — may be a permutation of a traditional custom practiced by German and East-European Jews. This was the tradition of getting together to play cards on Christmas Eve, an occasion referred to as Nittelnacht (or nitlnakht), i.e., 'nitl night.' Even — or perhaps one should say especially — quite religious Jews, who frowned on card playing at other times of the year as a frivolous activity, made a point of indulging in it on Nittelnacht as a way of demonstrating how they felt about the Christian holiday."

OBERAMMERGAU IN FURTHER DECLINE,
Banner of Truth magazine,
"So pressure has been brought upon the village to tidy up its act and the Oberammergau play has been changed. Some 65 per cent of the text has been rewritten to root out what is perceived as the play's anti-Semitism. This has resulted in the play's programme notes now containing approbatory comments from members of the American Jewish Committee. What are the changes introduced? The words of the crowd recorded by Matthew, 'His blood be upon us and upon our children,' have been deleted. The play introduces protests by a minority of Jews in the trial before Pilate who ask for Christ to be saved. The old invented storyline of the intrigue of the money-changers in the Temple has been suppressed. Caiaphas is depicted as a kind of Pius XII figure - the wartime pope who collaborated with the Nazis and turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering. Pilate becomes an anti-Semitic representative of the Reich of the day. The crowds clamouring for Christ to be crucified sound like a Nuremberg rally. Their cry to free Barabbas, 'Barabbas gib frei!' sounds uncannily like 'Seig Heil!' The crowd raise their right arms as thy utter their yell. John Langland writes, 'In order to stress Jesus's Jewishness the apostles address him as 'Rabbi', and they all don prayer shawls at various key moments, including at the Last Supper. Then, indeed, Christ breaks into Hebrew as he utters the traditional Jewish blessing over the cup of wine' ('The Spectator,' 5th August 2000, "Jesus, the Germans and the Jews" pp.16 and 17). One little omission is most erroneous. When the Lord Jesus broke the bread and gave the wine to his disciples he said to them, 'This is the blood of the new covenant,' but in Oberammergau the word 'new' has been omitted, as if to suggest Christ instituted no new covenant and that the Jews were in a continuing covenant with God because of their Jewishness."

OBERAMMERGAU - Paradigm of Decay,
Christian Order, February 2001
"Passion Plays were once regularly performed in countless villages throughout Germany; many more across medieval Europe. These were the Ages of Faith. The piety of ordinary people was nourished and strengthened by such spectacles, similar to the Mystery Plays staged in medieval England and still revived, here and there, even in our own comparatively faithless age. What distinguishes the Oberammergau Play is its historical longevity and enduring appeal to both Christians and those who go just for a unique theatrical experience. Its story is well known ... The statistics are staggering. Between late May and early October 2000, in excess of a half-million visitors, at an average rate of 5,000+ daily, witnessed the famous Passion Play. All of this, of course, represents a multi-million pound 'industry'. But throughout wars, revolutions and military occupations, the villagers have stayed true to their tradition; their Play, with its eternal message of salvation, witnessing to their Faith and faithfulness. All, however, is not quite what it was. Politically Incorrect Play. This, after all, is the era of the 'modern' Catholic Church, in Oberammergau as elsewhere; with its decadent preoccupations with inclusivity, feminism, political correctness, theological ambiguity, and, not least in modern Oberammergau, with ecumenism. As James Shapiro points out in Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play [Little, Brown & Company, 2000]: 'the past century in particular has witnessed a steady shift in control, away from the local parish priest and into the hands of the Passion Play Committee and village council.' (Sound familiar?!). This has entailed much controversy over the Play's alleged anti-Semitic text in some passages. Put simply, high Church authorities now retain final approval of the text and the manner in which major scenes are managed. This, writes Shapiro, was a controversial measure, winning the approval of the village council by only a single vote. The stage was set, as it were, for significant changes to how parts of the Gospel story had always been conveyed. The 'opening shot in the war against the play,' as James Shapiro puts it, was fired in November 1966. Phil Baum, Director of the American Jewish Congress's Commission on International Affairs, marshalled a group of American intellectuals and artists to oppose the Play's perceived anti-Semitism. High-profile names, such as Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein, Gunter Grass and Heinrich Boll, apparently underlay what amounted to a boycott of the Play. Shapiro recounts that during a news conference in New York City announcing the boycott, Elie Wiesel opined that 'the artist cannot be silent when the arts are used to exalt hatred.' The 1970 production subsequently saw unprecedented blocks of empty seats. But it didn't stop there. Up until 1970, the doctrine conveyed by the Oberammergau Play had received the Church's full approval. However, after Vatican II's innovative Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, this support was withheld; the implication being that the Play, according to the Archbishop of Munich, 'contained anti-Semitic elements and needed revision.' Shapiro comments: "The play hadn't changed but the Church's message had' ... And so we see that germane to ecumenism and, specifically, this question of where the Jewish people stand in relation to the Catholic Church and their need, or not, to convert for their ultimate salvation, is the re-writing of 65% of the Passion Play's text; which, as indicated earlier, remained virtually unchanged in modern times. Examining these changes, or more precisely, their overall thrust, reveals not only the corrupting effect of new orientations within the official Church, but also, and just as disquieting, one readily apparent character-assassination ... And so Oberammergau's politically correct Passion Play now stands as a paradigm of post-conciliar decay; a dramatization of that 'new vision of church' [sic] in which the old model has been replaced by a new one but with the previous facade left more or less in place, to reassure one and all that it is still under the same management despite plentiful evidence to the contrary."

MORE ARTICLES ABOUT THE "POLITICALLY CORRECT" CHANGING OF CHRISTIAN BELIEFS AND TRADITION TO JEWISH SPECIFICATION IN PASSION PLAYS (TO AVOID CRITICIZING JEWS) :
PASSION PLAYS IN THE UNITED STATES MAY, (Anti Semitism in Passion Plays History and Evaluation)
by Samuel Weintraub, Passion Plays USA, 1984
The Passion of the Jew Jesus. Recommended Changes in the Oberammergau Passion PLay after 1984, by Leonard Swidler, with Gerald Sloyan.
Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, posted on the web in March 1999
Is the Passion Play anti-Jewish? Significant revision corrects the perspective,
The Lutheran,
"Both Jewish representatives and Christian scholars and leaders, who have been involved in Christian-Jewish dialogues, have lodged protests. Good grounds for these charges once existed, but significant changes have been made in recent years. Some were introduced in 1990 and many more were made for 2000. All revisions had to be approved by the Oberammergau village council, for the play is essentially under civic control, although church authorities also have a say."

Presentation Before the Performance of Bach's Passion of St. John,
Handel Choir of Baltimore, April 5, 1992.
Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies
"There are those who maintain that the Saint John Passion of Bach should no longer be performed in public! Antisemitism, the argument goes, is deeply embedded in our culture, even though most of us are unaware of its enduring influence. Bach picks up and passes along the nefarious image of the Jewish people which is enshrined in the Gospel of John. Indeed the music amplifies the pathos of the passion narrative--intensifying the listener's sympathy for the plight of Jesus while at the same time heightening an antagonism for his enemies. The power and the beauty of the libretto endow a sinister stereotype of the Jew with respectability. In our time, to play a great work of art that profiles the Jewish people as evil and murderous is immoral. Perhaps our children or our children's children will tame the rhetoric of contempt. Perhaps they will eventually overcome the legacy of this hatred. But until then, we must be very cautious and do all in our power to prevent the circulation of a message which gives bigotry such lofty and sublime expression."

The Jewish Question,
by Stojgniew O'Donnell
[An article by an American professor to the Jewish Tribal Review]

Fallen Lott Urged Christians To 'Take Back' U.S.,
[Jewish] Forward, December 27, 2002
"Senator Trent Lott told reporters this week that he had fallen into the 'trap' of his political enemies who were happy to take aim at a conservative Christian from Mississippi. But, according to a 1987 report in the Washington Post, Lott eagerly compared his initial senate campaign to a religious crusade. 'Conservative, God-fearing, hard-working Christian people make a mistake by not being more aggressive,' Lott reportedly declared during a Mississippi Right to Life convention in 1987. 'This is our country and it's time we take it back.' The remark was brought to light last week by the National Jewish Democratic Council, a day before Lott's resignation as Senate Republican leader. 'Trent Lott's chronic problem of giving voice to his exclusivist worldview is not just Trent Lott's problem — it's the problem of many in the G.O.P., and especially its leadership,' said the Democratic council's executive director, Ira Forman, in a December 19 statement on Lott's 1987 remarks. Forman also criticized incoming House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Texas Republican, for urging a crowd of Christian Coalition activists during a pro-Israel rally in October to 'put people in office who stand unashamedly with Jesus Christ.' 'The real problem with these Republican leaders is not the occasional slip of the tongue; it's that they speak honestly about their beliefs,' Forman said. 'And until their exclusionist views change, it's going to be increasingly hard for large numbers of Americans to vote with the Republican Party.' The same day that the Jewish Democrats issued their press release, B'nai Brith International became the only major American Jewish organization to issue a statement calling on Lott to resign from his GOP leadership post."

Campaign to Abolish X-mas,
Noahide Laws [Jewish Chabad ultra-Orthodox organization]
"A flier serving as a follow-up to the previous one on the need to abolish Xmas celebration by gentiles. Campaign to abolish X-mas continues SPECIAL SALE!!! Fliers now available at reduced price: $0.15 per flier."

Crossover Compromise,
Way of Life, January 3, 2003
"The crossover phenomenon among Contemporary Christian Musicians began in the late 1980s and was led by Michael W. Smith and Amy Grant. They were able to move outside of the field of 'gospel music' to enjoy popularity in secular pop. The CCM musicians claim that they are being light in a dark world and that there is no compromise involved. The facts, though, tell a different story. Before the secular Geffen Records [David Geffen is the famous Jewish homosexual mogul, member of what's popularly known as Hollywood's "Velvet Mafia"] would sign a cross-marketing agreement with Smith's recording company, Reunion Records, it made sure that he was not too 'preachy' and overly religious. They sent representatives to his concerts in the spring of 1991 because 'they wanted to be sure he wasn't handing out Bibles' ('Rock of Ages: The Music Industry Is Getting Religion as Gospel Stars Shine,' Wall Street Journal, Sept. 11, 1991). Smith admitted to the Wall Street Journal: 'I know if I'm too blatant about my Christianity and talk about Jesus I won't succeed in the mainstream. But hey, I'm not an evangelist. I'm a singer.'"

[Who might the undisclosed bad guys in the following story be? Possible hint: here. Jews have been successfully lobbying against Christian tradition that "Jews killed Christ" for decades now, despite the fact that even Jewish traditions accepted that notion.]
"O'REILLY: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight: The actor Mel Gibson has been in Italy for months shooting a controversial film that graphically depicts the execution of Jesus. The movie is being financed by Gibson's production company. It's being shot in Aramaic and Latin, the languages used at the time. Mr. Gibson is a religious man and believes there are some in the media who want to discredit him personally because he's making a pro-Christian film. And, indeed, THE FACTOR has learned that there is a print reporter trying to dig up nasty personal dirt on Gibson. And the guy has even approached his 85-year-old father under questionable circumstances. And, in the interest of full disclosure, Mel Gibson's production company has optioned my novel, 'Those Who Trespass.' So, I do have a working relationship with him. But I believe this situation is troubling. I spoke with Mel Gibson yesterday from Rome.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) O'REILLY: Mr. Gibson, I understand the movie you're shooting right now about the death of Jesus of Nazareth is pretty graphic, pretty explicit.
MEL GIBSON, ACTOR/DIRECTOR: It is, yes. I've never seen a rendering that equals this for reality. It's usually either -- the versions I've seen either suffer from bad hair, inaccurate history, or not just being real. And somehow, because of that, I think I think you're distanced from them somehow. They're more like fairy tales. And this actually happened. It occurred. I'm exploring it this way, I think, to show the extent of the sacrifice willingly taken.
O'REILLY: You're going to make it in Aramaic and Latin, all right, so that no one is going to even understand what's said. The images are going to be explicit and powerful. What is the point?
GIBSON: Well, the point is that I think you can transcend language with the message through image. And I'm very happy with what we're getting.
O'REILLY: Is it going to upset some people to see the person they believe is God brutalized in this manner?
GIBSON: Well, I think anybody that is in the know about Jesus as God and they believe in that realize that he was brutalized and that I'm exploring it this way, I think, to show the extent of the sacrifice willingly taken. But I don't think people -- I think it's going to be hard to take, but I don't necessarily know that people are going to be upset by it.
O'REILLY: Is it going to upset any Jewish people?
GIBSON: It may. It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want to be as truthful as possible. But, when you look at the reasons behind why Christ came, why he was crucified, he died for all mankind and he suffered for all mankind, so that, really, anybody who transgresses has to look at their own part or look at their own culpability. It's time to sort of get back to a basic message, the message that was given. At this time, the world has gone nuts, I think. And this film speaks -- well, Christ spoke of faith, hope, love and forgiveness. And these are things I think we need to be reminded of again. He forgave as he was tortured and killed. And we could do with a little of that behavior. I mentioned what I was going to do to Night Shyamalan. And he thought: 'Oh, great. You have the ultimate opportunity to make the perfect anti-date movie'" And I said: 'No, no, that's not true at all. I think I refer to it as the career-killer film.' And I was only half joking at the time. But it's interesting that, when you do touch this subject, it does have a lot of enemies. And there are people sent. I've seen it happening. Since I've been in Rome here, for example, I know that there are people sent from reputable publications who -- they go about, while you're busy over here, they start digging into your private life and sort of getting into your banking affairs and any charities you might be involved in. And then they start bothering your friends and your business associates and harassing your family, including my 85-year-old father. And I find it -- it's a little spooky.
O'REILLY: We have heard that there is a reporter trying to dig up dirt on you, and who has bothered your 85-year-old father, trying to get provocative statements from him, and trying to portray you as a fanatic and perhaps a bigot, that this guy is operating right now. He's trying to dig up dirt on Mel Gibson. And do you believe it's because you're making this movie about Jesus?
GIBSON: I think it is, yes. I think he's been sent. So, that's the way it is. You got to deal with these things. I'm a big boy and I can take care of myself. And you can say what you like about me. I'm a public person, I suppose, although I don't ever remember signing the paper that I said I had no rights to privacy. But you can pick on me. But if you start picking on my family when I'm out of town, get ready.
O'REILLY: But I'm surprised that someone would go after somebody as well-liked as you are and as powerful as you are. And you really believe it's because you're making this movie about Jesus?
GIBSON: Yes, I think so. Yes, I think there's a lot of things that don't want it to happen. But, hey, as I said before, it's a film that speaks about faith, hope, love, and forgiveness. That's the basic message. And that's what we need to get back to, I think. And if everybody practiced a little more of that, there would be a lot less friction in the world.
O'REILLY: So, if this guy writes something terrible about you and your father and family, you are going to forgive him?
GIBSON: Yes. You've got to. I already did. But it's just perplexing.
(END VIDEOTAPE) [ALSO: Mel Gibson Under Attack for Jesus Film? World Net Daily ]

ADL [PRESS RELEASE]: `PROFOUNDLY TROUBLING' RADISSON CHARLOTTE HOTEL PROMOTES ITSELF AS `CHRISTIAN FAMILY RESORT',
Anti-Defamation League, July 14, 1995
"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called it 'profoundly troubling' that Radisson Grand Resort Charlotte promotes itself as a 'Christian family resort.' In an exchange of letters with the hotel chain's Chief Executive Officer, ADL said such a message 'from a corporation which endeavors to serve the public regardless of religious affiliation is highly offensive.' The League urged Radisson to 'reconsider the appropriateness of your position.' In June, the Radisson Charlotte had sent out a promotional letter saying, 'We are a Christian family resort with activities for the entire family.' The letter closed, 'Sincerely in Christ.' Saying the promotional letter not only offends "the principles of the Radisson Hotel chain which, as a public company, endeavors to serve the public-at-large independent of religious affiliation, it is also an affront to your non-Christian patrons,' Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, wrote to the Chief Executive Officer of the Radisson Hotel Corporation, John Norlander. 'The Anti-Defamation League,' wrote Foxman, 'finds the language, content, and spirit of the letter very troubling.' Norlander responded that the Radisson Charlotte is 'owned and operated by an organization that represents the largest Christian group in Malaysia,' and their license agreement allows independent operation of their hotel 'so long as they don't violate any laws. In this case I don't see any law being violated.' Finding Norlander's response 'profoundly troubling,' Foxman wrote him again, saying, 'The signal Radisson and, in particular its Charlotte affiliate, is sending is that non-Christian business is discouraged. In addition to its offensiveness from a public policy standpoint, the message that resonates from the letter may be inconsistent with laws governing places of public accommodation.'"

First 'Jewsploitation' film to debut at Sundance festival,
Jewish Bulletin, January 17, 2003
"At one point in Jonathan Kesselman's 'Jewish exploitation' comedy, 'The Hebrew Hammer,' Mordechai Jefferson Carver strides into a seedy skinhead bar wearing a long leather coat, a black fedora, payot, a tallit and an oversized gold chai. A chalkboard advertises beer on tap, such as Old Adolf, but the titular superhero orders 'Manischewitz, straight up.' Then he crashes a bottle over the bartender's head, whips out two sawed-off shotguns and shouts, 'Shabbat Shalom, Motherf- - - - -s!' In this outrageous world of the Hammer (Adam Goldberg), the Orthodox Jewish hero must battle the evil son of Santa (Andy Dick) to save Chanukah. Call it the Jewish 'Shaft.' The farce is Kesselman's homage to 1970s 'blaxploitation' films ... 'The movie is a love letter to being Jewish,' said the writer-director ... The film -- which also features an organization called The Worldwide Jewish Media Conspiracy -- is part of a new trend of in-your-face ethnicity touted by hip Jewish artists (think Heeb magazine and New York's 'Jewsapalooza' music festival) ... I rented a whole bunch of blaxploitation films to figure out how the genre worked [said Kesselman] I learned that what I needed was some twist on the source of oppression. I asked myself, 'What as a Jew really pisses me off?' It hit me when I was walking around a mall in December: I hate Christmastime ... 'The Hammer celebrates being Jewish,' he said. 'It's a bad-ass Jew kicking ass for the tribe.'"

City council bars prayers to Jesus Suit threatened over ACLU's 'extortion' of town leaders,
World Net Daily, January 30, 2003
"Several Southern California cities are in a quandary over the invocation of God's name at city council meetings, setting up a battle over First Amendment rights. The city of Lake Elsinore, in Riverside County, faces the threat of a lawsuit over its decision to eliminate mention of 'religious figures' such as Jesus Christ from the traditional opening prayer at its council meetings. The city says the invokers can make a general reference to a supreme being, but local pastors have viewed the council's decision as censorship and consequently are unwilling to accept any invitation to give an invocation. The nonprofit United States Justice Foundation, which is threatening the suit, insists that the city has been deceived by the American Civil Liberties Union. Last fall, ACLU attorney Peter Aliasberg wrote a letter to Lake Elsinore warning that the city could face legal troubles if it did not quit using the name of Jesus Christ in its invocations. The city complied, but its decree apparently had the effect of eliminating the prayer altogether ... The ACLU's Aliasberg, however, insists that a person who prays at the invitation of a government body is representing the government. When that person names a specific deity, the government is taking sides, he contend ... The Press-Enterprise said the case was brought into focus last year by the controversial Jewish Defense League Chairman Irv Rubin, who has since died. Rubin sued the City of Burbank concerning an invocation at a city council meeting that ended with an expression of gratitude and love, 'in the name of Jesus Christ.'" The trial court favored Rubin, the Riverside paper said, by ruling that sectarian prayer that excludes other religious beliefs at a government meeting is unconstitutional. The decision was upheld in September by the state's 2nd Appellate District court, and Burbank's attorneys are seeking to have the case considered by the California Supreme Court. The Riverside County city of Temecula also is undergoing a similar battle."

Erich Fromm, Judaism, and the Frankfurt School,
By Douglas Kellner, Illuminations
"The Frankfurt School had a highly ambivalent relation to Judaism. On one hand, they were part of that Enlightenment tradition that opposed authority, tradition, and all institutions of the past -- including religion ... In this entry, I will discuss the ways that Judaism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism intersected in the work of Erich Fromm, constituting a distinctive mode of Jewish writing that combined religion and Enlightenment conceptions. I argue that Fromm was at once traditionally Jewish and radically secular, and that his early immerse in Jewish religion and culture came to shape his distinctive views and work ... Fromm himself was born into an orthodox Jewish family and both of his parents came from families of rabbis ... Throughout his youth, Fromm was deeply involved in the study of the Talmud and with his friend Leo Lowenthal, later an important member of the Frankfurt School, he joined the circle around the eminent Rabbi Nehemiah Nobel, rabbi of the largest Frankfurt synagogue ... One of his first major essays was on 'The Dogma of Christ' (1930; reprinted 1963) in which Fromm argued against the interpretation of the origins of Christianity of another [Jewish] psychoanalyst, Theodor Reik. Where Reik saw the doctrine whereby the Son was of the same single substance as God the father as a victory for the Oedipal drive to displace the primacy of the father, which was analogous to individual compulsive neurotic symptoms, Fromm saw the concept as the result of a long social process whereby early Christian radicals matured and accepted equality with the father. Fromm thus rejected both Reik's tendency to see religious phenomena as merely neurotic symptoms and argued for the primacy of sociological developments in explaining religious and other phenomena. Fromm also presented a quasi-positive view of Protestantism, suggesting that its individualism and stress on the activity and belief of the individual indicated a modern era in which it was possible for the masses to play an active role in social life and thought, 'as opposed to the infantile-passive attitude of the Middle Ages.' In the Medieval era, by contrast, Catholicism, with its 'veiled regression to the religion of the Great Mother,' offered the infantilized masses the fantasy-gratification of being a child loved and cared for by its mother."

Crimes Against Christianity,
Jerusalemites
[Links to articles about Israeli oppression of modern Christians in the Holy Land.]

[Question: when do Catholics start demanding Jewish adjustments to their overwhelmingly negative perceptions of Christians? And when are Catholic lobbying groups going to be writing policy papers about this? When to do we get to see a major magazine article entitled: "How the Catholics Changed Jewish Thinking?" Below is an examination of Jewish lobbying and infiltration of the Catholic religous hierarchy towards the successful Jewish dictate to tell rank-and-file Catholics what they must believe about Jews, distinct from New Testament scripture. This is an excerpt from a very long article which should be read in full at its original online site to get a sense of Jewish influence in changing Catholic theology to suit them.]
How The Jews Changed Catholic Thinking,
by Joseph Roddy, stthomaquinas.net, (originally from Look magazine, January 25, 1966, Volume 39, No. 2
"[Pope] John XXIII, standing in the doorway of the fourth-floor papal apartment, reached for Jules Isaac's hand, then sat beside him ... The non-Christian beside the Pope said the Vatican should study anti-Semitism ... By then, there was a fair amount of talk passing between the Vatican Council offices and Jewish groups, and both the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith were heard loud and clear in Rome. Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel of New York's Jewish Theological Seminary, who first knew of Bea in Berlin 30 years ago, met with the Cardinal in Rome. [Cardinal] Bea had already read the American Jewish Committee's The Image of the Jews in Catholic Teaching. It was followed by another AJC paper, the 23-page study, Anti-Jewish Elements in Catholic Liturgy. Speaking for the AJC, Heschel said he hoped the Vatican Council would purge Catholic teaching of all suggestions that the Jews were a cursed race. And in doing that, Heschel felt, the Council should in no way exhort Jews to become Christians. About the same time, Israel's Dr. Nahum Goldmann, head of the World Conference of Jewish Organizations, whose members ranged in creed from the most orthodox to liberal, pressed its aspirations on the Pope. B'nai B'rith wanted the Catholics to delete all language from the Church services that could even seem anti-Semitic. Not then, nor in any time to come, would that be a simple thing to do. The Catholic liturgy, where it was drawn from writings of the early Church Fathers, could easily be edited. But not the Gospels. Even if Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were better at evangelism than history, their writings were divinely inspired, according to Catholic dogma, and about as easy to alter as the center of the sun. That difficulty put both Catholics with the very best intentions and Jews with the deepest understanding of Catholicism in a theological fix. It also brought out the conservative opposition in the Church and, to some extent, Arab anxieties in the Mideast. The conservative charge against the Jews was that they were deicides, guilty of killing God in the human-divine person of Christ. And to say now that they were not deicides was to say by indirection that Christ was not God, for the fact of the execution on Calvary stood unquestioned in Catholic theology. Yet the execution and the religion of those demanding it were the reasons Jews were 'God-killers' and 'Christ-killers' in the taunts of anti-Semites. Clearly, then, Catholic Scripture would be at issue if the council spoke about deicides and Jews. Wise and long-mitred heads around the Curia warned that the bishops in council should not touch this issue with ten-foot staffs. But still there was John XXIII, who said they must. If the inviolability of Holy Writ was most of the problem in Rome, the rest was the Arab-Israeli war. Ben-Gurion's Israel, in the Arab League's view, like Mao's China in the world out of Taiwan, really does not exist. Or, it only exists as a bone in the throat of Nasser. If the Council were to speak out for the Jews, then the spiritual order would seem political to Arab bishops ... From the West, where 225,500 more Jews live in New York than in Israel, the word was that dropping the declaration would be a calamity. And into this impasse came the ingenuous bulk of John XXIII - not to settle the dispute but to enlarge it. Quite on his own, the Pope was toying with an idea, which the Roman Curia found grotesque, that non-Catholic faiths should send observers to the Council. The prospect of being invited caused no crisis among Protestants, but it plainly nonplussed the Jews. To attend suggested to some Jews that Christian theology concerned them. But to stay away when invited might suggest that the Jews did not really care whether Catholics came to grips with anti-Semitism. When it was learned that Bea's declaration, set for voting at the first Council session, carried a clear refutation of the decide charge, the World Jewish Congress let it be known around Rome that Dr. Haim Y. Vardi, an Israeli, would be an unofficial observer at the Council. The two reports may not have been related, but still they seemed to be. Because of them, other reports-louder ones-were heard. The Arabs complained to the Holy See. The Holy See said no Israeli had been invited. The Israelis denied then that an observer had been named. ... Some agency close enough to the Vatican to have the addresses in Rome of the Council's 2,200 visiting cardinals and bishops, supplied each with a 900-page book, Il Complotto contro la Chiesa (The Plot Against the Church) In it, among reams of scurrility, was a kind of fetching shred of truth. Its claim that the Church was being infiltrated by Jews would intrigue anti-Semites. For, in fact, ordained Jews around Rome working on the Jewish declaration included Father Baum, as well as Msgr. John Oesterreicher, on Bea's staff at the Secretariat. Bea, himself, according to the Cairo daily, Al Gomhuria, was a Jew named Behar. Neither Baum nor Oesterreicher was with [Cardinal] Bea in the late afternoon on March 31, 1963, when a limousine was waiting for him outside the Hotel Plaza in New York. The ride ended about six blocks away, outside the offices of the American Jewish Committee. There, a latter-day Sanhedrin was waiting to greet the head of the Secretariat for Christian Unity. The gathering was kept secret from the press. Bea wanted neither the Holy See nor the Arab League to know he was there to take questions the Jews wanted to hear answered ... . As to the curse, it could not condemn the crucifiers anyway, the Cardinal reasoned, because Christ's dying words were a prayer for their pardon. The Rabbis in the room wanted to know then if the declaration would specify deicide, the curse and the rejection of the Jewish people by God as errors in Christian teaching ... Cardinal and rabbis joined in a toast with sherry after the talk, and one asked the prelate about Monsignor Oesterreicher, whom many Jews regard as too missionary with them. 'You know, Eminence,' a Jewish reporter once told Bea, 'Jews do not regard Jewish converts as their best friends.' Bea answered gravely, 'Not our Jews.' Not long after that, the Rolf Hochhuth play The Deputy opened, to depict Pius XII as the Vicar of Christ who fell silent while Hitler went to The Final Solution ... Two very concerned Jewish gentlemen who had to reflect hard on such mysteries were 59-year-old Joseph Lichten of B'nai B'rith's Anti-Defamation League in New York, and Zachariah Shuster, 63, of the American Jewish Committee ... The strongest possible Jewish declaration was their common cause, but each wanted his home office to have credit for it. That is, of course, if the declaration was really strong. But until then, each would offer himself to the American hierarchs as the best barometer in Rome of Jewish sentiment back home. To find out how the Council was going, many U.S. bishops in Rome depended on what they read in the New York Times [owned by the Jewish Sulzberger family]. And so did the AJC and B'nai B'rith. That paper was the place to make points. Lichten thought Shuster was a genius at getting space in it, but less than deeply instructed in theology. Which is just about the way Shuster saw Lichten. Neither had much time for Frith Becker. Becker was in Rome for the World Jewish Congress, as its spokesman who sought no publicity and got little ... Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver had told Cardinal Francis Spellman of Israel's efforts to get a seat in the United Nations. To help, Spellman said he would call on South American governments and share with them his fond wish that Israel be admitted ... In Rome, six AJC members had an audience with the Pope, and one of them, Mrs. Leonard M. Sperry, had just endowed the Sperry Center for Intergroup Cooperation at Pro Deo University in the Holy City. The Pope told his callers he agreed with all Cardinal Spellman had said about Jewish guilt ... The Rabbi's audience with Paul in the Vatican, like Bea's meeting with the AJC in New York, was granted on the condition that it would be kept secret. It was undercover summit conferences of that sort that led conservatives to claim that American Jews were the new powers behind the Church. But on the floor of the Council, things looked even worse to the conservatives. There, it seemed to them as if Catholic bishops were working for the Jews. At issue was the weakened text. The cardinals from St. Louis and Chicago, Joseph Ritter and the late Albert Meyer, demanded a return to the strong one ... Some did not. After the vote, when Fritz Becker, the WJC's silent man, admitted he once called on Bea at home, he said the declaration was not mentioned. "We just talked, the Cardinal and I," Becker said, "about the advantages of not talking." There are Catholics close to what went on in Rome who think that Jewish energy did harm. Higgins, the social-action priest from Washington, D.C., is not one of them. If it had not been for the lobbying, he felt, the declaration would have been tabled. But in his usual gruff way, Cardinal Cushing said that the only people who could beat the Jewish declaration were the Jewish lobbyists. Father Tome Stransky, the touchy, young Paulist who rides a Lambretta to work at the Secretariat, thought that once the press got on to the Council there was no way to stop such pressure groups. If the Council could have deliberated in secret with no strainings from the outside, he thinks the declaration would have been stronger. As it stands, Stransky fears that some Catholics may gleefully pass it off as if it were written to and for Jews ... But there were many bishops at the Council who, if far less simple, were no less dogmatic. They felt Jewish pressure in Rome and resented it. They thought Bea's enemies were proved right when Council secrets turned up in American papers. "He wants to turn the Church over to the Jews," the hatemongers said of the old Cardinal, and some dogmatics in the Council thought the charge about right. "Don't say the Jews had any part in this," one priest said, "or the whole fight with the dogmatics will start over." Another, Father Felix Morlion at the Pro Deo University, who heads the study group working closely with the AJC, thought the promulgated text the best. "The one before had more regard for the sensitiveness of the Jewish people, but it did not produce the necessary clearness in the minds of Christians," he said. "In this sense, it was less effective even to the very cause of the Jewish people." Morlion knew just what the Jews did to get the declaration and why the Catholics had settled its compromise. 'We could have beaten the dogmatics,' he insisted. They could, indeed, but the cost would have been a split in the Church."

Israel To Split Christ's Birthplace With 25' High Wall,
rense.com (from Reuters), February 18, 2003
"A senior Israeli army officer told Palestinians on Tuesday their neighborhood in the town where Christ was born would be divided by a wall to safeguard Jews coming to pray at biblical Rachel's Tomb. A 25-foot high barrier will scoop part of the West Bank town revered by Christians as Jesus's birthplace into an expanded security zone being built around nearby Jerusalem to seal it off from Palestinian suicide bombers and gunmen. Almost half of Bethlehem municipality's 140,000 people is Christian. The area around the tomb itself is mainly Christian. On Sunday, the Israeli army sent notices to Palestinians living in the vicinity of Rachel's Tomb telling them that large chunks of their property would be requisitioned for the wall. A colonel in the army's Civil Administration for Israeli-occupied areas of the West Bank arrived two days later to explain a plan which local residents said would turn their once prosperous district into a ghetto."

[The recent attempt to ban the word "God" in the Pledge of Allegiance is of course covered with the usual Jewish fingerprints, as the next couple articles illustrate.]
Court affirms Pledge ruling. 'Under God' appeal probably heading to Supreme Court,
San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 2003
"A divided federal appeals court let stand Friday a blockbuster ruling declaring the phrase 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, setting the stage for a showdown in the U.S. Supreme Court. Both the Bush administration and the Sacramento County school district, where the case arose, had asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to set aside the controversial 2-1 ruling by a court panel last June and refer the case to an 11-judge panel for a rehearing. But after months of wrangling, a divided appellate court denied the request. At least nine of the appellate court's 24 judges voted for a rehearing, and six signed an angry opinion, saying both Friday's decision and the original ruling 'confers a favored status on atheism in our public life.' U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a statement implying that the Bush administration would appeal to the Supreme Court ... Michael Newdow, the Sacramento physician and atheist who filed the suit, said he wasn't surprised by Friday's order. 'The court upheld the Constitution, as they're supposed to do,' Newdow said. He said he assumed that the Supreme Court would agree to review the case. He said he would probably continue to act as his own attorney. Newdow sued in 2000, objecting to recitation of the pledge in his daughter's elementary school classroom. In ruling on the case, the appellate panel declared the ritual to be an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion ... The panel majority -- [Alfred] Goodwin and Judge Stephen Reinhardt -- amended the ruling Friday to make it clear that they were not overturning the entire 1954 law but only declaring classroom recitation of the pledge unconstitutional ... Friday's order drew an impassioned dissent by Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, who said the court should have reconsidered its 'grave error.' If the Pledge of Allegiance is a religious act, so is the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents, said O'Scannlain, joined by five colleagues. He said the panel's reasoning would drive 'all references to our religious heritage out of our schools, and eventually out of our public life.' He also said the panel had fostered a 'bias against religion' and had given Newdow 'the right to impose his views on others.' O'Scannlain said the 'public and political reaction' to the ruling was further evidence that it was wrong, drawing a rebuke from Reinhardt that the court must be guided by the Constitution, not public sentiment." [Mr. Reinhardt, which is more important: your personal dictatorial translation of a piece of paper, or the democratic wishes of human beings living in the real world? If "public sentiment" counts for nothing, then you declare yourself King.]

[Note also: The judges who banned the word "God' in the Pledge of Allegiance, in a 2-1 ruling, were Max Reinhardt and Alfred Goodwin. Reindhardt is the grandson of famous Jewish cartoonist Max Reinhardt, and he is married to Ramona Ripston, who is also Jewish and head of the anti-religious -- and Jewish dominated -- America Civil Liberties Union. Goodwin may be Jewish too].

[Surprise, surprise. Michael Newdow -- the complainer in the case -- is ALSO Jewish. In this older article, his former partner, Sandy Banning, is even an active Christian, as is their daughter. She nicely notes his typical Jewish hypocrisy.]
'Pledge' Mom: My Daughter Is No Atheist,
Fox News, July 15, 2002
"Following is the transcript of a Fox News Channel exclusive interview with Sandy Banning, mother of the schoolgirl whose father brought a case to federal court resulting in a ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form is unconstitutional because it refers to the United States as a nation 'under God.' RITA COSBY, FOX NEWS : I want to clarify something because you know, the perception out there is because Michael Newdow has come out — the father of your daughter — and said basically that he's an atheist based on his views, and so now the perception is that you and your daughter are atheists. Do you both believe in God? BANNING: Oh, yes, we are practicing Christians, and that's one of the things that I wanted to clarify, based on the statements in the record, that was the whole goal here was to correct the record, to say that no, we are not atheists, we are practicing Christians, and we love the Lord. We attend church regularly and enjoy it ... COSBY: Now, did you know at the time that he had such passionate such — and some are calling it — such extremist views? BANNING: No, I didn't know — I didn't understand or have this feeling that it was really extreme; I didn't sense this passion when we were friends, and we were together. I've always known that he has a great interest in constitutional law — but not that it went this far. COSBY: Now did he check with you or your daughter before he filed this suit? Did he give you any warning or ask for your opinion? BANNING: No, uh-unh ... COSBY: What do you think motivated him to file this suit then? BANNING: I — I'm not for sure what his motivation was, I know that he's always had a strong interest in constitutional law, and um, I know that he's always had a desire to — to — he's always enjoyed controversy and so it, being involved in something like this, it really doesn't surprise me too much. COSBY: Do you think his motivation was to bring, then, the case to the Supreme Court, rather than the interest of your mutual child? BANNING: I think that it's, personally I think it's pursuing his own interest. But having a child in public school provided him an avenue to do so. COSBY: Were you offended, because obviously many people are saying this case certainly brought so much attention to your family, particularly your child, putting your child, putting her in the spotlight, somewhat making her a spectacle, some might say, does that offend you, that he's done this? BANNING: Well, a little bit. But most importantly our goal here is just to correct the record, the American people, the President needs to know this child is not an atheist, um, before this case goes down in history we need to correct the record here. And so, and make sure my daughter is represented correctly. COSBY: And just one quick question before we go to the break, Sandy — there's some interesting stuff that has never been reported before, about Michael Newdow's background, his religious background. Tell me about his family — because his family, they're not atheists, right? BANNING: It's my understanding that his parents are atheists but he — he was raised — a Jewish background, Glen [their daughter] and he celebrate Hannukah and Passover together. COSBY: So he and your daughter celebrate Passover? BANNING: Correct. COSBY: And he doesn't oppose that