A Wise Comment I Found

On EconomicPolicyJournal.com, on this post, I just found a wise comment regarding anti-Semitism and all that stuff, in the context of Ron Paul's speech at the much-hated Fatima Center:

A Jewish definition of "anti-semitism" is: attributing to Jews more evil/mischief/behind the scenes manipulation than is justified. By this definition, Ron Paul is certainly not an "anti-semite." But the Fatima organization has occasionally crossed the line. 

The desire to convert Jews to Christianity is not "anti-semitic." In fact, it can be a compliment if not accompanied by slander and violence. Nor is it "anti-semitic" to point out that many prominent neo-cons have been Jewish and that Fed chairmen, going back half a century, have nearly all been Jewish. Nor is it "anti-semitic" to criticize Israeli domestic and foreign policy. The prejudice and hostility (the "anti-semitism") arises when, without evidence, people, personally or through the organizations to which they belong, begin attributing nefarious motives to Jews as a group (or do the same to members of any group)

As for Holocaust denial, it's one thing to raise honest questions that contradict the dominant view of any historical event. It's another thing to raise questions about an event for the purpose of spuriously questioning the honesty of and unnecessarily casting negative aspersions on a particular group of people. If I were to say that I don't believe there were nearly as many slaves on Southern plantations as we've been led to believe and if I were to question whether or not slavery, in the colonies and, later, the States existed at all, people would justly want to know why I was raising the issue and engaging in "slavery denial."

I'm Jewish and was raised in a heavily Roman Catholic community, pre-Medjugorje, where the revelations to the shepherd children of Fatima were knit firmly into the fabric of the Church's theology. Fortunately, the Church and the community felt no need to portray, in a bad light, those of us who were Jewish. The Church liturgy still prayed for the "perfidious Jews" on Good Friday until Vatican II put a stop to that reference, without protest on the part of the local Roman Catholic clergy and community. 

Leaders of organizations of any type would be wise to be circumspect in their public statements, the better to avoid the dust up occasioned by Ron Paul's appearance at the Fatima Peace Conference. In the Jewish lexicon, "apostate Jews" are Jews who've been baptized, have joined the Church and who confess the faith of Christ crucified, the "Son of the Father" who "will judge the quick and the dead and whose kingdom will have no end." If the Fatimists mean something else when they refer to "apostate Jews" (e.g. troublemaking Jews whose very nature is to undermine the societies in which they operate as internecine agents of Satan), Ron Paul, without help from the SPLC, is going to be tarred with that brush regardless of the fact that he, personally, may have no truck with "anti-semites."