AGAINST THE POPE
                             AND OTHER ARTICLES ABOUT JEWISH
                             ACTIVISM AGAINST CHRISTIAN                              SOCIETY

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Galilee Flowers. [by Israeli author Israel Shamir] 2001
"Last year, the biggest Israeli tabloid Yedioth Aharonoth reprinted in its library the Jewish anti-Gospel, Toledoth Eshu, compiled in the Middle Ages. It is the third recent reprint, including one in a newspaper. If the Gospel is the book of love, Toledoth is the book of hate for Christ. The hero of the book is Judas. He captures Jesus by polluting his purity. According to Toledoth, the conception of Christ was in sin, the miracles of Jesus were witchcraft, his resurrection but a trick. Joseph Dan, a Professor of Jewish mysticism in Hebrew University in Jerusalem, writing on the death of Jesus stated: 'The modern Jewish apologists, hesitantly adopted by the church, preferred to put the blame on Romans. But the medieval Jew did not wish to pass the buck. He tried to prove that Jesus had to be killed, and he was proud of killing Him. The Jews hated and despised Christ and Christians.' Actually, adds Prof. Dan, there is little place to doubt that the Jewish enemies of Jesus caused his execution. Even today, Jews in Israel refer to Jesus by the demeaning word Yeshu (instead of Yeshua), meaning ‘Perish his name’. There is an ongoing argument, whether His name was turned into a swear word, or other way around. In a similar pun, the Gospel is called ‘Avon Gilaion’, the booklet of Sin. These are the endearing feeling of the friends of Christian Zionists towards Christ ... Jews feel towards Jesus today what they felt in 4 CE or in the Middle Ages ... It is not fear, it is hatred and despise[ment] ... For centuries, Jews concealed from Christians their hate to Jesus, and this tradition continues even now."

Toledoth Yeshu. Online educational archive by Alan Humm at the University of Pennsylvania. [This page is reproduced from Jesus in the Jewish Tradition, p. 148-154]
Toledoth Yeshu is the traditional depiction in Jewish lore of Jesus, who is reputed to be the product of a rape.
"This is a derogatory version of the life of Jesus, growing out of the response of the Jewish community to Christianity. The tradition presented here is most commonly dated to approximately the 6th century CE. The text it self is closer to the 14th c. There is no scholarly consensus on to what extent the text might be a direct parody of a now lost gospel. H.J. Schonfield argued that it was so closely connected to the Gospel of the Hebrews that he attempted to reconstruct that lost work from the Toledoth."

Ancient Jewish Accounts of Jesus,
University of Pennsylvania, Alan Humm
"Simeon ben Azzai has said: I found in Jerusalem a book of genealogies; therein was written: That so and so is a bastard son of a married woman."
[Etc.]

Who Was Jesus? Noah's Covenant Web Site
[sponsored by the ultra-Orthodox Chabad Lubavitch organization] 2001
"The Talmud (Babylonian edition) records other sins of 'Jesus the Nazarene': 1) He and his disciples practiced sorcery and black magic, led Jews astray into idolatry, and were sponsored by foreign, gentile powers for the purpose of subverting Jewish worship (Sanhedrin 43a). 2) He was sexually immoral, worshipped statues of stone (a brick is mentioned), was cut off from the Jewish people for his wickedness, and refused to repent (Sanhedrin 107b; Sotah 47a). 3) He learned witchcraft in Egypt and, to perform miracles, used procedures that involved cutting his flesh — which is also explicitly banned in the Bible (Shabbos 104b). The false, rebellious message of Jesus has been thoroughly rejected by the vast majority of the Jewish people, as G-d commanded. Unfortunately, however, this same message has brought a terrible darkness upon the world; today, over 1.5 billion gentiles believe in Jesus .... What is the true key to salvation? Those who return to the Law (the Seven Commandments for the Children of Noah, according to the eternal covenant made with Noah in Genesis 9) and who assist the Jewish people (Isaiah 60, 61, 66) will be saved and will participate in the miracles and revelations, including worshipping in the Third Temple, under the kingship of the Messiah. As described in many places, including Jeremiah 16:19-21 and Zechariah 8:20-23, all the old gentile religions of the world will disappear, and their followers will turn to the Jews for spiritual leadership. Until then, Christians are spiritually blinded, and cannot yet understand G-d's wisdom in the Bible."

November 1998 -- a one-month sampling from the Catalyst, an online catalogue of Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights.
The Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights
This online defense agency features a steady diet of news releases about assaults in popular culture against Catholicism. Although not always defined as such by the Catholic Lague, those in the vanguard of this assault are often Jews. (For example, recently: Howard Stern Slanders Priests; Variety Ad Makes Appeal to Viacom's [Jewish mogul] Sumner Redstone about Marshall Brickman, [Jewish] director of "one of the most anti-Catholic plays ever written"; ABC Asked to Sever Links with Belief.net [the heads of ABC's parent company, and Belief.net, are Jewish]; the [Jewish] Anti-Defamation League's attacks against the Pope; and the Jewish-dominated Brooklyn Museum and its anti-Catholic art shows), to begin a long list of Jewish anti-Catholic activism.
For November 1998:
Another Anti-Catholic Play Hits New York: "Jeff Cohen, the director and producer of 'The Cardinal Detoxes,’ said that one of the reasons he brought back the play now was due to the initial decision of the Manhattan Theatre Club to cancel Terrence McNally’s play, ‘Corpus Christi.’ This is quite an admission: to think that Cohen is competing with McNally and for the honor of being known as New York’s biggest anti-Catholic bigot is something."
Demagoguery Colors Wiesenthal Center: "In our New York Times ad commemorating the 20th anniversary of Pope John Paul’s papacy, we take note of the slander that has been heaped on the recently beatified Cardinal Stepinac. Leading the slanderous charges has been the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles."
Gays, Jews and 'Corpus Christi.': "It is impossible to say for sure who is patronizing "Corpus Christi," but there is anecdotal evidence that the patrons are disproportionately gay and Jewish. Writing in Gannett newspapers, theater critic Jacques Le Sourd recently wrote a column on the play saying that 'it is no secret that the audience for theater in New York is largely Jewish and largely gay, and that to take a poke at Christian morality in this setting is hardly an act of bravery.' In 1993, arts critic Richard Grenier commented that it was his observation that Broadway was patronized by audiences that were 'overwhelmingly Jewish.' He added that "at the more commercially successful homosexual works, I got the impression that the audiences were something like 10 per cent homosexuals and 90 per cent heterosexual Jews—to all appearances well-to-do, liberal, husband-and-wife couples.' It is a sad commentary that anti-Catholic bigotry has become almost a popular sport among certain segments of American society, and this is especially true of artists and their patrons."
Real Censorship: "The New England chapter of the American Jewish Congress wants the government to remove the designation A.D. (an abbreviation for 'anno Domini'--year of the Lord) from Massachusetts court documents. And it wants the feds to strike 'In God We Trust' from our currency. Think anyone will call the American Jewish Congress censors? We will!"
School Calendars Show Bias: "Every school year we get legitimate complaints from our members about school calendars that recognize Jewish holidays by name but not Christian ones. This year is no exception as complaints have been fielded from Cincinnati, Ohio, Peekskill, New York and other parts of the country. The way it usually works is like this. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are listed but not Christmas and Easter: Winter Break and Spring Break are the preferred euphemisms. There is no law against secularizing Christian holy days while acknowledging Jewish ones. It’s just a matter of insult, bad taste and, arguably, bigotry."

Misrepresenting the Holocaust. The American Enterprise Online. May 1999
"As I find myself in the uncomfortable position of scrutinizing today's Holocaust remembrances, one obvious question is whether they actually discourage animus between people, as is their stated intent. Another question important to me as a rabbi is whether their teachings help or harm the Jewish people. And for me the answer to both of these questions is far from obvious. Most of today's Holocaust exhibits have received funding from American taxpayers. Yet some citizens who initially supported them with good-hearted generosity now see them as promoting a hatred of Christians. I myself am concerned about presentations at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., for instance. This museum is simultaneously one of the world's most eloquent cries against prejudice and also a place which promotes anti-Christian propaganda. Although it was constructed with private funds, the museum occupies land donated by the American people, the most Christian nation on earth. Of course, the American forces who liberated the concentration camp were composed of mostly Christians as well. Therefore it is hard for me to understand why the producers of the film shown to Holocaust Museum visitors, a copy of which I have seen, seem so determined to devote much of the short documentary to untruths which denigrate Christianity."

The Church and Jewish Ideology. Sobran's. May 1999
"Prevalent Jewish myth today is not the founding myth of Abraham or Moses on Sinai, but the story of Jewish persecution. In our time the Jews are defined less by ancestry than by 'anti-Semitism,' which is cited for many purposes, including the legitimation of the state of Israel. Most Zionists no longer claim that God gave the Holy Land to the Jews; instead they contend that the Jewish state is necessary as a haven for world Jewry. According to this modern myth, the Jews are in no way responsible for their own unpopularity from ancient times. What, then, is the source of such persistent hostility to this fundamentally innocent people? Why, the Catholic Church, of course! Many Jewish scholars find the seed of anti-Semitism in the Gospels of Matthew and John, where the Jews are depicted as engineering the Crucifixion, with the assistance of Romans who 'know not what they do.' Some Jews have even demanded that the offending passages be deleted from the Scriptures, not realizing (or caring) that Christians regard their holy books as off-limits to human editing. Others persist in blaming Pius XII for failing to condemn Nazism more strongly for its persecution of the Jews of Europe. The Catholic Church in particular has been targeted as the historic matrix of anti-Semitism; and unfortunately, many churchmen have accepted the role of defendant against accusers who will never acquit the Church or drop the case ... The Jews, with honorable but ineffectual exceptions, judge Christians by a standard that doesn’t seem to apply to themselves. Or rather, their single standard is 'Is it good for the Jews?'”

Christianize Dartmouth?, by William F. Buckley.
National Review, March 23, 1998
"The spotlight, as focused last November by [Jewish Dartmouth University] President Freedman, is on Christianity and Judaism, and I am supposed to contemplate the question, What in fact could be done? We return to what precipitated the exchange in the New York Times. It was at the formal opening of the Roth Center for Jewish Life and Culture that President Freedman disclosed the history of Dartmouth's quota on Jewish students. Now the presumed design of the Roth Center is to invigorate Jewish life and culture, which certainly includes Jewish religion. It was the official enthusiasm shown by Mr. Freedman and others for this enterprise that prompted me to ask whether, even as the Roth Center is designed to Judaize Jews, Dartmouth mightn't explore more vigorous means of Christianizing non-Jews. I asked, 'In welcoming students from other creeds, is it expected that a college must forswear its own traditional creed?' ... Surveying the religion-in-schools scene [Irving Kristol] noticed a 'tension . . . now building up between Jews and Christians [which] has very little to do with traditional discrimination, and everything to do with efforts by liberals -- among whom, I regret to say, Jews are both numerous and prominent -- to establish a wall between religion and society in the guise of maintaining the wall between church and state.'"

Catholics and Jews Confront the Holocaust and Each Other.
America, September 11, 1999
"The controversies range from Jewish concerns over who the Pope meets (Waldheim, Arafat) and where cloistered convents and crosses should be located (Auschwitz/Birkenau), to who the church should declare a saint (Edith Stein, Cardinal Stepinac, Pope Pius XII). Many Catholics are understandably confused as to why some in the Jewish community feel constrained to second guess so many of what are, after all, internal matters in the life of the church. Catholic confusion is compounded when the complaints come at a time of rapid progress in the dialogue vigorously led by Pope John Paul II. This pope's active promotion of Catholic-Jewish relations is unprecedented in the history of the church. And why beat up on Catholics all the time? Why not go after somebody else once in a while? We don't go around setting up Messianic Jewish 'synagogues,' or saying that God doesn't hear the prayers of Jews or opining that the Anti-Christ will be a Jew. Why us ... Dialogue seeks to know what is hurtful to the other and to avoid it. Its goal is not winning but understanding. It would be helpful, therefore, if our Jewish partners in dialogue would learn that using the level of rhetoric on Catholics that is common within the Jewish community can block understanding as often as it communicates to us legitimate Jewish concerns ...Many Jews seem to miss what is to us the obvious point that to attack the papacy is to raise up for us the specter of the Nativist bigotry we thought had been left behind after John F. Kennedy's campaign for the Presidency ... . If Jews are to communicate with American Catholics, there will need to be a softening of the rhetoric until the volume is turned down enough so that we Catholics can hear what they are saying. Right now, the discourse is too loud to be comprehensible."

Two Hotels Take Bibles from Rooms. The Advertiser [Australia] May 29, 2001
"Bibles have been removed from guests' rooms at two major Adelaide hotels, ending a long-standing tradition. Management of the Singaporean-owned Stamford Plaza, opposite Parliament House, and Stamford Grand at Glenelg say Australia is a multifaith society and hotel guests cannot be assumed to be Christian. The Gideon's Bibles at the Stamford Plaza were taken from the rooms on the instruction of general manager Graeme Goldberg, who is Jewish."

Too Jewish for Radio?
Afterword: Canada's National Jewish Student Newspaper, September 2000
"While [Marsha Lieberman, talk show host at Talk 640] has sufficient respect for her background to not try to subvert Judaism, she is constantly at odds with how much her respect is shaped by religion. She's been accused of being anti-Catholic after addressing issues, which she finds odd, since she currently cohabitates with a Catholic ... ['Humble Howard'] Glassman [a talkshow host at a Toronto radio station] has been under fire from Christian groups for a few years now, culminating in last month's 26-page complaint to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by the Catholic Civil Rights League and the Canadian Family Action Coalition. (They sent copies to the B'nai B'rith and the Toronto Police Hate Crimes Squad.) Particularly at issue was a series of bits done by Glassman and sidekick Fred Patterson regarding Jesus (including the song 'Jesus Was a Fetus') and Easter (a giveaway of chocolate Jesus candies, promising to nail their producer to a cross and holding a Jesus-lookalike contest). Glassman feels the groups failed to understand the humor of having a Jesus-lookalike contest won by a black bike courier. Humble Howard, who rarely uses anything but his nickname on-air, was taken aback by just how often the surname 'Glassman' (he doesn't hide it, but it's rarely mentioned) figured in the CRTC complaints."

Jews Can't Take 'Yes' for an Answer. Reform Judaism. Fall 2000
"But what stands in the way of an affirmative acceptance of good news? Why such reluctance bordering on negativity toward the outstretched hand? I have in mind the reluctant reaction of many Jewish leaders and organizations to the bold efforts of the Catholic Church, which, for two and a half decades and particularly under the reign of Pope John Paul II, has called for a reconstruction of the Church's relationship to Judaism and the Jewish people. The traditional 'displacement theology' of the Church that viewed Christianity as a faith that supersedes Judaism has been replaced with a positive appreciation of the relevance and vitality of Judaism .... Its adherents are addressed by the Pope as 'our dearly beloved brothers,' indeed 'our elder brothers.' Yet, the multiple calls by the Vatican for the "sinful sons and daughters of the Church" to purify their hearts in repentance of past errors and infidelities so as to 'help heal the wounds of past injustice' have met with tepid and even negative response by much of the organized Jewish community. No less a strong advocate of Jewish-Catholic rapprochement than Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the head of the Pontifical Commission For Religious Relations With The Jews, has stated publicly that the Church's effort for reconciliation is being 'undermined' by leaders of Jewish organizations ... In exasperation, the cardinal declared: 'We expect and hope that the Jewish partners will at least show us respect. You can hardly claim to respect someone if at every possible opportunity you are ready to criticize the person, even without making a real effort to understand and appreciate the position of the other person.' This is a charge more serious than not being able to take 'yes' for an answer. We are facing a threat to Catholic-Jewish relations, and repairing the breach will require our earnest attention and moral statesmanship."

The Apology in Context: Fifty Years of Catholic-Jewish Kulturkampf.
Culture Wars, May 2000
"The history of the last 40 years has been the history of increasing Jewish animus against Catholics, during which the Catholics have taken a beating defending the moral order. This battle stretches from the Catholic defeat in defending the Hollywood production code through the Ginsberg obscenity decision, wherein Philadelphia handed the pornography industry a defeat it never forgot, through Lemon v. Kurtzman, all the way to Hitler’s Pope and the most recent academy awards ceremony with teary-eyed tributes to abortion propaganda and Billy Crystal making jokes about the pope. All of these battles have one thing in common, they were part of a struggle between Jews and Catholics over control of the culture which Catholics have lost on a consistent basis for going on 40 years now ... If, as [prominent Jewish lawyer Alan] Dershowitz says, "God is not central to my particular brand of Jewishness," then what he calls Judaism is really an ideology whose main tenet is hatred of Jesus Christ."

Pope Blasted for Silence. May 2001. Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Another Jewish attack against the Pope, this time for not complaining about things that President Assad of Syria said about Jews.

Greek Orthodox Accuse Israel of Meddling in Vote.
Haaretz [Israeli newspaper], July 12, 2001
"The Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem yesterday angrily accused Israel of meddling in the election of the church's top clergyman in the Holy Land, after the government disqualified one-third of the candidates, including one of the front-runners. In a letter signed by Justice Minister Meir Sheetrit, five of the 15 candidates for election as Greek Orthodox patriarch were banned for alleged security reasons, said Metropolitan Isychios, a top church official and one of the disqualified candidates. 'The Patriarchate condemns this unwelcome and unlawful intrusion of the Israeli government into church affairs, which serves undisclosed and suspicious interests,' the church said in a press release. The church did not elaborate on what hidden agenda it believed Israel had in the matter. Metropolitan Isychios said the church would ignore the Israeli objections and proceed with the elections, with all the candidates taking part. The five banned candidates included one of the front-runners, Metropolitan Timotheos, who has served for years as secretary and spokesman for the Patriarchate in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem's walled Old City. Metropolitan Isychios said the security reasons cited in the letter were 'bogus' and Israel was not stating the real reasons. 'If I have done anything against Israel, let them arrest me,' he said ... Israeli officials said they had the right to disqualify candidates. Asked about Israel's objections to five candidates, Raanan Levy, an adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said: 'Israel is sovereign in Jerusalem and the reasons have to do with Israel's interests in Jerusalem.' He would not elaborate. Shmuel Eviatar, an adviser to Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, also said Israel acted within its rights. 'Israel, as the sovereign power in Jerusalem, has the right to disqualify any candidate whom it does not regard as suitable to be head of the biggest and most ancient church in this country,' he said. A senior church official said Israel's intervention violated the freedom of Christian communities in the Holy Land."

Lives of the Saints. Philadelphia City Paper, December 14-21, 1995
This is a review of Jewish author Christopher Hitchens' book that trashes Catholic heroine Mother Teresa. To guarantee maximum offense, the book is entitled "The Missionary Position."
"Last year, when Vanity Fair and The Nation columnist Christopher Hitchens co-produced Hell's Angel, a British TV documentary slamming the works of Mother Teresa, international outrage ensued. The show was labeled blasphemous, and Hitchens received several death threats and countless 'How dare you!' letters and comments. Good journalists, of course, are supposed to ask the inappropriate questions. This being said, I was nevertheless disappointed in Hitchens' new book on Mother Teresa. While he raises plenty of legitimate concerns, the book is marred by the personal nature of his attack on the former Agnes Bojaxhiu, and by his larger assault on religion itself ... Certainly we should be as skeptical about Mother Teresa's financial dealings as we've been about the financial dealings of Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. What keeps The Missionary Position from being a greater book is Hitchens' genuine hatred of Mother Teresa. He uses anything and everything to paint her as a phony, from photo-ops with malevolent world leaders to name-calling (from 'religious fundamentalist' to 'demagogue' to 'Gorgon'). This isn't a reporter examining both sides of an issue; this is a guy with a vendetta."

The Medium May Be Different, But the Message is the Same: Porn Sells,
Seattle Weekly, February 11-17, 1999
"As the newest millionaire computer geek from the Eastside, boyish [and Jewish] Seth Warshavsky already has a lot to live up to. Depending on who is characterizing him, he's either a genius, a misogynist, a respected global businessman, an exploiter of children, the Bill Gates of porn, or the Larry Flynt of cyberspace ... Warshavsky says that [Mark] Cohn, who heads up Four Star Financial, a South SF investment company, is his only partner [in his Internet porn company] ... Then came the Pope. IEG [Warshawsky's company] recently linked its sites to others that carried news of Pope John Paul II's visit a couple of weeks ago to St. Louis. To make sure Catholics were properly horrified, IEG included an account of papal sex scandals and dirty religious jokes. In a suit by the church, a federal judge in St. Louis ordered the link severed, turning back Warshavsky's free-speech argument. 'The Pope and I share many of the same interests,' Warshavsky snickered in a publicity release. 'Sex is what drives our business and sex is a main concern of the Pope.'"

"Sensation" and Lack of Sensation, by Camille Paglia.
Salon.com, October 6, 1999
"As an arts educator, I think that the behavior of the Brooklyn Museum has been self-interested and shortsighted .... The Brooklyn [Museum] show [entitled 'Sensations'] is a perfect example of the improper diversion of public monies -- in this case to aggrandize a single British collector, an obnoxious advertising executive of dubious taste .... And I'm just as sick of "Catholic-bashing" as [New York City mayor] Giuliani himself. I may be an atheist, but I was raised in Italian Catholicism, and it remains my native culture. I resent the double standard that protects Jewish and African-American symbols and icons but allows Catholicism to be routinely trashed by supercilious liberals and ranting gay activists. Missing from media accounts was that this Brooklyn Museum flap disastrously broke in the midst of a furor over the alleged anti-Semitism of the Irish Catholic presidential wannabe Pat Buchanan. That a Jewish collector [Charles Saatchi] and a Jewish museum director [Arnold Lehman] had no compunction about selecting a parodic image of the Madonna from the whole of [artist] Chris Ofili's dung-bedecked oeuvre shows either stupidity or malice." [This article originally had a daring subtitle: Why are a Jewish collector and a Jewish museum director promoting anti-Catholic art?, later removed. So notes The Nation in its own article (not sympathetic to Paglia): Catholic Bashing, November 1, 1999]

How Saatchi Orchestrated Brooklyn Museum's Frenzy ... Money -- Not Art -- Rules Show. New York Observer, October 4, 1999
[Note the Jewish complexion, as described above, to this exhibition. The author of the excerpt below, Hilton Kramer, is also Jewish]
"What is essential to understand about this exhibition, the full name of which is Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, is that it is first of all about money–or, to put the matter more delicately, about the vicissitudes of art commerce in the 1990’s. That Charles Saatchi is an advertising genius is beyond doubt. That he is also one of the shrewdest traders on the international art bourse is also well known. He buys and sells art futures the way other traders buy and sell pork bellies ... One of the nastiest objects in the show is indeed Chris Ofili’s The Holy Virgin Mary (1996), which has already caused so much uproar. It turns out, however, that the elephant dung that is attached to this canvas is by no means the most offensive thing about this disgusting picture. Attached to its surface are myriad little cutouts from porno magazines depicting assholes and vaginas in graphic detail. Who was it who said that anti-Catholicism was now the anti-Semitism of the intellectuals? I have no reason to suspect that Mr. Ofili is any sort of intellectual, but he seems to have understood that it is O.K. now to engage in this kind of public ridicule of sacred subjects–and win a little art-world fame in the bargain. Had he attempted something similar in mocking the sacred tenets of Islam, Mr. Ofili would probably now require the protection of Scotland Yard, and the Brooklyn Museum would probably have some security problems, too. But it seems to be O.K. to engage in this kind of lewd anti-Catholic expression in public places so long as it passes for serious art."

Rudy's Right to Bring It Up -- Photo Is Given a Shrine.
New York Observer, February 26, 2001 [A second anti-Catholic art exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum]
"It has been said that anti-Catholicism in this country is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals. Whether, and to what extent, this claim has any validity as a general proposition, it is certainly true that in certain quarters of our cultural and intellectual life, expressions of virulent anti-Catholic sentiment are regarded as a permissible prejudice. One of those quarters can be found nowadays on the fringes of the professional art world in New York ... This is one of the facts of cultural life that has to be kept in mind in assessing Mayor Giuliani’s indignant response to the photograph currently on view at the Brooklyn Museum called Yo Mama’s Last Supper, in which Christ is depicted as a naked black woman. Another fact, alas, is that legal challenges to the public expression of such permissible prejudice are destined to fail if the work in question makes claim to the status of art. Neither the courts nor the liberal media will support such challenges. ... Let’s face it: If the outrage in question had taken the form of an anti-black, anti-Moslem or anti-Semitic exhibition, there would now be a firestorm of protest that would shut down the museum, if only to maintain civil order, and the liberal media would be in the vanguard of that protest."

Polish Gallery Director Resigns.
The Art Newspaper [Great Britain], March 13, 2001
"Anda Rottenberg, the Jewish director of Warsaw’s leading state-funded art space, the Zacheta Gallery, has resigned. She blamed a long and sometimes anti-Semitic campaign by ultra-nationalist politicians for her decision, saying she was tired of the battles surrounding her work. The gallery has recently been at the centre of two controversies, firstly when it showed film stills of famous actors in Nazi uniforms and then again when Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture of the Pope was put on display. In both cases the exhibitions were attacked and damaged, and in the second case nine right-wing politicians sent a letter to the Minister of Culture demanding her dismissal."

Cattelan's Crushed Pope Damaged by Polish politicians.
The Art Newspaper [Great Britain], February 23, 2001
"The arrival in Warsaw of Maurizio Cattelan’s sculpture of the Pope crushed under a meteorite provoked an outcry. Two MPs from the Catholic nationalist party, Halina Nowina-Konopka and Witold Tomcyk, seriously damaged the sculpture when it was on display recently at the publicly funded Zacheta Gallery. The authors of the attack alluded to the Jewish origins of Anda Rottenberg, the museum’s director, 'How would [s]he like a sculpture to be sent to the National Museum of Israel showing a rabbi squashed by Stalin or Arafat?' (Pope John Paul II  is, of course, Polish). The Polish Minister for Culture has been inundated with letters of protest about the sculpture calling for Mr Rottenberg’s dismissal."

Outcry as Polish Actor Slashes Nazi Portraits.
The Art Newspaper [Great Britain],
"One of Poland’s best known actors and film stars is currently under police investigation and faces a possible prison sentence for slashing a portrait of himself, in an exhibition in Warsaw’s leading contemporary art gallery. The events happened shortly after 'The Nazis' opened at the publicly funded Gallery Zachenta. The show consisted of an uncaptioned series of photographs of actors in Nazi uniform, taken from film stills without the actors agreement, by the Polish artist Piotr Uklanski. Accompanied by TV cameramen and reporters and as the cameras rolled, the actor Daniel Olbrychski, featured in one of the portraits, entered the gallery, pulled a sword from under his greatcoat and slashed some of the exhibits, then tore the two featuring himself from the wall and left. The choice of the sword was significant: it was one used in a film about a swashbuckling Polish hero and patriot Kmicic ... Mr Olbrychski later declared: 'I defend the right to say that there are some frontiers of decency which were clearly overstepped in this exhibition, and I reacted violently in the hope that my gesture will highlight my objections. I did it in the spotlight of the camera and flashlights because I wanted for Poland to know about my feeling about such ‘artistic practices’. Furthermore I received the agreement of other actors whose portraits were in the show, including the French film star Jean-Paul Belmondo who agreed that I should protest in their name. I can understand that there are opportunistic artists but I cannot understand why the director of such a serious institution as Zachenta has accepted this. Soon Mrs Anda Rottenberg [the director] will organise an exhibition at which she will expose the faces of known actors on lavatory paper because she considers that as we are public figures she is entitled to do so. It is unthinkable.'”

A Boil Is Lanced in Boyle Heights.
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. March 9, 2001   
[A noteworthy counterpoint to the above anti-Catholic art stories]
"The call came in last Wednesday from one J.R. Durrer, an Encino resident who works in Boyle Heights. Durrer had been heading west up Seventh Street, where he caught a red light at the corner of South Boyle. A glance at the mural on the wall surrounding the auto maintenance shop to his right put him face to face with what he characterized for The Journal as 'an unflattering caricature of a Jewish landlord.' Pulling up to this work-in-progress the next morning, I came face to face with Durrer’s propensity for understatement. He had described the mural as a kind of timeline chronicling the Hispanic presence in California. Sure enough, it begins with the bucolic image of a peasant tilling the fields. The scene quickly segues into a more urban setting, though, culminating with a Latino mother in her apartment kitchen who is feeding her baby in his high chair. Outside her door, alas, a pot-bellied, hook-nosed Chassidic Jew lifted straight out of Der Sturmer hammers on her door, demanding 'la renta' ... The artists were two Latinos in their late teens or early 20’s. They had approached [the owner of a building] some weeks earlier, asking for permission to paint the wall. She said that she could see no reason not to comply — that is, as long she didn’t have to pay for the privilege ... Toward day’s end ... the Chassidic figure had mysteriously disappeared. 'Perhaps he or one of the neighbors spoke to the artist," [a local activist] said in an e-mail to me. 'Or maybe someone else took matters into their own hands. Maybe the city stopped by. All I can tell you is that, as of 4 p.m. this afternoon, the caricature has been painted out to white.'"

They''ll Never Catch Me. Daily Express, July 6, 1999
"Though a Jew and an agnostic, [Martin] Frankel said he was fascinated by St Francis of Assisi and wanted to follow in his footsteps by setting up a charity with £600 million to help the poor. Contacts were made with senior figures in the Vatican. Soon Frankel's emissaries - including Kathe Schuchter, who appeared in hot pants and a bikini top for one meeting - were flying to Rome to explain his plan to astonished Franciscan monks. It involved the creation of a foundation in the offshore tax haven of the British Virgin Islands. The foundation was to take over insurance. In return, Catholic charities were promised at least £30 million. Frankel even offered to pay £6 million for the Pope to visit Russia ... Frankel also set up another offshore trust, the St. Mary's Foundation for the Protection of Homeless Children, which acquired the small stockbroker Liberty National Securities. The insurance companies invested their money through Liberty. Its head office was just an accommodation address. Calls were routed to Frankel's home, where he answered using the name Eric Stevens. Insurance regulators in Mississippi started to become suspicious. The companies appeared to be doing billions of dollars of business with Liberty but only paid out $25,000 in commission. This was because Frankel was inflating the value of his companies by inventing false transactions. Then, one of his insurance companies asked to be repaid £90 million. Frankel stalled. It was time to run."

Vatican, Israel Trade Charges at Anti-Semitism Conference.
Catholic World News, July 20, 1999
"A Catholic-Jewish conference in Israel on relations between the religions was rocked on Monday when a Vatican representative said the problem was not just perceived Catholic anti-Semitism, but also Jewish anti-Catholicism. Father David Yager said the Catholic Church is not anti-Semitic and that all traces of the ideology have been purged from the Church's institutions, but Israel continued to hold an anti-Catholic attitude that is harming prospects for better relations. Father Yager cited continuing accusations by some Jewish leaders that Pope Pius XII did not forcefully enough condemn the Nazism and the Holocaust."

Vatican Charges It is Target of a 'Slanderous Campaign' in Connection with Pope Pius XII.
Tampa Tribune [TBO.com, from AP News], August 7, 2001
"The Vatican accused Jewish historians on a special Holocaust commission of 'clearly incorrect behavior,' charging that they have helped mount a 'slanderous campaign' against the Catholic church ... The Vatican's response was written by the Rev. Peter Gumpel, a German Jesuit gathering documents to support the possible beatification of Pope Pius XII, the World War II pope ... Gumpel said he had met with the group and answered some of their questions and offered to answer the rest at another session, but that this was ignored. It was therefore disconcerting, he said, that in the following months 'some Jewish members in the group had systematically affirmed that they never received answers to their questions.' He also said it was 'false' that the Vatican does not intend to open up its archives, saying this will be done as soon as they are ready. Gumpel said several though not all the Jewish members of the commission had 'publicly spread the suspicion' that the Holy See was trying to hide documents 'that in their judgment could be compromising.'"

Catholic League Upset by Showtime Flicks. Agape Press (Christian News Service), May 21, 2001
"The Catholic League is voicing its concern over an anti-Catholic cable movie scheduled for later this month. Patrick Scully is director of communications for the Catholic League. He explains why the group is alarmed over the May 27 presentation of a film version of the Christopher Durang play, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. 'You don't have to make my word for it -- all major theater critics are on record as saying this is a viciously anti-Catholic film,' Scully says. 'It rips, it mocks just about every Catholic teaching. It is just something that is overwhelming in its bigotry.' Scully says the League has already taken action by contacting Viacom, the parent company of Showtime. '[We called] upon Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone ... to speak out about this. What does he think?' Scully asks. 'This is a ... very powerful man in the media today who has a history of speaking out against intolerance and ... bigotry.' Last week, the New York Post contained quotes from both the director and the president of Showtime regarding the movie. Scully sums up what they said. '[They said] they're going to get a pass to make fun of the Catholic church if they want because they happen to be Jewish.' Scully says being a religious minority is no excuse for bigotry."

Anti-Catholicism Charged Against U.S. Senator.
EWTN News [Catholic Global Network], August 10, 2001
"During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing held on July 19, senior Senate staffers charged that [Jewish] Senator Barbara Boxer's (D-Ca.) statements and demeanor exhibited a strong anti-Catholic bias. An observer of the hearing claimed that 'Boxer treated the Catholic Church as if it were a peculiar cult with thirty or forty people rather than a world faith professed by more than one billion people' ... In July, 2000, Boxer personally blocked a Senate endorsement of the Catholic Church's presence at the UN, which had passed the House of Representatives with only a single dissenting vote. Boxer also voiced approval for the first international homosexual celebration - World Pride 2000 - that was held in Rome during the Church's own celebration of the Jubilee Year. Boxer wrote that 'I applaud this creative effort to celebrate diversity.' Organizers of the event have said that they selected Rome so that 'Christian pilgrims will have to share the city with gays and lesbians from Greenland to Afghanistan who are to converge on Rome to party, parade and polemicize…no wonder the Vatican is scared.' Senate observers are increasingly concerned that Bush nominees who are practicing Catholics will not receive a fair hearing from Senator Boxer."

Anti-Christian Jokes. Do Not Swear!, by Jakub Spiewak, Yidele [a journal by Jewish youth in Poland]; [http://www.jewish.org.pl/jidele/]
"'Saint Joseph was a cuckold', 'Jesus Cunnist', 'Jesus ? - Don't swear,' - are only a few examples of what I've managed to hear in the so called Jewish Bermuda Triangle - the building at 6 Twarda street [the Jewish Community Center in Warsaw, Poland]. You might think that those were accidental, not to say primitive, people. You couldn't have been more wrong - those jokes came from people I am very close to, people who I have always regarded as intelligent ... The majority of young Polish Jews grew up in Christian or atheistic families, most of which didn't observe Jewish traditions and religion. Most of us started searching for our Jewish identity and began to ponder over our attitudes towards Judaism only during adolescence or later. And now we've become subject to what was unavoidable, namely neophytism. Many of us make all the efforts to be more holy than the Pope or, if you have it, more Jewish than Abraham ... Many of my Jewish friends are too embarrassed to admit that they have been Baptized and have received the Holy Communion. By professing radically anti-Christian opinions, they try to convince themselves and others that their ties with Christianity have been long broken. What is wrong with being brought up in Christianity ? Myself, I have attended a seminary - very briefly, but still ... Spreading this kind of jokes blinds people in hatred and stupefies them. The Christian-Jewish dialogue and the Polish-Jewish dialogue become difficult when observed through the prism of such humor. It also poses a serious threat for this two-course dialogue. Let's imagine that one of those less than refined jokes reaches a public forum. Would that still make us a serious and trustworthy dialogue partner who deserves friendship? I would risk saying that by spreading such 'humor' we become like the people who tell jokes about Jews in Auschwitz or like father Jankowski [a Polish Catholic priest who has been critical of Jews] who continues to profess idiocies about the Star of David being inscribed in the swastika. And we have criticized those people so many times! If we demand that Jews - the nation and their religion - be respected, we must show respect for others. In here, we are bound by the diplomatic principle of reciprocated respect."

Appeals Court Rejects Lawsuit Challenging Christmas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, February 2001 [scroll down page]
"The observance of Christmas as a federal holiday does not violate the separation of church and state, a federal appeals court has ruled. In a brief order issued Dec. 19, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling dismissing the lawsuit against Christmas, which was brought by Cincinnati lawyer Richard Ganulin. Ganulin, who is Jewish [and who is an attorney for the city of Cincinnati], told the Cincinnati Post he objects to the government celebrating a Christian holiday. 'It’s not that I’m against Christmas,' he said. 'I’m seeking the dignity of equality for non-Christians.' Ganulin said he disagrees with the lower court, which held that although Christmas is a religious holiday, the government’s reason for observing it can be secular. The Cincinnati-based attorney said he plans to appeal the Ganulin v. U.S. case to the U.S. Supreme Court."

Poetic Justice, Cincinnati Enquirer, December 12, 1999
As part of her decision sustaining Christmas against Richard Ganulin's lawsuit, Judge Susan J. Dlott playfully wrote some doggerel: "The court will address Plaintiff's seasonal confusion / Erroneously believing Christmas / Merely a religious intrusion. / Whatever the reason / Constitutional or other / Christmas is not / An act of Big Brother! ... One is never jailed / For not having a tree / For not going to church / For not spreading glee! ... Santa / The Easter Bunny too / And maybe the Great Pumpkin / To name just a few! An extra day off / Is hardly high treason / It may be spent as you wish / Regardless of reason. / The court having read / The lessons of Lynch / Refuses to play / The role of the Grinch! / There is room in this country / And in all our hearts too / For different convictions / And a day off too!"

Pollsters Take Off the Gloves in Feud Over Intermarriage: Critics Charge Bias in AJCommittee Study. InterfaithFamily.com [from the Forward]
"Mr. Case demanded his own apology from Mr. Cohen. 'InterfaithFamily.com encourages interfaith families to participate in Jewish life and to raise their children as Jews,' Mr. Case wrote. 'We distance ourselves from Dovetail and other organizations which encourage families to have two religions in the home. Unless you can point to one single statement that I have ever made orally or in writing in which I 'promote the blending of Christianity and Judaism' or 'seemingly encourage Jews to marry non-Jews,' you should retract those slanderous statements.'"

Two Held for Curse Ritual Against the Pope,
Jerusalem Post, March 23, 2000
"Former Habad activist Meir Baranes of Safed, who was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of putting a religious curse on Pope John Paul II, was remanded for five days yesterday by the Acre Magistrate's Court. A second suspect was arrested yesterday, and will be brought for remand today. Three haredim took part in the pulsa de nura ('lashes of fire') ceremony in a Safed cemetery, aired on Channel 2 on Monday just before the pope's arrival and broadcast on foreign networks worldwide. Police are searching for a third suspect. Last night, Itim reported that police investigators suspect that the ceremony was staged in cooperation with Channel 2, which denied the charge ... The midnight rite, which Channel 2 said was enacted last Thursday in a cemetery in Safed, recalled rabbinical curses cast on prime minister Yitzhak Rabin prior to his 1995 assassination by Yigal Amir. Participants in the ceremony, sounding ritual calls on ceremonial ram's horns, cursed the pope as a 'hater of Israel.'"

The Worship Service as a Cultural Experience, by Tzvi Howard Adelman,
The Jewish Agency for Israel [The Department of Jewish Zionist Education], August 22, 1999
"The question is whether the prayer once contained more specific references to Christians and because of the demands of censorship the text was changed. Such an assertion plays a regular role in Jewish-Christian relations, providing Christians an opportunity to demonstrate the fundamental anti-social and anti-Christian aspects of Judaism. Such assertions are buttressed by the fact that Solomon Schecter found in the Cairo Geniza, the massive medieval repository of worn out manuscripts, versions of the prayer which did invoke God's wrath against apostates (meshumadim) and Christians (Notzrim) ... Of particular concern to Christians has been the line 'She-hem mishtahavim lahevel varik umitpalellim el el lo yoshia,' 'They bow down to vanity and emptiness and the pray to a god who will not save.' This line, which appears after the line that ends with the word 'multitude,' 'hamonam,' is not found in either Leviant or Birnbaum, but is found in not only manuscripts but many prayerbooks that are used today ... By 1370, perhaps with the appearance of Alenu [prayers] in the Mahzor Vitry, Christians began to protest against the Jews saying such a prayer. Sometimes they even tried to force Jews to abstain from saying the offensive line. For example, in 1702 the Prussian government began an investigation of the prayer which, concluding on August 28, 1703, banned the offending line as well as spitting. This ban was repeated in 1716 and 1750 ... Some Jews changed the line to read, 'She-hayu mishtahavim laelilim umitpallelim el ale lo yoshia,' "They used to bow down to idols and pray to a god who does not save." This way they changed the meaning from the present, against Christians, to the past, against pagans ... In Sephardic communities, often in Muslim countries, where Christians were usually not in power, the full prayer is still said. In my own congregation in Jerusalem I noticed an interesting compromise had been worked out concerning this line, perhaps unwittingly since nobody can recall any discussion about it. The offending line appears in the prayerbook, Rinat Yisrael, reflecting a historical reality and some contemporary Jewish practices, but it is not recited, reflecting local custom based on either sensitivity or habit. In his commentary on the prayerbook, Joseph Hertz, once the Chief Rabbi of Britain and one of the greatest apologists for Judaism ever, whose biblical and prayerbook commentaries are mainly valuable as a repositories of apologetics, crowed that this prayer is 'sublime,' 'noble,' and 'ancient' and 'universalist' which 'voices Israel's undying hope for the day when all idolatry shall have disappeared' and 'the essential character' of Judaism."

Lutherans Charge Israelis Using Schoolchildren as Human Shields, by Elaine Ruth Fletcher. San Diego Union-Tribune, August 31, 2001
"Lutheran church officials around the world have decried the invasion by Israeli army troops into a Lutheran church boarding school in the Palestinian-controlled village of Beit Jallah earlier this week. The Rev. Jadallah Shehade, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Reformation and principal of the church's boarding school, charged the children were being used as 'human shields' by the Israelis, who had postioned themselves on the rooftop of the church compound. Ironically, the soldiers had stationed themselves on a new church building known as Abraham's Residence, which was being built as a seminar center for Christian-Muslim-Jewish peace dialogues. 'We denounce in the strongest possible terms the Israeli occupation of our buildings and demand that the army immediately withdraw from our church premises as well as from Beit Jallah,' said Bishop Munib Younan, head of the Lutheran church in the Holy Land. Younan said he was appealing to human rights organizations and Lutheran church bodies overseas to protest the Israeli action. In Geneva, the Lutheran World Federation sharply condemned the occupation of the town near Bethlehem, particuarlly 'the forces' misuse of the Lutheran church as a base for weapons fire and military activities. In a brief note to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Rev. Ishmael Noko, Lutheran World Federation general secretary, called the incursion 'an outrage' and said the troops had invaded 'one of the holy places of the Christian community.'"

Pro-Family Groups Predict Hate Crimes Laws Will Target Christians,
Agape Press [Christian News Network], September 5, 2001
"One pro-family activist says politicians are eager to pass 'hate crimes' laws and that if they succeed, the real targets will not be criminals, but Christians. Robert Knight is director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America. Knight says laws and penalties are already in place for committing crimes, but that adding the term 'hate crime' is merely a politically correct emotional response. He says this is dangerous legislation because it attempts to regulate how a person thinks. 'Hate crimes set up special classes of victims that get more government protection than others,' Knight says. 'This fundamentally violates the equal protection concept of the U.S. Constitution.' 'Hate crimes also introduce the un-American concept of 'thought crime' -- that's where some thoughts or beliefs that are tied to crimes are actually criminalized,' he explains. 'You can't go around hitting somebody over the head anyway or burglarizing the house or defacing their garage -- these are already illegal. But if you say that some people get more punishment depending on their attitude while they're doing it, now you're setting up different classes of belief.' According to Knight, the day will come when Christians will be charged with hate crimes for simply stating their religious beliefs."

Jewish Scholar Panel Rejects 'Inflammatory' Attack by Vatican,
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, September 5, 2001
"Jewish scholars of an interfaith team formed to study the Vatican's role in World War II lashed out against what they deemed 'inflammatory' and 'totally unjustified' Vatican attacks, and renewed their calls for more access to the Holy See's archives. The Jewish scholars — Michael Marrus of Toronto, Bernard Suchecky of Brussels and Robert Wistrich of Jerusalem — were responding Tuesday to a communique issued Aug. 24 by Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Kasper had accused the Jews on the Catholic-Jewish panel of 'indiscretion' and making 'polemical remarks in the press' that fomented 'distrust' and made research 'impossible to continue.' 'We hope you will understand our sense of shock that the Jewish members of the group of scholars have been singled out for blame, both in your own communique and in some extraordinarily harsh and totally unjustified statements emanating from the Holy See in recent weeks,' the historians wrote to Kasper ... 'We have had inflammatory and scathing statements' from the Vatican 'directed at all members of the commission but with particular virulence towards the Jews.'"

'Errors' in Judgement. A Priest Reflects on His Jewish Roots and Questions His Beliefs, [book review of a novel by Jewish author Alan Isler],
Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, September 21, 2001
"[Main character Father Edmond] Music is, quite consciously, a mass of contradictions that cannot, and should not have to, co-exist for long. For one thing, this is a priest who, for upward of 50 years, has also been an atheist. For another, he is actually Jewish; as a child in France during World War II, his parents had him converted just before they separately disappeared — his mother into Auschwitz, his father to God knows where until he resurfaces in Tel Aviv long after the war. Third, Music has been sleeping with his housekeeper, the lovely Maude, ever since the day she came to Beale Hall, the scholarly Catholic retreat that Music directs, almost half a century ago ... [Father Edmond says:] 'What I betrayed ... was not the God of the Jews, not the ancient faith, but the Jews themselves, my own people. When, at first to save my life, I joined the enemy, hung the Cross about my neck, genuflected before painted idols, ingested and imbibed like a cannibal what I was told were the real body and blood of the Jew Jesus, I betrayed the six million, and the millions before them, and the many since. It doesn’t matter that I believed none of it.... I knew myself to be a traitor.'"

MTV Rock Musical Ready to 'bare' all in New York,
Yahoo!News [from Variety], September 25, 2001
"MTV is making its first foray into musical theater, a high school-themed play called 'bare!' The musical [written by Damon Intrabartolo and Jon Hartmere Jr.] is a coming-of-age tale about five high school seniors wrestling with a sense of self that doesn't mesh with the expectations of parents, church or society. 'Bare!' was launched at the Hudson Street Mainstage Theater in L.A. last October, and won best music and lyrics trophies at the 2001 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Awards The music cable network's MTV Films division will team with Immortal Entertainment Group, another theater newcomer, to mount the show in New York. They will produce the show with theatrical producers Daryl Roth ('P