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"left" made a scandal and the stamps were quickly withdrawn and replaced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withdrawn.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