- Dishonouring Christian religious symbols is an old religious
duty in Judaism. Spitting on the cross, an especially on the Crucifix,
and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around
AD 200 for pious Jews. In the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic hostility
was a real one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to
spit so that the reason for doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto
their chests, not actually on the cross or openly before the church. The
increasing strength of the Jewish state has caused these customs to become
more open again but there should be no mistake: The spitting on the cross
for converts from Christianity to Judaism, organized in Kibbutz Sa'ad and
financed by the Israeli government is an act of traditional Jewish piety.
It does not seize to be barbaric, horrifying and wicked because of this!
On the contrary, it is worse because it is so traditional, and much more
dangerous as well, just as the renewed anti-Semitism of the Nazis was dangerous,
because in part, it played on the traditional anti-Semitic past.
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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quickly withdrawn and replaced by an almost identical series from which
the microscopic cross was withdrawn.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 helpt 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 therfore the spitting on the cross too.
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- The late Professor Israel Shahak was an Israeli citizen,
former concentration camp inmate during WW II, and the founder of Israel's
Human Rights League. His book "Jewish History, Jewish Religion"
about Jewish hatred and contempt toward Gentiles, is highly recommended.
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