Foxman's Fear

Before grabbing headlines with their riots in Paris, Muslims in France vented their anger with a steady string of attacks against Jews and synagogues. In one incident, two years ago, Muslims attending an exclusive secondary school in Paris began harassing and beating another student, an 11-year-old Jewish boy, shouting, "We'll finish Hitler's job!"

The Lawyers Committee for Human Rights issued a report in 2002 called "Fire and Broken Glass." It chronicled an increase in Europe of firebombings against Jewish synagogues, schools, and homes; desecrations of Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials; attacks by skinheads; and marches by people who chanted "Sieg heil!" and "Jews into the sea!"

In November, Iran’s president refused to retract his call to fellow Muslims to “wipe Israel off the map.” At the same time, state-controlled Egyptian television aired a new drama series based on an anti-Semitic hoax called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

So who does Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League think is the biggest threat to the Jewish people? Judging by a recent speech, apparently, it is American Christians!

“Today,” Foxman said, “we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To save us!”

Foxman claimed that mainstream evangelical groups have “built infrastructures throughout the country . . . intend[ing] to ‘Christianize’ all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports, from the military to SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Now Christian leaders have faced ridicule for talking about SpongeBob, but I haven’t heard anyone laughing at Foxman. Of course, given the long and sad history of Christian anti-Semitism over the centuries, ridicule would be out of place.

It’s true that to justify their anti-Semitism, Christians called Jews "Christ-killers" and said the Jews deserved their sufferings because they had rejected Jesus. Martin Luther turned on Jews with a vengeance once he realized they were no more receptive to Reformation doctrines than they had been to Rome's. And in more recent times, while some Christians heroically tried to protect Jewish neighbors during the Holocaust, too many willingly participated in the Nazi campaign of extermination—or simply looked the other way.

But the fact is, Bible-believing Christians are some of the best friends that Jewish people have today, as increasing numbers of prominent Jews are acknowledging. Speaking of the movie The Passion of the Christ, Michael Medved, a prominent Jewish film critic, said, “In today's America, the notably philo-Semitic tone of born-again Christianity makes it more common for Christians to support and defend their Jewish neighbors than to persecute them. American Christians emphasize the Jewish roots of Jesus more strongly than ever before—a trend very much echoed in Mel Gibson's movie.”

Talk show host Dennis Prager, who is also Jewish, had a similar take, saying, “The last thing Jews need is to create tension with their best friends. And the last thing Christians need is a renewal of Christian hatred toward Jesus' people.”

Make no mistake. Abraham Foxman has every right to voice his opinions, however odious. The best answer Christians can give to loony conspiracy theories is to prove them wrong, day by day.