Anti-Jewish Writing

Léon de Poncins: The Problem with the Jews at the Council, Part II

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IV. Jules Isaac and the Church Fathers

In the second of these works—Genèse de l’antisémitisme—published in 1956, Jules Isaac strove to discredit the Fathers of the Church. It is impossible to summarize in a few words a volume of 350 pages. Let us limit ourselves to mentioning some of its most characteristic passages:

It is true that in the pagan world there was a strong current of anti-Semitism, much earlier than Christian anti-Semitism; it is equally true that this anti-Semitism has at times sparked bloody conflicts or ‘pogroms.’ Just as there was a pagan anti-Semitism, whose origin dates back to the divine commandment, in what would Christianity find its justification for having inherited it (after having been itself a victim of it for a long time), and even more, after having pushed to paroxysm its virulence, malignity, calumnies and mortal hatreds? Against Judaism and its followers, no weapon has been more fearful than the ‘teaching of contempt,’ especially inculcated by the Fathers of the Church of the fourth century; and in this teaching no thesis was more harmful than the ‘deicide people.’ The Christian mentality is still steeped in the depths of its subconscious. . . . To fail to recognize this and not to stress it is equivalent to ignoring or disguising the largest source of Christian anti-Semitism.”[1] . . .

The ‘teaching of contempt’ is a theological creation.[2]

The blind violence of the ignorant masses is intimately linked to the cold science of the theologians. A fundamental accusation to which is linked the theme of capital punishment, of the terrible curse that rests on the shoulders of Israel, explaining (and justifying in advance) its unfortunate fate, its most cruel trials, the worst violence committed against it, torrents of blood flowing continually from its open and living wounds. . . .

So that through a skilful manipulation, alternately, of doctrinal judgments and popular anger one makes fall back on God what, when viewed from the terrestrial sphere, is without doubt the result of human wickedness, this perversity, skillfully exploited in different ways from century to century, from generation to generation, and which culminated in Auschwitz, in the gas chambers and crematory ovens of Nazi Germany.[3] Read more

Léon de Poncins: The Problem with the Jews at the Council, Part I

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Editor’s note: The following are excerpts from George F. Held’s translation of a work by Léon de Poncins, a French traditional Catholic highlighting the role of Jules Isaac in bringing about Nostra Ætate. de Poncins focuses on the influence of Jules Isaac whose work emphasized the anti-Jewish themes in the Gospels and in the writing of many of the Church Fathers. Flagrantly anti-Jewish material was indeed central to the writing of the Church Fathers, leading me to propose that the Catholic Church beginning in the fourth century was at the center of an anti-Jewish movement aimed at lessening the economic power of Jews in the late Roman Empire (as seen, e.g., by its vehement opposition to Jews enslaving non-Jews). This material is in Chapter 3 of Separation and Its Discontents (see summary here). Jules Isaac simply gathered this material together and expressed his outrage, then leaped to the conclusion that this Christian tradition was responsible for the Holocaust, a dubious proposition at best. De Poncins, as a traditional Catholic, is angry that a centuries-old tradition has been jettisoned. The new doctrine “rests on nothing! Not a single passage of Holy Scripture, not a single saint, not a single Pope—at least until 1962—has ever supported a similar theory.” It should also be noted that recent research by Prof. John Connelly has also highlighted the role of  Jewish converts in altering Church doctrine on Judaism (see here). All footnotes except #1 are from de Poncins. Part II focuses mainly on Isaacs’ anti-Jewish quotations  gleaned from the writings of the Church Fathers.

Translated by George F. Held[1]

Contents

Introduction

I. Nostra Ætate

II. Origin of the Reforms Proposed to the Council

III. Jules Isaac and Christian Teaching

IV. Jules Isaac and the Fathers of the Church

V. What Jules Isaac Demanded from the Council

VI. The “Judeo-Christian Friendship”

VII. Judaism’s Struggle against the Catholic Tradition

VIII. Only the Monotheism of Israel Is of Divine Essence

IX. Supposing that Jesus Christ Historically Existed

X. Israel and the Revolts of the Mind

XI. Jewish Imperialism

XII. The Divinity of Jesus Christ: Obstacle for Jewish Messianism

Introduction

One of the most disruptive changes in Catholic doctrine introduced by Vatican II is certainly the Church’s teaching about the Jewish people. Up to forty years ago, in fact, all theologians, relying firmly on the Gospels, on the Fathers of the Church and on the ecclesiastical Magisterium of nearly 2,000 years believed that with the coming of Jesus Christ and the advent of the New Covenant sealed with His Blood, the New Israel of God is no longer the people of the Old Covenant, but all men called to be part of the Catholic Church through Baptism. It was also common opinion that the Jewish contemporaries of the Savior and those who lived subsequently (insofar as they “shared in” their forefathers’ “crucifixion”) were deicides, or that they were stained with the worst crime: the murder of the Son of God and the rejection of His messiahship and divinity.

That was what all Catholics believed at least until 1965, when with the approval of the council’s document Nostra Ætate a new doctrine was introduced according to which the Jews were in fact not responsible for the death of Jesus (unjustly attributed to the Romans, simple material executors of the crucifixion), and therefore had no longer to be considered as cursed by God for their enormous sin. Continuing along this line of thought and action one went even further and proclaimed that the Old Covenant between God and his people was still in force,[2] and thus maintained in fact that God had not rejected Israel because of its refusal of Christ and the salvation offered by Redemption which he accomplished on Calvary;[3] that anti-Semitism was a sentiment fed in the population from pre-council Christian teaching,[4] and that such a sentiment had led to the fierce persecution of Jews put into action by Nazism and in the Holocaust, for which, therefore, the Church would be responsible.

And thus it is that the highest representatives of the Bride of Christ, without blemish and without sin, prostrated themselves and asked forgiveness of Caiaphas’ successors for the crime committed by “Christian peoples” (!?), fomented in their hatred toward the Jews by a “distorted” reading of the Evangelists and by the excessive enthusiasm of some Christian orators of the first centuries. In fact, this council document—one must read it to believe it—is not equipped with any notes, and that is because this far-fetched thesis, imposed on the faithful of the whole Catholic world, rests on nothing! Not a single passage of Holy Scripture, not a single saint, not a single Pope—at least until 1962—has ever supported a similar theory…. Read more

Mr. Derbyshire, Get Right with the Lord

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It’s hard to believe it’s been four and a half years since I wrote a column about British polymath John Derbyshire. That was well before Lehman Brothers collapsed, before the world economy teetered on the brink, before the U.S. government gave untold bailout money to the largest banks and corporations.

In my column, I was critical of Derbyshire’s views on the writings of our editor, Kevin MacDonald. The column discussed Jewish power and the taboos surrounding that very power. (See a recent account of Jewish power here —”Elena Kagan’s “diversity problem” and Jewish privilege” by Patrick Slattery.)

Derbyshire began his ruminations on MacDonald’s writings in the March 10, 2003 issue of The American Conservative under the title “The Marx of the Anti-Semites.” There his take on the books was mixed, beginning with “The Culture of Critique includes many good things. . . . Kevin MacDonald is working in an important field.” Derbyshire even validated an important point in MacDonald’s work: “These Jewish-inspired pseudoscientific phenomena that The Culture of Critique is concerned with — Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, and so on — were they a net negative for America? Yes, I agree with MacDonald, they were.” Read more

Free to Cheat: “Jewish Emancipation” and the Anglo-Jewish Cousinhood, Part 2

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Go to Part I.

The Cousinhood on the World Stage.

In 1847, London’s Jewish community had produced a statement for public consumption stressing that the election of Lionel de Rothschild would represent nothing more than the election of another politician who would work for “the welfare of the nation, and the prosperity of his country.”[33] However, later actions by members of the Cousinhood who had taken places in the legislature and in government would provide cause for pondering precisely which nation was being referred to. David Feldman has revealed that entry into the legislature facilitated greater Jewish involvement in the administration of the British Empire, and that the Cousinhood was involved in a succession of financial and political scandals which had at their root “family and religious connections,” “the pursuit of profit,” and attempts to “influence colonial affairs when it deemed [global] Jewish interests were at stake.”[34]

By 1900, through a process of ethnic and familial networking, the Cousinhood had secured many of the most significant administrative positions in the Empire. Feldman notes that the Nathan family alone had by that date secured the positions of Governor of the Gold Coast, Hong Kong and Natal, Attorney-General and Chief Justice in Trinidad, Private Secretary to the Viceroy of India, Officiating Chief Secretary to the Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam,  and Postmaster-General of Bengal.[35] In Parliament, Lionel Abrahams was Permanent Assistant Under-Secretary at the India Office, working under his cousin Edwin Montagu who was then Parliamentary Under-Secretary for India.[36] Read more

Johan Galtung on Jews

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Johan Galtung

Johan Galtung is a prominent Norwegian academic, the founder of the field of peace studies and author of more than 100 books and more than 1000 scholarly papers. He has also been officially labeled an anti-Semite as a result of recent statements, at least some of which are sensible.

Galtung believes that historical anti-Semitism is based at least partly on Jewish behavior: On the rise of anti-Jewish attitudes in Germany during the 1920s,  he says that it was “not unproblematic that Jews had key niches in a society humiliated by defeat at Versailles.”

He distinguishes between predicting anti-Jewish behavior and justifying it: “In no way, absolutely no way, does this justify the atrocities. But it created anti-Semitism that could have been predicted.” In the same way, he argues that medieval pogroms were motivated by the role of Jews in usury: “The Jews played a role in demanding payment from indebted peasants.”

This of course violates the dogma that all anti-Jewish attitudes and behavior are completely irrational—the result of things like Christian religious ideology or individual psychopathology—rather than reality-based conflicts of interest. In the modern world, Galtung claims that “the Jews control U.S. media, and divert for the sake of Israel.”

“Six Jewish companies control 96% of the media,” wrote Galtung. He included the names of journalists, publishers, TV networks, and movie studios, that he claims are controlled by Jews. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch was also included on the list. “He’s not Jewish, but many of the people under him are,” wrote Galtung, in reference to Murdoch. “Many of them are fanatically pro-Israel,” he pointed out. Immediately following these claims, Galtung wrote that “seventy percent of the professors at the 20 most important American universities are Jewish.” Galtung bases his doctrine on an article written by William Luther Pierce, founder of the “National Alliance,” a white supremacist organization.

In a later article defending his position, Galtung provides some great quotes, as from Ruth Wisse of Harvard: “to young Jewish journalists, that they should not ‘see themselves as seekers after wisdom and truth, but as part of the Israeli Defense Forces’ (13/02/12).”

The  issue of the loyalty of American Jews is a canard?? Read more

Myth and the Russian Pogroms, Part 2: Inventing Atrocities

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Having grounded ourselves in the history of Russia’s Jewish Question, it is now time for us to turn our attention to the anti-Jewish riots of the 1880s. The following essay will first provide the reader with the standard narrative of these events advanced by Jewish contemporaries and the majority of Jewish historians — a narrative which has overwhelmingly prevailed in the public consciousness. The latter half of the essay will be devoted to dissecting one aspect of the Jewish narrative, and explaining how events really transpired. Other aspects of the Jewish narrative will be examined in later entries in this series. While a work like this can come in for heavy criticism from certain sections of the population who may denounce it as ‘revisionist,’ I can only say that ‘revisionism’ should be at the heart of every historical work. If we blindly accept the stories that are passed down to us, we are liable to fall victim to what amounts to little more than a glorified game of Chinese whispers. And, if we taboo the right of the historian to reinterpret history in light of new research and new discoveries, then we have become far removed from anything resembling true  scholarship.

The Jewish Narrative.

In 1881 the ‘Russo-Jewish Committee,’ (RJC) an arm of Britain’s Jewish elite, mass-produced a pamphlet entitled “The Persecution of the Jews in Russia,” and began disseminating it through the press, the churches, and numerous other channels. By 1899, it was embellished and published as a short book, and today digitized copies are freely available online.[1] By the early 20th century, the pamphlet had even spawned a four-page journal called Darkest Russia – A Weekly Record of the Struggle for Freedom, ensuring that the average British citizen did not go long without being reminded of the ‘horrors’ facing Russian Jews.[2] The fact that these publications were mass produced should provide an indication as to their purpose: It is clear that these publications represented one of the most ambitious propaganda campaign in Jewish history, and combined with similar efforts in the United States, they were aimed at gaining the attention of, and ‘educating,’ the Western nations and ensuring the primacy of the ‘Jewish side of the story.’ Implicit in this was not only a desire to provoke anti-Russian attitudes, but also copious amounts of sympathy for the victimized Jews — sympathy necessary to ensure that  mass Jewish chain migration to the West went on untroubled and unhindered by nativists. After all, wasn’t the bigoted nativist just a step removed from the rampaging Cossack? Read more

Benzion Netanyahu: Jewish Activist and Intellectual Apologist

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Benzion Netanyahu, father of the current Israeli PM, has died at the age of 102. Uri Avnery, an Israeli peace activist, describes Netanyahu  fils  as “a Holocaust-obsessed fantasist, out of contact with reality, distrusting all Goyim, trying to follow in the footsteps of a rigid and extremist father – altogether a dangerous person to lead a nation in a real crisis.” Like father, like son.

Benzion Netanyahu was a prototypical Jewish activist, switching easily from his work as secretary for racial Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, to successfully lobbying for a pro-Zionist platform for the Republican Party in 1944 (which caused the Democrats to adopt a similar platform), to his work as a Jewish academic historian advancing Jewish interests in academia. His best-known book, The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th-Century Spain, was published in 1995 by Random House.

A commentary by Yossi Halevi Klein claims that the goal of Netanyahu’s scholarship was to

dissect the consequences of Jewish naivete. Benzion’s fascination with medieval Spain wasn’t based only on the behavior of the victimizers but of the victims. He not only drew a line connecting what he defined as the racial anti-Semitism of the Inquisition with Nazism, but implicitly drew a line between the Jews who saw medieval Spain as their golden land and the Jews who saw modern Germany as their new Zion. It is precisely that dread of Jewish self-deception that has defined the politics of Benzion’s son.

Similarly Jonathan S. Tobin, writing in Commentary,  claims that Netanyahu’s “understood that hatred and intolerance lay at the roots of the difficulties of the Jews then as now. As his son noted at his funeral …, the challenge is to “face reality head on” and “draw the necessary conclusions.” Read more