Having taught European history for many, many years, I am broadly familiar with the terrible story of European anti-Semitism, which came to its horrible culmination in the last century. In order to lay the foundations that make mass murder of the kind we saw in the 1940s possible, people's minds have to be infected with false, vicious ideas. One of the worst of these ideas is that Jews are "imperfect" people who will only be "perfected" by converting to Christianity. In other words, if Jews reject Christianity they are, in a sense, responsible for whatever disasters befall them. Well, this past week, my least favorite right wing scum, Ann Coulter, again revealed her true colors, telling a Jewish talk show host that Jews need to be "perfected". Here are some of the relevant details:
Earlier this week, Coulter went on "The Big Idea," a talk show aired on CNBC, the cable channel devoted to business news. Its host, Donny Deutsch, is a preternaturally affable businessman who invites successful people on to talk about how they turn their ideas into money. Coulter was there to describe how she had -- in our vulgar commercial argot --"branded" herself. At one point, Deutsch asked her what an ideal country would be like, and she replied that it would be one in which everyone was "a Christian." Deutsch, who happens to be Jewish, protested that Coulter was advocating his people's elimination. She responded that she simply hoped to see Jews "perfected" through conversion to Christianity.
Deutsch, to his everlasting credit, wasn't having any of it, and the full transcript of their extended and -- on Coulter's side -- vilely offensive exchange on the matter is widely available online. Reaction over the last couple of days has been swift...
Perhaps the best response came from the Anti-Defamation League, which called Coulter's comments "outrageous, offensive and a throwback to the centuries-old teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism. The notion that Jews are religiously inferior or imperfect because they do not accept Christian beliefs was the basis for 2,000 years of church-based anti-Semitism. While she is entitled to her beliefs, using mainstream media to espouse the idea that Judaism needs to be replaced with Christianity and that each individual Jew is somehow deficient and needs to be "perfected" is rank Christian supersessionism and has been rejected by the Catholic Church and the vast majority of mainstream Christian denominations. Clearly, Ann Coulter needs a wake-up call about the power of words to injure others and fuel hatred. She needs an education, too, about the roots of anti-Semitism."
That she does. As the league points out, "supersessionism," the theological notion that Christianity "completes" or "perfects" Judaism is, along with the deicide libel, anti-Semitism's major theological underpinning. Indeed, in Central and Western Europe between the world wars, there was a substantial body of purportedly "respectable" intellectual opinion that held "supersessionism" made possible a "reasonable" theological anti-Semitism that was entirely licit, as opposed to the Nazis' and fascists' illicit, "racially based" anti-Semitism. It is fair to say that the rails leading to Auschwitz were greased by precisely the opinion Coulter expressed on American television this week.
Yes, the road to Auschwitz. Some people, I guess, still don't understand how it got built.
By the way, NBC affiliates have had Coulter on more than 195 times.
2 comments:
I like Ann but, when she is wrong, why is everyone giving her more bad press. All this is doing is giving her more platforms to pass this type of wrong information. By the way I teach a religious class in a public school about all religions. Anybody who has any inkling about religions knows that she is wrong.
Dear anonymous,
Ann Coulter gets bad press because that is exactly what she deserves - the real question is why any news outfit with any conscience treats her as though she is noteworthy or representative. The plain fact is that as a political commentator she is abysmally unprofessional and as an entertainer she caters to the tastes of religious bigots and racists. I suppose this is as lucrative a segment of the market as soccer moms are, and it fills my heart with gladness that you have affection enough for the free market system that you can embrace even this, perhaps the most vicious of its spawn. Don't be surprised, however, when people who view public discourse as something other than a comedy club or a sewer object to her.
As for your credentials as a teacher of religious history, I hardly think they qualify you to speak for those christians who actively attempt to convert jews. Members of this group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_for_Jesus), as an example, likely wouldn't agree with your assessment. To suggest that Coulter's remarks should be ignored because they are wrong or in the name of common sense is on it's face absurd.
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