--- On Tue, 8/5/08, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:
> Such differences pale against their common cause: early
> childhood
> Christian upbringing. Everyone subjected to this malevolent
> practise
> grows up with an imbued image and meme that, combined in
> the
> subconscious of their victim, produce the
> so-difficult-to-extirpate
> roots of antisemitism. The image: Christ Child/Baby Jesus.
> The meme:
> Judas Iscariot/Crucify Him. Inescapably, in the mind of
> every
> Christian the first word associated with the phrase
> "Christ Killers"
> is going to be "Jews." Anyone who ever as a
> small child was called a
> "Christ Killer" by other small children will
> understand. Papal
> encyclicals do nothing, or less, to extirpate antisemitism.
> It will
> endure at least until, in the immortal words attributed to
> Voltaire,
> "the last king is strangled with the entrails of the
> last priest."
[WS:] Yup. The role of Christian clergy in spreading anti-semitic prejudice and hatred (especially in Eastern Europe) cannot be overestimated.
Wojtek