I think Suzanne Fields says it quite well in this piece, which demonstrates the anti-Semitism underlying so much of the criticism of Israel today -- and the tendency of some people to blame every evil on the Jews.

When Jews is news

"Jewcentricity" is a word that sounds like it was coined by an embittered anti-Semite. But it's actually the inspiration of Adam Garfinkle, a Jew, writing in The American Interest magazine to call attention to a phenomenon that has roots in anti-Semitism and runs from the silly to the sublime: " . . . the idea, or the intimation, or the subconscious presumption . . . that Jews are somehow necessarily to be found at the very center of global-historical events."

"Jewcentricity" is most evident in the recycling of "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a fictitious text commissioned by the czar's secret police for a Russian audience at the end of the 19th century, describing a fanciful cabal of Jews who plan to take over the world. Some critics of the neoconservatives, some of whom are Jewish, cite the protocols, so called, in their accusations that Jews have hijacked American foreign policy. Others, critical of Israel, hyperventilate over the power of the "Israel lobby."

"The Protocols" have naturally become a best seller in several Muslim countries, including Turkey and Egypt, where they were turned into a television series. ("Semitic Sex in the City," however, it was not.) "The Protocols" were featured on the Iranian stands at last year's book fair in Frankfurt "to expose the real visage of this Satanic-enemy," along with an abridged edition of Henry Ford's literary thriller, "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem" (which never made it to the screen). "The grip of the Jewish parasitic influence," asserts the preface of the new edition, "has been growing stronger and stronger ever since [Henry Ford's time]."

Serious examples of "Jewcentricity" are reflected in the media obsession with Sen. George Allen's Jewish mother, who was born in Tunisia and barely escaped the Holocaust, and before that, with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Jewish roots in Czechoslovakia. The national newspapers and television networks spent considerably more time investigating the senator's "blood" parentage and its likely effect on his re-election campaign than the blood being spilled in Darfur. "Why?" asks Adam Garfinkle. "Because . . . Jews is news and there are no Jews in Darfur." That doesn't slow down the conspiracy theorists in other countries, with or without Jews, from obsessing over the myth of sinister Jewish power.

Germany's Jewcentricity is of a completely different order. No negative slur against Jews goes unanswered in the law courts or in the court of public opinion. This has hardly eliminated prejudice against Jews. In an anti-Semitic prank with echoes of the Third Reich, a high-school student in eastern Germany was forced by bullies not long ago to wear a sign around his neck in the school yard: "In this town I'm the biggest swine because of the Jewish friends of mine." The teacher reported it, the chief of police was firm in his outrage, and the state minister of the interior promised an investigation. Germany does not tolerate public exhibition of Nazi symbols.

But the strain of anti-Semitism that many thought would vanish after the horror of the Holocaust has again risen again in the Middle East and among European fellow travelers of the Islamists, whose rhetoric targets Israel in a way that Hitler would readily recognize. Israel is the euphemism for the demonized Jew. The Jews become, as Jonathan Rosen observed in The New York Times, "interchangeable emblems of cosmic evil."

It's not simply an empty gesture that maps available in Middle Eastern countries show Israel erased. Hezbollah demonstrated its capacity to send rockets into Israel, and the Iranian nuclear threat is aimed first at Israel.

Jews remain convenient scapegoats as they continue to haunt the fantasies of rationalizers and haters who want to avoid responsibility for their own culpability. In the 1930s, Jews were blamed for everything that went wrong in Germany (and later in Eastern Europe). Today they're perceived as the seminal cause of Islamic terrorism, subject to the same old media stereotypes that thrived in Nazi newspapers. Getting rid of the Jews in Europe wasn't enough.

"Jewcentricity" serves a specific purpose both in the Middle East and in Europe. It unites the Muslims against a common enemy and conceals their own divisions and discontents, which would be there even if there were not an Israel to hate. Increasing Muslim populations in Europe threaten the peace in ways that absent Jews do not. But we can blame the Jews, anyway.

The Nobel Prize-winning Hungarian novelist Imre Kertesz observes that Europeans mask their criticism of Israel in mournful tones about the Holocaust but use the language that led to Auschwitz. "Because Auschwitz really happened, it has permeated our imagination, become a permanent part of us," he says. "What we are able to imagine -- because it really happened -- can happen again."

And that some today wish to minimize or deny the historical reality of Auschwitz and the other death camps makes such a repeated attempt at genocide all the more likely.

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Having been part of a church doing a renovation, I know what passions can be arroused. And when you are renewing a historic building with great sentimental value to an entire faith, I can imagine things only get more difficult.

When the historic Tabernacle, the egg-shaped building that is home to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, reopens next year after a lengthy face-lift and seismic retrofit, visitors will find something new: the pews.

The loss of the original, and uncomfortable, pine pews, handmade in 1867 and meticulously etched and painted to look like oak, angers many Mormons, whose religion is strongly defined by its history and its forebearsÂ’ hardships.

Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, released a two-sentence statement saying some original pews — Ms. Farah would not say how many — would be returned and that others would be replaced with oak copies “to maintain historicity.” “No determination has been made on what will happen to the unused original benches,” the statement said.

Church officials would not give an explanation for the change, Ms. Farah said in an interview.

“The church is circumspect about the pews, because it is a work in progress,” she said of the Tabernacle renovations, including the pews.

Lack of an explanation angered LaMar Taft Merrill Jr., a retired schoolteacher who grew up here and lives in Lexington, Ky. Mr. Merrill, a descendant of an early church apostle, said not returning the pine pews would be a “shameful act” by the church’s “misguided top echelon.”

“You can’t ever replace what’s original,” he said. “And an oak bench is no more comfortable than a pine bench.”

I'm sure there are reaons for the new pews -- but I cannot think of what they are. The original pews are still in good shape? Why replace that link to the past?

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We keep hearing that women have high status in Islam. But then you get a book, popular in American mosques, written by a prominent Islamic leader, which advocates the following. It makes it clear what the practical status of women is in that religion.

When dealing with a "disobedient wife," a Muslim man has a number of options. First, he should remind her of "the importance of following the instructions of the husband in Islam." If that doesn't work, he can "leave the wife's bed." Finally, he may "beat" her, though it must be without "hurting, breaking a bone, leaving blue or black marks on the body and avoiding hitting the face, at any cost."

Such appalling recommendations, drawn from the book "Woman in the Shade of Islam" by Saudi scholar Abdul Rahman al-Sheha, are inspired by as authoritative a source as any Muslim could hope to find: a literal reading of the 34th verse of the fourth chapter of the Koran, An-Nisa , or Women. "[A]nd (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them," reads one widely accepted translation.

And for those who want to argue that the author of the book, a Saudi cleric, was representing a minority position or one held only abroad, consider the experience of the author only a few weeks after she received a copy.

Not long after I picked up the free Saudi book, Mahmoud Shalash, an imam from Lexington, Ky., stood at the pulpit of my mosque and offered marital advice to the 100 or so men sitting before him. He repeated the three-step plan, with "beat them" as his final suggestion. Upstairs, in the women's balcony, sat a Muslim friend who had recently left her husband, who she said had abused her; her spouse sat among the men in the main hall.

At the sermon's end, I approached Shalash. "This is America," I protested. "How can you tell men to beat their wives?"

"They should beat them lightly," he explained. "It's in the Koran."

And even one online audio sermon (now censored after the speaker was challenged on the issue) made the following suggestion.

Last October, I listened to an online audio sermon by an American Muslim preacher, Sheik Yusuf Estes, who was scheduled to speak at West Virginia University as a guest of the Muslim Student Association. He soon moved to the subject of disobedient wives, and his recommendations mirrored the literal reading of 4:34. First, "tell them." Second, "leave the bed." Finally: "Roll up a newspaper and give her a crack. Or take a yardstick, something like this, and you can hit."

An imam from Kentucky, addressing a mosque in West Virginia. Telling the men to beat their wives.

And yet the feminists are silent about Islam.

I've been accused of hatred and bigotry for daring to suggest that there is something fundamentally barbaric about Islam. But my (liberal) critics fail to address the barbarism of the teaching that women should be beaten. They would insist that any Christian organization that advocated domestic violence be banned from every college campus in the nation -- but they are supportive of the presence of Muslim organizations that advocate physical abuse of disobedient women as a mark of diversity and pluralism.

I'm sorry -- such diversity and pluralism are not useful or needed anywhere in our society. Fundamental respect for women requires taht we condemn such teachings and the violence and sexual assault that come with them. Islam must change -- or Islam must be rejected, marginalized and excluded.

Unless, of course, we in the civilized world wish to reconsider our views against the physical and sexual abuse of women, and adopt the "enlightened" ways of Islam.

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To us in the West, that is a line from a Monty Python movie.

In Iran and other parts of the Islamic world, it is a reality, due to the imposition of sharia law. Article 83 of the Islamic Penal Code of Iran, as one example, declares stoning to death a permissible punishment for some types of adultery.

This needs to be read by every American -- indeed, by ever citizen of the civilized world. I've put the more graphic details below the fold.

Hello.

I read your recent article about stoning to death.

Reading your article reminded me of the bleeding bruises in my heart once again.

You wrote about murdering by stoning.

more...

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I guess I don't find any of this to be a big deal. After all, what the board of the institution has done is indicate it is going to stay within the bounds of what has always been Baptist custom and practice.

Trustees at a Baptist seminary have put it in writing: They will not tolerate any promotion of speaking in tongues on their campus.

The 36-1 vote Tuesday came nearly two months after the Rev. Dwight McKissic of Arlington said during a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary that he sometimes speaks in tongues while praying.

McKissic, a new trustee at the Fort Worth school, passed the lone dissenting vote on the resolution.

It states: "Southwestern will not knowingly endorse in any way, advertise, or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic movement including private prayer language. Neither will Southwestern knowingly employ professors or administrators who promote such practices."

As an organization, Baptists (especially Southern Baptists) are not charismatic/pentecostal in their theological stance. As a seminary, the school is indicating that it will anchor itself to baptist tradition.

That isn't to say that I have a problem with any of the spiritual practices the school disassociates itself from -- I remain neutral on the validity of them.

Frankly, I'd be shocked if it did not -- and would hope that any seminary of any denomination would cling to its its doctrinal anchors.

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This little tidbit, commented upon by Stop the ACLU and Jawa Report, is utterly stunning

Emadeddin Z. Muntasser and Muhammed Mubayyid face charges in U.S. District Court of Massachusetts for the soliciting and expenditure "of funds to support and promote the mujahideen and jihad, including the distribution of pro-jihad publications." Their Care International "charity," a now-defunct Boston-based al Qaeda front organization, published, among other things, the English version by al Qaeda co-founder Abdullah Azzam of "Join the Caravan," which states: "he obligation of Jihad today remains [individually required] until the last piece of land, which was in the hand of the Muslims, but has been occupied by disbelievers, is liberated."

In their Oct. 5 request for a dismissal, the defendants effectively -- and unwittingly -- explain all the reasons why the federal government should outlaw Islamic charitable giving in the United States.

In their motion, attorneys Mrs. Estrich, Malick Ghachem, Norman Zalkind and Elizabeth Lunt, argue that the defendants merely exercised their religious freedom and obligation to give "zakat" (Islamic charity).

Their motion cites Chapter 9, verse 60 of the Koran, which describes "those entitled to receive zakat." According to the definition of zakat in The Encyclopedia of Islam, "category 7" of eligible recipients are "volunteers engaged in jihad" for whom the zakat cover "living expenses and the expenses of their military service (animals, weapons)."

In other words, faithfully practicing Islam mandates the funding of terrorist activities -- and funds given in support of jihadi terrorism should be tax-deductable!

We Americans keep being told that jihadi terrorism is not a true face of Islam, that Islam is a religion of peace and that terrorist activites are contrary to its teachings. We are frequently told that jihad is an internal struggle and not the spreading of Islamic hegemony by the sword. yet the argument presented in federal court by distinguished lawyers -- law professors, the campaign manager for a former Democrat nominee for president, and the former head of a state ACLU chapter -- are arguing precisely the opposite as they seek the dismissal of the charges against individuals who have aided and abetted terrorism.

I'm not sure which is more shocking -- that these "respectable" folks are explicitly siding with jihadi terrorism against the United States, or that they are arguing that the United States Constitution protects jihadi terrorism against interference by the United Staes government.

Oh, and this is one more reason to vote Republican -- the ACLU is an actively partisan group that favors teh Democrats, and Estrich is a likely judicial nominee in any future Democrat presidential administration.

MORE AT: Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, Ace of Spades, Texas Hold 'Em, Dread Pundit Bluto.

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That the power of taxing by the States may be exercised so as to destroy it, is too obvious to be denied. McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

That principle is a cardinal part of our nation's constitutional jurisprudence. And Yet, the NY Times would set it aside in the case of religion, and with it the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Religious institutions should be protected from excessive intrusion by government. Judges should not tell churches who they have to hire as ministers, or meddle in doctrinal disputes. But under pressure from politically influential religious groups, Congress, the White House, and federal and state courts have expanded this principle beyond all reason. It is increasingly being applied to people, buildings and programs only tangentially related to religion.

In its expanded form, this principle amounts to an enormous subsidy for religion, in some cases violating the establishment clause of the First Amendment. It also undermines core American values, like the right to be free from job discrimination. It puts secular entrepreneurs at an unfair competitive disadvantage. And it deprives states and localities of much-needed tax revenues, putting a heavier burden on ordinary taxpayers.

Like most special-interest handouts, these privileges exist in large part because the majority is not aware, or is not being heard. With property taxes growing ever more burdensome, it is likely that localities will start to give religious exemptions closer scrutiny. People who care about discrimination-free workplaces, the right to unionize and childrenÂ’s safety should also start to push back.

Indeed, the NY Tmes akes a specific call for taxation of xhurcxhes, a much learer and much more substantial threat to the First Amendment than the exemptions it complains of could ever be. After all, who is going to determine what is essential to the free exercise of religion or cetral to a church's religious mission -- the church or the government? The authors of the editorial would support an entanglement of religion and government that they would never accept if we were talking about, for example, giving vouchers to allow shchool choice.

And more to the point, in every case that the NY Times raises a question regarding exemptions from taxation or regulation of religious institutions, it fails to ask a question that I think would be central to the issue if one does not believe in virtually unlimited government power -- is it the burden of taxation and regulation imposed upon society that is onerous, and not the exemptions permitted to those who do the work of God? Are the rest of us too oppressed by government, rather than religious institutions too free?

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Does religious tolerance dictate silence about those things that a faith says may not be discussed? Does the freedom to speak critically about historical figures, theology, and uncomfortable truths endure even when such speech offends religious believers? That is an issue that is being faced today in France, and in much of the Western world.

Most, I suspect, would agree that murders, looters, polygamists and such deserve little respect. Why then cannot there be an honest debate over whether Mohammed was -- as M. Redeker alleges -- a "merciless warlord, a looter, a mass murderer of Jews and a polygamist"? Simply because Islam allows of no debate when it comes to Allah, his prophet, and his word. And the French government is fine with that.

That's where provocateurs like M. Redeker come in. Redeker is simply trying to kick-start that debate, even at the price of his own hide. That takes guts, I think, something the French politicians lack. And something Muslim intellectuals like Prof. Tariq Ramadan, the French university lecturer, cannot comprehend. Ramadan ominously warned M. Redeker that he can write what he likes, "but he must know what he wanted -- he signed a stupidly provocative text."

It is clear, in the case of Tariq Ramadan, that those who speak uncomfortable truths or dare to critically examine things held sacred by some believers deserve to be attacked verbally and physically – and indeed have chosen a course to action that merits such assaults and even death. Strangely enough, Ramadan does not extend his crabbed view of freedom to those who, like himself, espouse the hateful teachings of jihadi Islamism. After all, he is currently suing in a federal court demanding that he be allowed to travel to the US to take a position at a major university, and makes the claim that a denial of a visa is illegitimate because it is based upon a desire to censor his views. Perhaps we simply need to clarify to this Islamist swine that until he learns to respect the rights of non-Muslims to speak negatively about Islam (or any other religion), he is not welcome on our continent.

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We hear of such moves from time to time -- will the Latin Mass be brought back as an option for the Catholic Church?

THE Pope is taking steps to revive the ancient tradition of the Latin Tridentine Mass in Catholic churches worldwide, according to sources in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI is understood to have signed a universal indult — or permission — for priests to celebrate again the Mass used throughout the Church for nearly 1,500 years. The indult could be published in the next few weeks, sources told The Times.

Use of the Tridentine Mass, parts of which date from the time of St Gregory in the 6th century and which takes its name from the 16th-century Council of Trent, was restricted by most bishops after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).

This led to the introduction of the new Mass in the vernacular to make it more accessible to contemporary audiences. By bringing back Mass in Latin, Pope Benedict is signalling that his sympathies lie with conservatives in the Catholic Church.

During my seminary days, i knew any number of my fellow seminarians and lay people who wanted to see the Tridentine Rite made more available, due to both an attachment to the Church of their youth and a respect for the history o the Church. This will help to satisfy those folks. It may also help to heal the rift between schismatic supporters of the Latin Mass and the Catholic Church. This seems like a measured, moderate move on the part of a Pope who seems most interested in bringing reasonable people of faith together, not dividing them.

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After all, we get reports of Christian parents murdering their children because they want to leave the faith every day -- don't we?

A RELIGIOUS feud between a Muslim father and his teenage daughter may have sparked a bloody domestic dispute on Queensland's Gold Coast which left the man's wife dead and him fighting for life in hospital.

Police are investigating suggestions the violence erupted after the 17-year-old girl told her father she wanted to opt out of the Islamic faith and convert to Christianity. The girl's mother is believed to have stepped in to protect her daughter, only to be fatally stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Neighbours reported hearing "blood-curdling" screams before the hysterical girl ran half-naked from their Southport home unit covered in scratches.

Police later found the body of the girl's mother, 41, inside the blood-smeared unit. Her husband was taken to the Gold Coast Hospital with a stab wound to the chest. He was last night in a critical condition under police guard.

I've known parents who were sad or angry over the decision of a parent who chose to convert from Christianity to some other faith. But I've never met, or read about, a parent who tried to kill a child over that issue.

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I'd like to think I could achieve this level of forgiveness. I don't know that I could.

Dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.

Charles Roberts, 32, was buried in his wife's family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.

His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped gravestone of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him.

About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.

"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Morrison, Colo., who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could and attended the burial. He said Marie Roberts also was touched.

"She was absolutely deeply moved by just the love shown," Porter said.

I disagree with various points of Amish teaching and theology -- but I do respect the group. Acts such of this show why their witness among the Christian community is so important.

UPDATE: Got to Church this morning and guess what the sermon illustration was.

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That is the charge made against Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) after they filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Wednesday.

A liberal government watchdog group has asked the Secret Service to release its records of prominent conservative Christian leaders' visits to the White House, but one of those leaders called the request "an act of Christianophobia."

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Wednesday. The group said in the request that the records are "likely to contribute to the public's understanding of the influence that conservative Christian leaders have, or attempt to have, on the president in the exercise of his authority."

The Secret Service has 20 business days to respond to the request for records pertaining to James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Louis Sheldon and Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Don Wildmon of American Family Association, and Jerry Falwell of Liberty University.

"These are people that are publicly identifiable as leaders of what I would call the Christian right, and we are interested to know the extent of influence that they may have had on the president and his policies," Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW, told Cybercast News Service.

"It's one thing to know that people have influence and have support of the president, but I don't know that that answers the question about the degree to which they have access and influence to the president and his staff on a day-to-day basis," Weismann added.

I’m curious – what would the response be to a conservative group if it requested access to the records of the visit of prominent black leaders, Jewish leaders, Muslim leaders, homosexual leaders or other minority group leaders? I think the question answers itself – and clearly indicates the despicable nature of the request.

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IÂ’d be shocked, but weÂ’ve all seen in recent years that too many Muslims have no sense of shame.

The Islamic world will be relieved if the Pope makes a full apology," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

In an interview on the Fox TV, Erdogan said that religious leaders should refrain from using the words of Islam and terrorism together.

"Such remarks hurt all the Muslims. We should refrain from remarks which may overshadow alliance of civilizations," he stressed.

First, the Pope has nothing to apologize for.

Second, weÂ’ll quit linking Islam and terrorism when the terrorists do.

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