You Don't Have To Be Jewish to Like Levy's Rye Bread

++It also seems you don't have to actually know a Jew to be anti-semite. According to the latest ADL global poll, 70% of those who would be considered anti-semitic have never met a Jew. Of all those polled,74% never met a Jew.

++As a non-Jew, anti-semiticism has always baffled me and actually pretty much disgusted me. There are typologies to anti-semiticism--the WASP version,the Catholic version, the Islamic version and the Eastern European version. Try reading an anti-semitic tract by anyone--I dare you. They are virtually unreadable. Even the Tsarist propaganda piece, the Protocols of Zion. Even Umberto Eco's novel that tried to track down anti-semiticism in Eastern Europe suffered from the same problem just repeating the anti-semitic tracts of the time.

++The DSM of a few years ago had anti-semiticism as part of the symptoms to real serious mental illnesses. That is an observable phenomenon. I have a relative who suffers from some serious border-line issues who was blessed with the symptom of philo-semiticism so he is obsessed with Jews and Israel in a positive way. The Israeli authorities were kind enough to return him to the United States when he flew over to fight for Israel because he believed it was being attacked. It wasn't at that time.He also thinks he is a Jew.

++If you are dubious about anti-semiticism as a symptom of mental illness,try reading Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos and try to explain the beauty of his poetry and why the anti-semitic passages are so jarring and destroy the effect of the poems. Besides his love of Mussolini and Hitler, a WASP disease in the 1930s,he explained his anti-semiticism to Allen Ginsberg as a "suburban" prejudice. 

++Susan Cheever's wonderful new biography of E.E.Cummings explained the period when Harvard was anti-semitic. A Harvard President was alarmed that Jews were getting into Harvard at a higher rate than usual and adopted rules to restrict their entrance.

++When Abe Foxman introduced the new global ADL poll, he was self-denigrating and making fun of himself, knowing that many of us have felt Abe might have gone overboard in the past with episodes that seem more hooliganism than straight out and out anti-semiticism.


++The ADL poll was conducted in 102 countries with 53,000 respondents, representing 86% of the world population. If you answered affirmatively to 6 out of 11 questions,the poll considered you anti-semitic and if you answered higher, deeply anti-Semitic. 

++The poll found that 26% of the world or 1.1 billion people held deeply anti-semitic views. More men than women, more older than younger and more Muslims than Christians.

++35% polled never had heard of the Holocaust.

++One-third who had, believed it was a myth or exaggerated. 

++The least anti-Semitic country in the world is Laos at .2%. The most were the West Bank and Gaza at 93%. Iraq is in the 90% also. The least anti-semitic country is the Middle East region is Iran at 56%. 

++The least anti-semitic larger countries are Sweden, Phillippines, the Netherlands,Vietnam who are 6% of under. The United States is at 9% and Canada at 14%.

++In Israel, a recent poll showed that over 50% of Israelis believe the West was against them.

++Actually, the ADL poll shows something different. Outside of the Middle East,37% have a favorable opinion about Israel and 26% not. In the Middle East, 84% was an unfavorable view of Israel. And in Asia, where anti-semiticism is low,38% have unfavorable and 26% a favorable view.

++If you follow any hate polling, you always find that the haters believe those they hate are numerous. Take gays--in real numbers they are 3-5% of a population. But nowadays, you would think they are a major demographic.

++9% of the poll believe Jews are more than 20% of the population. 18% more than 10%. 30% believe from 1-10%. 

++So what is the real number--a whopping .19% of the world's population. Yes, point 1 9 percent. That's a lot of hate for people who barely register in the global census.

++Roughly,there are about 14 million Jews on planet Earth. 5.5 million are in the United States,about 6 million are in Israel, and 1.5 in Europe. The rest are scattered in small communities around the world.

++So reading this poll,I have to ask whether there are pre-Christian forms of anti-semiticism. I don't mean like Romans occupying Judea but real tangible prejudice. Recently, I read an anti-semitic hymn by an early Christian in 550A.D. and began to think that this noxious sentiment entered early Islam from Christian roots. But I wonder whether there were precursors.

++For all the years, some of us teased Abe Foxman for his focus on Swastikas on synagogues and other 
obnoxious acts by teenagers, I apologize. This was a truly valuable poll that sets the standard for the future.

++When the Ukraine erupted,I remember the saying of my Jewish friends "We are always looking over our shoulders to see whether the Kossacks are coming." Indeed, they have arrived.