What is it with those Jews anyway ?  If you listen to the critics these are hateful arrogant narcissists who only take and care less, if at all, about others.  They only care about themselves. The critics will tell you that Jews don’t play fair at anything (including war) and never have. They always stack the deck and you lose every time.  Their passion stops at the end of their driveway. It’s all about them, all the time. They are only capable of loving themselves.  What we hear and we read today about  Jews is more than disparaging.  It’s hateful. Demonstrations in Europe are complete with protestors hoisting the Nazi salute from the 1930’s and signs being displayed, “Hitler was right” and worse. Much of the American media stands with these critics.  

Since when is defending and protecting your citizens wrong?  That is one of the main duties of government.  It is what the government is expected to do when attacked.  And what of this ‘piling on’ mentality by the critics? What if the pressure from these bullies worked?  What would happen if Israel backed down and left their fellow citizens to be slaughtered?  Who would be next and where would it end? What would the critics say then ?

In examining these loathsome culprits, these Jews, I found that the examination doesn’t quite support the critics narrative today.  History reveals some significant evidence to the contrary. When Moses led the children of Israel from the grasp of the pharaohs, apparently the children were a more diverse group than just Jews, which helps to explain why Moses is an important prophet in Christianity and Islam still today.

When critiquing Jews as a people, one must consider more modern history. Let’s look at a few individual examples. Jonas Salk in 1955, after years of laboratory research, introduced  the vaccine for polio that interrupted the spread of this debilitating and deadly virus.Today polo is spoken of largely in the past tense. Polio was not  an American epidemic prior to the vaccine, but a worldwide epidemic.

Albert Einstein famous physicist and Nobel Prize winner who fled Nazi persecution in Germany in 1933 was not known for so many other things he accomplished, including teaching an MIT student Abdul Jabbar Abdullah a member of the communist party who ultimately fled Baghdad under the persecution of the Ba’ath party. Abdullah had developed the important wave theory in physics.

More recently there’s Milton Freidman. Friedman was a teacher and Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences, and influenced Margret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell and William Buckley, just to name a few.

The list goes on across the spectrum.  Dodger great and hall of fame pitcher Sandy Koufax,  seven time Olympic Gold Medalists Mark Spitz, recording artist Neil Diamond, song writer Steve Goodman,  actor/ comedian Jerry Lewis who for more than 40 years raised money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, actor Kirk Douglas and his son Michael.  I hesitate to continue listing great Jews of my lifetime out of concern for missing one that had made a difference for me.  But there is one I cannot forsake, Jesus the Jew, my guy.  If I have something to say about the critics I would quote my guy; “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”