Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics, and the Catholics hate the Protestants, and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews.1
I can scarcely fathom, living in the 21st century of the Common Era, the notion that anti-Semitism is alive and well in the USA. Sue & Sue (2008) offer scathing statistics of the evidence Jews are targets of prejudice, discrimination, and violence: FBI statistics for 2005 reflect the number of anti-Jewish hate crimes was the largest for any religion, over six times larger than the second highest group, Muslims; this same year the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported a total of 1,757 anti-Semitic incidents; in 2006 a national poll revealed thirty-nine percent of Americans believe the Israeli lobby was responsible for the USA invading Iraq; a 2005 survey, by the ADL, found fourteen percent of Americans are staunchly anti-Semitic, holding on to such archaic beliefs as Deicide (the Jews killed Christ), a Jewish cabal rules the world through media conglomerates and global financial institutions wielding its power in Washington, DC.2
I took a class, as part of my undergraduate minor in Judaic Studies, on the history of anti-Semitism. My favorite expression during this class was, “The Egyptians tried to enslave and kill us, they have come and gone. The Babylonians, Medo-Persians, Greeks, and Romans tried to enslave and kill us, they have come and gone. We were expelled one hundred and nine times from Catholic European countries, forced to live in ghettos, and they tried to kill us; Christian Europe has come and gone. The Nazis tried to kill us, they are gone. Tsarist and Communist Russia tried to kill us, they have come and gone. Now its Islam’s turn, they have made us leave their countries and have tried to kill us. We are still here! Now we possess our ancient homeland of Israel. Islam will come and go, and we will still be here.”
Surprisingly, I did not personally experience anti-Semitism while living in Mexico,...