Where did this horrible practice originate from?

Some on the left might say that this is an anti-Semitic article and some Protestants might say that this why Israel should be defended with more American military spending.

In the end is just a case of the past persecuted persecuting the past persecutor, or a perpetuation of the same sin.  The enemy surely is glad about it.

Considering the other controversies we have seen erupt around the “Ultra-Orthodox” Jews in Israel, I wonder how effective simple admonitions will be.  A group that insists on segregating men from women on public buses and that takes it upon itself to be the modesty police even for those outside of the group is not likely to heed condemnations from the Chief Rabbinate (a religious-political authority that is voted into power).

If I were in the Holy City and saw a Jew doing this to a Priest or Religious Sister you’d need someone on hand to restrain me from beating the living daylights out of them.

This along with the sub-human treatmant of palastinians by Israili Jews is why I have very little sympathy for Jews in general, they don’t seem to get that the Holocaust does not give them carte blance to act howewever they please whilst at the same time labelling anyone who criticises them as an anti-semite

Right there with you, Trad man.

With world opinion turned against Judaism’s genocide, the ADL needs cover.  Because we non-Jews, “goyim,” are not human in Judaism’s eyes, the Oral Torah has long exhorted genocide of us goyim—“The best of the Gentiles should all be killed” (see Kiddushin 66c and Tractate Soferim 15:7). The rabbis have long advised that Judaics should only act out on the Torah’s misanthropic and genocidal exhortations only if the actions (or omissions) do not jeopardize the Judaic community.  Evidently, the ADL is signaling that Judaic hegemony, as advanced as it is, is not sufficiently complete to act fully in accord with Judaism’s Master Race creed—yet!

@Trad Man Some Orthodox Jews spit at Christian clergymen and that’s a justification for not liking Jews in general?
And why are you so incensed by the fact a Jewish person is engaging in this behavior? Last time I checked being a jerk was not the unique attribute of any one group. Did you see the Orthodox monks beating each other up at the Church of the Nativity at Christmas? Was that much better than what’s going on with some Orthodox crackpots here?
But it’s nice to see that you would be willing to “beat the living daylights out of them” in accordance with the teachings of Christ, and not the disturbingly anti-Jewish mindset you’ve got going on.
I would honestly like to believe that Trad’s don’t have a problem with antisemitism, but then wonderful people like you come along to set me straight.

Christ too was spit upon.

Nobody should spit on another person, how hard is that to understand.  Its a form of battery and is repulsive anti-social behavior.

Perhaps all believers in the various ancient myths of the world should take note and stop expecting NON-adherents to follow whatever behaviors their particular religion deems necessary.  Let your magic god deal with it in their own time and way.

As an atheist, I don’t care about anyone’s religious practices as long as they don’t attempt to impose it on others or restrict the equality under civil law others.  If their god wants to punish the “bad people” he will.

Unfortunately, we can have all the laws on the books &  make all the statements that we want, BUT, we cannot control people as the Catholic Bishops are finding out when their flock keeps putting anti-God, anti-life people in office and we have so many “sisters” promoting birth-control, etc.. All of us will have to answer to Jesus for out actions/inactions, words said/not said when we come to our face to face meeting with Him. I agree with you about the ADL, but, as we can see, they can sometimes be right.  +JMJ+

THEY SPAT ON OUR DEAR LORD JESUS TOO…..

It’s just about a few ignorant bigoted slobs and yes they do deserve a slap in the face at least.  The Rabbis can’t control every jerk on the street but they can shame them from the pulpit if these few are turned in so to speak.  They obviously don’t understand that without the Christian presence there they would not have the protection they enjoy at the cost of America tax dollars and lives.

                        shalom

Hooray for the Priest who gave the yeshiva student a “Holy Spirit” smackdown.

I remember reading a piece on this about a year ago. One of the community leaders condemned the practice, (a)  because of where it was occurring (the old city) and (b) that the tradition says that Jews shouldn’t mess with the goyim, or the goyim will persecute them. Nothing about violations of human dignity, unsanitariness, etc.

Nice to see other Jews ratcheting up the criticism.

Well I take a different approach.  Granted all this is most distasteful and maybe even dangerous for a variety of reasons.  But, as Christians shouldn’t we rejoice when we are persecuted precisely because we are Christians?  St. Francis might have even called it “nearly perfect joy”.
Alas when they finally stop spitting it may be important to look up for the time may be at hand!

I guess when Americans are finally voicing their opinions about the lie we call Israel old Abe has decided that spitting on priests is bad PR for such an upstanding country.  Abe Foxman does not have the priests’ interests at hand,  he has his own and that of the Zionists.  John Hagee probably told him it was bad for business.

It is important to understand that religious and observant Jewish people literally hate the person of Jesus and that this is an important part of their religion.
Thank you for your kind understanding.

Wow.  Scratch a Trad, find an anti-semite.  A tiny minority of Jerks for Judaism behave badly—with opposition from normal civil Jews—and this becomes an indictment of “Jews in general”.  And then the vengeance fantasies of beating the living daylight out of Jews—as Jesus clearly commands us to do when he says, Love you enemies.

Me: I have trouble telling the difference between Trad Man and the Ultra-Orthodox he hates.  Peas in a pod.

What Mark Shea said. And that goes for offensively antisemitic comments like “Gorman Schlepplestein”‘s too.

@Mark Shea, spot on.
What Trad man said is extremely repulsive. But luckily, he won’t be able to “beat the daylight” out of people he hates so much. He forgets that Jews now have their own state and nobody is going to spit on Jews any more. Thank God for Israel, thank God for Pope Pius XII who supported the State Israel. Thank God for the Vatican II.

Mark Shea

My dislike of Religious Jews (in general) does not stem soley from thier treatmanet of the Clergy, It stems also from their propensity to try and interfere with our Faith: They think that they have the right to tell us who can be canonized (they thought that Catholic-jewish relations were ‘damaged’ when Bl John Paul II beatified Bl Pius IX and are dead set against the beatification of Pius XII) think that they the right to alter our liturgy (they lobbied for the Good Friday prayers of the 1962 Missel to be changed) and generally treat non-jews like dog muck (Orthodox rabbies in New york have made public statements extolling the ‘genetic superiority’ of jews (who does that remind you of?)and the gross blasphoumies and lies printed about Our lord and Our Lady in the Talmud.

There is also the shabby treatment of palastians by Israli Jews over the past 60 ood years and the annoying whining by the likes of abraham fox.

I have no problem with people who are genetically Jewish i.e. those who trace thier genetic heritage to Abraham, I have a problem with a lot of religious jews who expect to be treated like royalty because of the fact that they are Jewish and try use the holocaust to try and waive aside legitimate criticism of Israel.

Trad man: Good to know you’re only a religious bigot, not a racist.

The issue is that the ultra-orthodox (the ones doing the spitting) would for the most part love it if all Western aid to the state of Israel ended and all the Christian tourist dollars stayed at home.  They don’t like the current ‘Zionist’ state any more than most anti-Semites do.  They were there in the land praying for redemption 200 years before the ‘State’ was created, and in their minds all of these Zionists did was stir up a lot of trouble with the Palestinians and draw the ire of the rest of the world while making the land of Israel an unclean secular hedonist state.  So threats to cut off Western funding, stopping tourism, etc, would be just peachy keen to the Ultra-Orthodox.  They are content to live on state subsidies as long as the state exists, and when (God forbid) it is attacked by other nations and destroyed they will remain behind, even in poverty, and continue on with their religious life in the land of their fathers without the presence of a secular state that claims (falsely in their minds) to represent the Jewish people.  No Israeli government official speaks for them, no official Rabbi has any recognized authority with them, they are their own separate state within a state.  Yes, they are extremely rude to Christians, but as has been pointed out, they are extremely rude to everyone, including other Jewish citizens of Israel.  This is consistent with their own particular theology, which is not reflective of broader Jewish theology.  Their actions do not reflect on the broader Jewish population in the land, nor do the State’s policies and actions reflect on the Ultra-Orthodox.  The two are indeed separate, and each group has it’s own set of problems mostly unrelated to the other.  Treating the two as one entity seems natural, but it obscures the real issues for both.

Camels do it (spit) all the time. For ultra Orthodox Jews, maybe its a monkey see monkey do kind of thing.

Cheers to Mark Shea, for being a lonely voice of reason.

Anti-semitism is anti-semitism, whether it’s based on race or religion. As someone who is married to a “genetically Jewish” woman and therefore the father of “genetically Jewish” children (not to mention worshipping a “genetically Jewish” God), perhaps I’m just a tad bit sensitive on the issue. Liturgically, I’m quite sympathetic to traditionalists, but when I read comments like the above, I find myself second-guessing my sympathies.

That said, I’d hope any one of us would be willing to defend - physically if necessary - our clergy against such an unwarranted and nasty attack as their being spat upon for no other reason than that they are Christian. Spitting is battery (an unwanted and offensive physical violation of bodily integrity), and should be dealt with as such.

Tried to post this earlier, not sure if it failed or got held up in moderation, but trying again:
The issue is that the ultra-orthodox (the ones doing the spitting) would for the most part love it if all Western aid to the state of Israel ended and all the Christian tourist dollars stayed at home.  They don’t like the current ‘Zionist’ state any more than most anti-Semites do.  They were there in the land praying for redemption 200 years before the ‘State’ was created, and in their minds all of these Zionists did was stir up a lot of trouble with the Palestinians and draw the ire of the rest of the world while making the land of Israel an unclean secular hedonist state.  So threats to cut off Western funding, stopping tourism, etc, would be just peachy keen to the Ultra-Orthodox.  They are content to live on state subsidies as long as the state exists, and when (God forbid) it is attacked by other nations and destroyed they will remain behind, even in poverty, and continue on with their religious life in the land of their fathers without the presence of a secular state that claims (falsely in their minds) to represent the Jewish people.  No Israeli government official speaks for them, no official Rabbi has any recognized authority with them, they are their own separate state within a state.  Yes, they are extremely rude to Christians, but as has been pointed out, they are extremely rude to everyone, including other Jewish citizens of Israel.  This is consistent with their own particular theology, which is not reflective of broader Jewish theology.  Their actions do not reflect on the broader Jewish population in the land, nor do the State’s policies and actions reflect on the Ultra-Orthodox.  The two are indeed separate, and each group has it’s own set of problems mostly unrelated to the other.  Treating the two as one entity seems natural, but it obscures the real issues for both.

In 2007 I went to Israel on a pilgrimage. When we were in the Old City, carrying the cross, a man yelled something at us and spit on the cross. My only thought was, Wow, nothing much has changed here in 2,000 years. The experience brought me closer to my Lord Jesus, so maybe I should say thank you to that young man. We should pray for everyone in Jerusalem. It is not a city of peace. It is a city of tension. I was not comfortable there. The rest of Israel was welcoming and friendly, however, as only people who are oppressed can be.

Having read many hate mails against the Jews on this thread, though the article is about a Jew who tries to improve the relationship between Christians and Jews, this thread throws a extremely bad light upon so called Catholics, I find those who write these hate filled comments here like Tradman, MCnembit that Gorman etc. etc. are not only bigots but also poor creatures who have such a narrow mind and heart. I find them really repulsive they give the Church and Christianity a bad name. Bigots are the worst type of human beings.

God is not impressed with our religious self-righteousness—- no matter whose behaving in such a way, Jews or Christians or Muslims or Hindus.  Once we assume it is our right, let alone our ‘religious’ right to spit upon another human being, we have just made ourselves Less than human.

@Grey Pilgrim, well said. But the reaction of most commentators here is very telling: anti-Semitism is still very much alive among Catholics. Just mention a Jew who behaves badly all the anti-semitics will step out and abuse the whole Jewish people and Israel. Repulsive. No, I am not a Jew, I don’t have a single drop of Jewish blood in my vein. But I hate bigots and petty-minded persons who are so abundant on this thread, it makes one sad to read this as a Catholic, really, so much self-righteousness, so little tolerance. Bigotry is the worst enemy to true religion.

It grieves me to read the antisemitic comment suggesting Foxman is somehow in league with the rabbis in a jewish world domination cabal .  That is beyond antisemitism to nazism.  I am a Jew who has accepted jesus and would love to believe the claims of the Catholic Church but reading trash like that is discouraging.  Anyway about the article it is representative of the fact that traditional judaism is fundamentally bigoted and this.is what the Lord came.to save.us all.from .  This fact does not give gentiles a reason to boast as Paul points out in Romans 11.  The wild olive branch can be broken off as.easily as the natural if not more so.  And God can graft we Jews in again.  Those who harbor hatred for the.people of the patriarchs should repent and tell their priest .

You will find people who hate other people in every religion and every culture and every society. Do not lump those on this site who are hateful with the majority of Catholics. That is also a knee-jerk response just as offensive as the rest of it.  I would bet that those who harbor such ill will towards the Jewish people, if Catholic, have absolutely no knowledge of their faith, the bible or the history of Christianity and its relationship to the Jewish people. Ignorance is an individual problem and it seems to affect the Orthodox Jews spitting on clergy as well as Catholics taking such extreme offense to it. We are all children of God. We will all stand together at some point, if not here on earth, then hopefully in the hereafter.

Cincy:

Don’t give up on account of a couple of anti-semites.  The claims of the Catholic church are independent of we doofuses who comprise her membership just as the actions of Israelites who persecuted the prophets do not prove that Israel was not Chosen.  The Holy Spirit, not we individual Catholic sinners (that is, all of us), is the soul of the Church.

Well, that is just too sad. Didn’t know this was going on. Man oh man, will people ever, ever learn to get along. How can people who treat each other uncivily or with baseless hostility or even violence expect to be pleasing to the God Who created us all out of His Infinite Love and has demanded that we all love each other. Is it really asking too much to let others think, live, and worship as they please, barring unprovked hostility, prejudice, etc. Folks, and this is for those of all religious persuasions, if you think God is pleased with this you will find out differently in the next life - no matter what your ” Holymen ” are telling you now.

This is about spit, and I’m pretty much anti-spit. I really can’t think right now of a time I was pro-spit. When I had pneumonia? And that was totally all the more reason to not let my spit be seen. Perish. The. Thought! To spit on somebody else! Ew. Pray for pro-spitters.

Trad man, you’ve got it precisely backwards. It isn’t generally the religious Jews who are opposed to Pius XII’s canonization. It’s those secular-minded Jews who have basically given up their faith and are allied to the liberal-leftists who do this. Rabbi David Dalin, a religious Jew, pointed all this out very eloquently in his ringing defense of Pius XII, “The Myth of Hitler’s Pope.” In the same way, the leftist-liberal Jews leapt like hounds on Mel Gibson when he released “the Passion of the Christ,” while conservative religious Jew Michael Medved defended him.

All genuinely religious (not bigoted) people are much closer to each other, despite their differences, than any of them are to the secular leftist elites of our society. Learn to open up your heart a little. You could have allies in the most unexpected places.

To be more exact, I think Rabbi Dalin’s thesis was that the liberal left in general (including the Catholic liberal left) was behind the attack on Pius II. What was really fueling it was their hatred of the Catholic Church and desire to destroy the traditional model of the papacy; they nearly always had a pronounced dislike for John Paul II as well (e. g. John Cornwell). The secular Jews are basically in thrall to this group; hence the knee-jerk reaction on the part of these Jews against Pius XII.

The sound bite format makes it impossible to make a complete case, but many of you have NO clue whatsoever about what Judaism teaches. This is only the tip of the iceberg. • “You are adam [“man”], but goyim [gentiles] are not called adam [“man”].” Kerithoth 6b • “The seed of the goyim is like an animal.” Sanhedrin 74b • The Complete Guide to Killing Non-Jews Ma’ariv 09.11.09 (p. 2) by Roi Sharon English translation: http://didiremez.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/ • God created them [goyim] in the form of men for the glory of Israel… for the sole end of ministering unto them [the Jews] day and night. Nor can they ever be relieved of this service. It is becoming to the son of a king [an Israelite] that animals in their natural form and animals in the form of human beings should minister unto him. Midrash Talpioth 225a • “...‘living soul’ designates Israel because they are children of the Almighty, and their souls, which are holy, come from Him. From whence come the souls of other peoples? R[abbi] Eleazar said: ‘They obtain souls from those sides of the left which convey impurity, and therefore they are all impure and defile those who have contact with them.’...‘living soul’ refers to Israel, who have holy living souls from above, and ‘cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth,’ to the other peoples who are not ‘living soul,” but who are as we have said.” Bereshith 47a • “Gentile souls are of a completely different and inferior order. They are totally evil, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever… their material abundance derives from supernal refuse. Indeed, they themselves derive from refuse, which is why they are more numerous than the Jews…” Abraham Foxbrunner. Habad: The Hasidism of Schneur Zalman of Lyady. Northvale NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1983. Pp. 108-109. • “The Jew by his source and in his very essence is entirely good. The goy, by his source and his very essence, is completely evil. This is not simply a matter of religious distinction, but rather of two completely different species.” Rabbi Saadya Grama, Romemut Yisrael Ufarashat Hagalut (“Jewish Superiority and the Question of Exile”) 2003. • “Souls of non-Jews come entirely from the female part of the Satanic sphere. For this reason souls of non-Jews are called evil.” [Yesaiah Tishbi, Torat ha-Rave-ha-Kelippahnbe-Kabbalat ha-Ari (The Theory of Evil and the Satanic Sphere in Kabbalah) 1942, reprinted 1982] • This is not some vestigial dead letter, but the “Oral Torah” exhorting genocide of non-Jews, precisely as acted out by current events in Palestine and around the world by economic crimes against humanity. • Be Catholic, be kind, but don’t be fools.

I am just becoming aware of the evils perpetrated against Christians in the Holy Land. My friend is of Middle-Eastern descent and he has been telling me how Jews are treating Christians in Israel. Since people seem to only listen when alot is on the line, perhaps we should threaten to cut off aid and treaties and see how that works.

I am a member of an FSSP parish.

To Trad-man and others who air their fear and distrust of Jewish people:

I give thanks for our Jewish brothers and sisters.  If you cannot see, every time you enter a Catholic church, the beauty of our shared heritage, then shame on you!

Re: spitting. This is the 21st century. A few you-tube videos would go pretty far in rectifying this juvenile and disgusting behavior.

@Lori and Freddy

Thankyou for correcting my inaccurate views of how religious Jews behave. Having said I am still angry at the way they treat our clergy and the mistreatment of palastinians in the occupied territories, and yes if I saw a jew spit at a Priest in the Holy City I would still do my best to send him to the Emergency Room.

Trad man

Were you to step in front of a priest to ward him from attack, I would commend you.

Were you to defend yourself or another from attack I would understand.  Righteous wrath commands the defense of the innocent and perhaps even forceful verbal remonstration.

But attack, as in “sending him to the Emergency Room” is NOT defense.  You endanger your soul by such thoughts.  Remember, “Bless those who persecute you.  Bless, and do not curse.”(Romans 12:14)

Hilarious that almost nobody read the original story in haaretz.

There it is reported that an Armenian priesthood candidate was spat upon, and, out of a natural instinct, he punched the offender on the nose. Fair enough, a juvenile fight so far and let us leave the court to deal with it. There is nothing abnormal so far. What is abnormal is the reaction here exhibited by people who call themselves “devote Catholics”, who habour so much hatred in their heart. Abnormal and disgusting.

A couple points for the record. I was consecrated, bar mitzvahed and confirmed in synagogue..  I can not verify the talmudic quotes because.I like 95% of American Jews never read any part of it. Judaism has a hierarchy of inspiration under which the torah is paramount followed by the prophets then the wisdom literature all of which is canonical in Catholicism.  The talmud is nothing more than commentary paid attention to only by what is called the

@Cincylitigator, that Athanasius is providing the typical anti-Semitic poison which prevails among sedivacantists and extremists among Catholics. I can smell brimstone from a distance of 1km. They are just masking themselves as “Catholics”, but in the core they are driven by hatred and certain obnoxious political ideology. They are normally also in favour of a dictatorship aka Franco. I know this type of persons very well and find them repulsive and disgusting.

Cincylitigator:  I am glad that you have accepted Jesus Christ, and I am very sorry indeed that some of what has been said here threatens to put you off.  Let me confirm what Mark Shea and others have said—it is not the people who are the heart and soul of the Church, but Christ (who is, of course, one with the Father and with the Holy Spirit).  The Real Presence.  As such, the Church is not a mere organization of people, she is a mystical body—God’s instrument of salvation through Jesus Christ.  The Church is not a social club for saints, but a hospital for sinners.  It’s through God’s grace that we obtain through the Sacraments of the Church that heal us if we are willing to let them.  So yes:  this exists independently of how many awful sinners are in the Church, and we are legion.  And thank God, since we are all in dire need of God’s mercy and healing.  In short, don’t let people who say execrable things stop you from exploring the Catholic Church further.

Trad Man, while your frustration is one thing, it’s quite another to attribute the actions of this Yeshiva student, which were disgusting, to all Jews in general.  What you do with your frustration is key.  By all means feel frustrated.  But that does not mean that the next logical step would be to send anyone who disrespects a priest in that manner to the Emergency Room.  Instead, pray for that person (take those frustrations to Adoration, for example).  Indeed, if it were the case that all of what you said were true (and it’s not), it’s all the more reason to pray for them (and for yourself when you are tempted to hate them).  Even when, and especially when, it is hard.

To everybody else, simply because a few self-professed trads fly off the handle and say some terrible things does not make adherence or sympathy toward Catholic tradition or the 1962 liturgy bad or awful, and it doesn’t make trads in general awful.  Remember that these things don’t depend on us, and we should not let the rashness of others stop us or spoil things for us.  The truth of the matter is that I will always be grateful for the Traditional Latin Mass for foregrounding the Eucharist so clearly for me;  it’s as though it’s the answer key to the Novus Ordo.

It is true that ultra-Orthodox Jews hate Jesus and the Cross. Ask an ultra-Orthodox Jew for yourself, read what Maimonides says about Jesus of Nazareth.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1565317/Cardinal-calls-for-textual-revision.html

This should end the controversy.

Trad man, I’m glad I was able to help you a least a little bit. Like others here said, continue to pray. Those Jews who hate Christians clearly have problems in their souls. That is between them and God. Your own hatred and resentment of Jews or Jewish actions is between you and God. Attend to your own soul first. Pray that you will be able to be more understanding of others. And above all, don’t attribute the actions of a few to a whole group.

As an Armenian-Christian our priests are routinely spit on in Jerusalem. The authorities do nothing!

Spitting on someone is disgusting. Beating someone because they spit on you is disgusting. Blaming an entier group for the sins of some. Is disgusting.

Yes, it’s true that there are a good number of Jewish grievance-mongers who really, really dislike the Catholic Church, and who presume to tell us what we can and cannot teach; what we can and cannot do in our liturgies.

On the other hand, many, many Jews are extremely decent when it comes to us Catholics. I feel ashamed before those decent Jews because of the giddiness with which some use this sort of behavior to condemn Jews, Israel, the Talmud, bla bla.

Condemning all Jews for the wrongdoings of these weirdos is pretty vile.

But I’d also add that condemning all Traditionalist Catholics for the immoderate speech of some, is just as vile. Anyone who would use this as an opportunity to beat up on Traditionalist Catholics is pretty low, morally speaking.

It’s always dangerous to comment on Jews. We have abased ourselves for the presupposed sins of previous generations. We have been asked to accept Jews as brothers, as the “Elder Israel”. It has been patiently explained to us that without their special stubbornness we should not have had Christianity. We have been indoctrinated in the idea that God has His own special plan for the people we have displaced in His heart. Certainly, much of the Protestant mania can be understood only in the light of Jewry, whether it be Zionism, Freemasonry, or anti-Semitism. We overlook the racial nature of the state founded in 1948. We try to not be confused when we hear the sound of its biblical name. We appreciate the fact that they allow us to live on their property and that they have not shelled Bethlehem recently.  I do understand that a Muslim regime might not be so understanding, though many Palestinian Christians say otherwise. I expect that the UN will set up shop there someday, after the final battle has been fought. I do all these things, but sometimes it is difficult.

That was nice of Lori Pieper to at least explain things to “Trad man” instead of just calling names, which is all Mark Shea is any good at. At least Mark, a little tiny “man” doesn’t run this blog and can’t block anyone who who even slightly disagrees with him, in that he (should I say “He”) considers “Himself” to be the voice of God.

Let’s be honest. Mark’s article is little more than a cut-n-paste troll, designed to bring out the worst in us. Let’s all beat up on trad man. As far as I’m concerned, the “Most Christian” award goes to JamesIgnatius with his truly mature response. Christ too was spit upon. This really goes to the heart of the matter, and it’s no joke.

Yes, there are plenty of obnoxious grievance hustlers who give Jews a bad name; and yes there are these zealots for whom we’re probably evil incarnate. But it is just so uncharitable to slander all “Jews” and “Judaism”. I’m not going to throw around the “anti-semitism’ label because it’s unnecessary: it would be wrong no matter what group was involved. If you really, honestly want these people to have a conversion of the heart, to understand their error, pray for them. Letting the resentment stew inside you, and then bubble up in comboxes when stories like this come up…that’s playing with the dark side. It’s a kind of morbid delectation. I’d add that the same is true for those people who look for any opportunity to say vile things about “trads.”

Let us not forget the words of a wise Rabbi not so long ago. “The small finger nail of a Jew is worth more than the lives of 10,000 Arabs.”

I admit having a soft spot for the ultra-orthodox Jews.  I mean they really let you know where you stand, don’t they!  That sort of candor is a breath of fresh air (so to speak) in our super-PC world.  Any group that has rejected the modern world in such a stark way while continuing their faith traditions (even if misguided) has my admiration.

Spitting is pretty gross though.  Maybe a ‘talk to the hand’ with a sassy head shake would be better for everyone involved.

I agree, Ben!  With all that you said. 

As far as the blatantly anti-Semitic comments on here are concerned, it astounds me that even after the Holocaust—which everyone knows was an event straight from the hottest bowels of Hell—and let me repeat this, after THE HOLOCAUST, anti-Semitism still dares to be alive and well.  This is a frightening thing.  Even among the supposedly more “enlightened” liberal sectors of modern society there is a distinct undercurrent of “those Israelis over there…they’re the villains nowadays.”  While all the while agreeing on how horrible the Holocaust was.  A very frightening thing. 

The devil really hates those people with all of his pathetic soul.

i have read some of the reactions and gone back to read the article. i cannot for the life of me find any antisemitism. i am jewish and israeli with heritage lines all the way back to when and b4. i often talkback on this site in a manner that leaves no doubt regarding my alliances. but lets face it, folks, these people make one ashamed 2 b jewish, and spitting on clergy is the smallest of their misdeeds. an 8-yr old girl? nazi uniforms? they make the immams in egypt and the humeiniyists in iran seem sympathetic by comparison.
read a “funny” story the other day about a religious jewish woman lying on her deathbed. she asks her husband for half of HER good deeds (which are his by default) so she can get to heaven. she is not asking for his but for hers. he refuses, scared that without HER good deeds he wont make it on the credit of his alone. isn’t it amazing how religious fanaticism can freeze one into a fear that is called hate.

Spitting? I didn’t know that was happenning! That’s totally gross and disrespectful and plain wrong… crazy people. oferdesade: you don’t find any anti-semitism because there isn’t, sometimes people get too sensitive about the subject and start calling everyone Hitler.

Wow, what a bizarre and self-righteous display of anti-semitism is on display in these comments. Very disturbing.

Kudos to the ADL, Jimmy Akin, and the rabbinate for working to end the spitting.

Oferdesade said, “isn’t it amazing how religious fanaticism can freeze one into a fear that is called hate?”

Amazing indeed. Religious fanaticism can even make you believe the most preposterous and laughable anti-semitic slanders.

I remember several years ago when a friend’s parents were on a religious pilgrimage with their church.  They were spit on and it ruined the trip.  My husband is Jewish and he has relatives in Israel, but I would never go to Israel.  In fact, I’m going to take a semi-religious pilgrimage this year and it’s going to be to Turkey to visit the Christian sites there.  Israel is on my permanent ‘never go to’ list.

Cincylitigator:  Why do you want to go to a church when there are countless number of Messianic Synagogues to go to?  The Sabbath is still the Sabbath and still the day that we worship the Lord.
Maimonides believes in a Messiah and later did say that the Messiah would would first suffer for his people then come as King. 
Honestly, as a Jew who believes in the Jewish Messiah, if His brethren want to call him a !@#$%, then let Him deal with it.  It’s a family scrabble and they can work it out.  Yeah, the spitting is disgusting.  But you have to understand their point of view.  They believe that Christians believe in a false god.  Spitting is like cursing. Maybe their making up for the years of being called Christ Killers?
Athanasius I’m going to check those references that you gave from the Oral Law.  Usually you have to have someone trained in the Oral law to understand what is being said and why. Keep checking back here and I’ll let you know what I find out.  And what did you mean by Torah’s misanthropic and genocidal exhortations? I read the Torah and don’t understand what your talking about here.

found it!
http://israelnjudaism.blogspot.com/2010/09/lies-about-talmud.html
Everybody needs to check this out! I knew It!

Here is another one from the same website:
http://israelnjudaism.blogspot.com/2010/11/questions-and-challenges-to-talmud.html

This doesn’t surprise me one bit. Jews, of one variety or another, have been at the very forefront of the war on Christianity since Jesus himself walked the Earth. In the U.S. for instance, Hollywood is notorious for producing films that in one way or another defame, ridicule or vilify Christians and Christianity. Films that are overwhelmingly produced and or directed by Jews. Every time there is a controversy surrounding a Christian religious display in public or prayer in school you’ll find a Jewish group perpetuating it. One doesn’t have to search deep for the answers as to why. The Jewish Talmud states that Jesus was the son of a !@#$%. (The Talmud describes Mary as a woman who “played the harlot with carpenters.”) The Talmud also states that Jesus had sex with his donkey and that Jesus is now in Hell “boiling in excrement.”
Of course all our lives we have been taught that Jews are all just good people who have been persecuted for no apparent reason by almost every nation on planet Earth. And just to be clear, I am not condoning the Holocaust. Genocide is a supremely evil and despicable thing. I only mean to say that the past persecution of Jews around the world often stemmed from Judaic practices and beliefs that non-Jews or “goyim” are no better than cattle and that it is ok for Jews to wrong them. There is even a section in the Talmud which condones rape as long as the victim is a goyim and not a fellow Jew. Absolutely sickening.
Well…Christians (particularly American ones) are about the only folks on Earth keeping the bloodthirsty Muhammadeens from walking in and wiping out Israel and killing Jews en masse. I wonder how the Jews will fare here in America now that Christianity has been demonized, neutered and made politically incorrect creating a huge vacuum into which Islam is now racing full steam.
God help us all…especially the Jews.

@ viola rogers

Your apologia for the pervasive wickedness of the Oral Torah (Talmud) is the stock lie.  Here is how that lie is dispatched:

“‘Context’ is everything for the defenders of the Talmud. Fair enough. But by ‘context’ they do not mean taking into account the surrounding text, but rather submitting to Judaism’s own narrative about itself, which includes how it presents problem texts to non-Judaic audiences…. The rabbis even deny in many cases that there is a plain meaning…. It is enough that [the rabbi] states it and gentiles believe it; anything else is ‘antisemitic.’ This pattern of intimidation and thought control is repeated with monotonous effect, by thought cops and apologists for Judaism. It is a stock response intended to frighten off the opposition, premised mainly on the moral authority of the declarative sentences used by the ‘expert’ on Judaism. Debate (‘polemic’) on the part of informed skeptics is not permitted, since it constitutes the ‘misuse’ of a scholar’s knowledge of rabbinic texts. Debating tactics and polemical tools are reserved solely for rabbis and their allies, along with just a dash of permissible dissimulation to leaven the burden of swallowing the pottage. And when deception and ‘out of context’ statements serve to advance Judaism, they are all well and good….” Michael Hoffman, Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition, and Deceit. ISBN 13: 9780970378453 pages 137-138

To pierce the lie that the Talmud and Kabbala’s blasphemous, genocidal, and misanthropic exhortations are only for fringe factions, just look at current events in Palestine—and the economic crimes against humanity perpetrated by their dynastic banksters and “international” financiers.