Harsanyi: Blood libels? Oy vey

[Casino67]

DenverPost.com:

Wasn't it moving to see progressive tweetdom and punditry unite in the defense of Jewry — in the Middle Ages? As a member of this most oppressed minority, I personally want to thank you.

After all, how dare she? The media is so sick and tired of Sarah Palin's schtick (that's one of the words we use in private) that it created a stampede to Wikipedia to quickly figure out just how divisive this "blood libel" thing, whatever it means, could be to American discourse.

Now, just for the record, we Jews haven't been using the blood of gentile kids for our baking needs in at least a couple of decades, but, in historical terms, blood libel refers to false accusations that Jews were murdering children to use their blood in religious rituals — and an excuse for anti-Semitism. It was heavily utilized in the Middle Ages by some Christians and, with a few modifications, is a regular smear in the Muslim world today.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of Israel antagonists at "J Street" (an outfit that USA Today accidentally referred to as "a political organization for Jews and supporters of Israel") spoke for hundreds when he claimed that the hearing about "blood libel" "brings back painful echoes of a very dark time in our communal history when Jews were falsely accused of committing heinous deeds" and demanded that Palin retract her comment, apologize and make a "less inflammatory choice of words."

Really? Memory? Inflammatory? Painful echoes?

Jews well, we can be offended like it's 1257.

If blood libel is really a distasteful parallel, it is only because we have intimately familiarized ourselves with the idea through a History Channel documentary about the Crusades. And if our institutional memories make us so thin-skinned, there are far more tangible reminders of genocide when we hop into our fancy German cars (which we do a lot, because we're in charge of everything). Or it is certainly as offensive as the heinous deeds of Sarah Palin, which include, among many other transgressions, talking.

Edited January 13, 2011 by clearvision
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