"You tell him to give his heart to Jesus."

I was going to post earlier on a New York Times article that discusses the harrassment that a Jewish family has recieved for asking that prayers at school events be made more generic and less Christian, but PZ beat me to it. I will highlight this part however:

A homemaker active in her children's schools, Mrs. Dobrich said she had asked the board to develop policies that would leave no one feeling excluded because of faith. People booed and rattled signs that read "Jesus Saves," she recalled. Her son had written a short statement, but he felt so intimidated that his sister read it for him. In his statement, Alex, who was 11 then, said: "I feel bad when kids in my class call me 'Jew boy.' I do not want to move away from the house I have lived in forever."

Later, another speaker turned to Mrs. Dobrich and said, according to several witnesses, "If you want people to stop calling him 'Jew boy,' you tell him to give his heart to Jesus."

Now, there is probably little doubt that the speaker in question is a good God-fearing Republican "Compassionate Conservative" exhibiting their "Christian values". I raise this because of something else I read this evening, in this case a statmment in The WSJ:

Christian anti-Semitism has a long and ugly history, but it is largely a thing of the past, especially in this country. Anti-Semitism today is chiefly the province of the Muslim world and the secular, multicultural left.

I frankly cannot agree with that, and the experience of the Dobrich family can only support my claim. It is, if anyone, the "secular, multicultural left" who are standing up for the rights of Alex Dobrich to wear his yarmulke without being taunted and called a "Jew boy".

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Must be that ultra-liberal rag, the WSJ, spinning stuff again.

By Evil Monkey (not verified) on 30 Jul 2006 #permalink

Actually, I agree that this is probably not anti-Semitism. I think it's more likely to be anti-not-an-evangelical-christianism. He's probably get the same response if he was muslim, hindu, or catholic.