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A Moral Man Speaks the Truth—And Apologizes for It 30 Years Later?
Billy Graham Apologizes for anti-Semitic Remarks
Reuters
Sun. Mar 17, 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020317/ts_nm/life_graham_dc_1
MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) - Evangelist Billy Graham, confidant of U.S. leaders for decades including President Bush, has apologized for remarks he made about Jews 30 years ago in a meeting with then-President Richard Nixon.
In a statement issued Saturday from his headquarters in Minneapolis, Graham admitted that he had made the comments in a meeting with Nixon in February 1972.
Tapes of the conversation recently released by the National Archives recorded Graham saying that Jews had a "stranglehold" on the media in the United States which "has got to be broken or the country is going down the drain."
English is apparently a bit confusing to some people.
Mention Catholics, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists or Christians in general, and readers assume you are speaking of people practicing the Christian faith as taught by their respective denomination.
Not so with the Jews!
Jewish lineage is based on matrilineal descent. The offspring of a Jewish woman, who herself is the daughter of a Jewish woman or a sincere convert, is considered Jewish. Period. It matters not at all if the progeny practices the tenets of Judaism or chooses to ignore them; he or she is a Jew.
Are the Jews followers of a religion or a race? This is one of the most frequent questions posed to me on our Ask the Rabbi page.
Researchers of anthropology often group Jews together with their Arabic cousins under the broad identifier of Semites.
From the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Semite: Person speaking one of a group of related languages, presumably derived from a common language, Semitic. The term came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, some Ethiopians, and Aramaean tribes incl. Hebrews. Semitic tribes migrated from the Arabian Peninsula, beginning c.2500 BC, to the Mediterranean coast, Mesopotamia, and the Nile delta. In Phoenicia, they became seafarers. In Mesopotamia, they blended with the civilization of Sumer. The Hebrews settled at last with other Semites in Palestine, founding a new religion and nation.
Hence the accusation of "anti-Semite", hurled at anyone who dares to criticize Jews for anything. The next time you speak disparagingly of Taliban, al-Qaeda or any peaceful denizens of the Arab world, be careful who’s listening. You may be branded anti-Semitic! Where is the Bnai Brith Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress when we need them?!
What is an anti-Semite?
Well, there’s the anecdote about the Jew with a stuttering problem who applied for a job as a radio announcer. He was turned down for the job at his interview with the station manager. His friend asked him what went wrong. The stuttering Jew replied, "A-a-an-ti-ti-ti Se-se-mm-mm-ite!"
On a more serious note, research into definitions of anti- Semitism turned up a few real gems:
From the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre: "The attributing of all or part of one's own misfortunes, and those of one's country, to the presence of Jewish elements in the community, and proposing to remedying this state of affairs by depriving the Jews of certain of their rights; by keeping them out of certain economic or social activities, by expelling them from the country, by exterminating them etc." (from "Anti-Semite and Jew". Sartre also develops the theme that anti-Semitism is more than an idea; it is a passion that enters one's being through the mind.)
"Attitudes and actions against Jews based on the belief that they are uniquely inferior, evil, or deserving of condemnation by their very nature, or by historical or supernatural dictates." (Taken from "Anti-Semitism: The Causes and Effects Of A Prejudice", by Crosser & Halperin. This work is the history of hatred arranged chronologically.)
"The hatred and persecution of Jews as a group; not the hatred of persons who happen to be Jews, but rather the hatred of persons because they are Jews" (Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark in "Christian Beliefs & Anti-Semitism")
Now we come to the Reverend Billy Graham, a crusader for Judeo-Christian values for six decades. A man whose sterling character is suddenly called into question for "anti-Semitic" remarks made in conversation with a sitting United States president.
Graham said in a tape recording thirty years ago that Jews had a "stranglehold" on the media which "has got to be broken or the country is going down the drain."
And now he is apologizing, to Jews, of course, for those callous, incautious comments.
For the very life of me I can’t understand why. What Graham said thirty years ago was 100% correct.
To say that every last Hollywood executive is Jewish may be stretching things a bit, but make no mistake about it. Jews, those stuck with their status by accident of birth, wield a disproportionate amount of clout in Tinsel Town.
Oh, I can visualize the superheated letters now.
"JPFO’s Rabbi Mermelstein—it’s not enough he’s a self hating Jew, but now he’s the apologist for an octogenarian Christian evangelist and a closet anti-Semite to boot!"
Really?
Go back several paragraphs and review the definitions of a Jew hater.
I’ll eat a dozen bagels with lox and cream cheese on Yom Kippur if Reverend Graham fits any one of them.
What disturbs me most about this whole picture is that a moral man feels he must apologize for speaking the truth. Apologies from Richard Nixon, just like from a young political animal turned president named Bill Clinton who called for Nixon’s resignation during the Ervin committee’s Watergate investigation, were not so voluntary and forthcoming.
A new day has dawned in America, and not since September 11, 2001.
The correct date to mark the fatal injury and decline of our nation is March 17, 2002.
That's the day a good man retreated before the glare of an assemblage of secular Jews without a clue what being a Jew means. A powerful, amoral lynch mob, so insecure with being born Jewish that they sit in wait to pounce on a moral man for calling a useless horse a hay burning nag.
Sleaze is acceptable and even rewarded with five figure honorariums on the lecture circuit.
But is repudiating truth obligatory or praiseworthy?
Reverend Graham, is this what you’ve worked your entire adult life to teach?
Rabbi R. Mermelstein
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
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