“Germans Were Wrong Not to Burn Them All”
by Anna Mahjar-Barducci, STONEGATE INSTITUTE
“The levels of anti-Semitism in Spain are among the highest in Europe,” wrote the Spanish daily, El Pais. According to a poll, presented on November 30 during the Fourth International Seminary on Antisemitism hosted at the Caja Navarra Foundation in Madrid, 52% of Spanish students declared that they would not like to have a Jewish classmate sitting next to them, and 58% of adults thought that Jews have too much power and that they are all too rich.
The organizers of the Madrid conference said they were sad an bewildered that anti-Semitism “is a problem that is often denied in the country.” The Federation of the Jewish Communities in Spain (FCJE) also stated that although surveys indicate that there are high levels of “hostility” towards Jews, “most leaders and media persons believe there is no prejudice whatsoever against Jews.” However, sociologist Alejandro Baer explains that the situation has become unbearable and that it is time to face the problem: “In Spain, insults, writings and slogans against Jews are considered normal.”
Baer added that anti-Semitism in Spain is particularly surprising, as “there are hardly any Jews.” Even though the percentage of Jews in Spain is only the 0.2% of the population, negative stereotypes are very much present and they are the symptom of a “social pathology.”
Anti-Semitism has been Spain’s problem since the reconquista in 1492, when the Catholic Kings, Isabel and Ferdinand, obliged the Jewish community either to convert to Catholicism or to flee the country. Over 300,000 Jews left Spain; those who remained where absorbed into the Catholic community, apart from a few who continued to practice their faith in secret (Marranos)..
Along the years the ant-Semitic bias has been present within the Spanish society. During the Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, the regime aligned itself to the anti-Semitic sentiment that prevailed in the European extreme-right dictatorships. The seminar stressed that during the 40 years of his dictatorship, the idea that Jews were the people that killed the Christian founder of the Church, Jesus, was deeply rooted in the society. During every mass, the priest would call for the conversion or punishment of the “wicked Jews,” until the Vatican Council removed this tradition in 1965. Up to the end of his life, Franco kept indicating in his speeches that Jews and masons were Spain’s main national enemies.
With the advent of democracy, things changed for the better, even though at popular level prejudices against Jews continued to thrive. The creation of the State of Israel only added to the prejudice. Some Spanish regimes have not missed the opportunity to display a clear aversion to the Jewish state, thereby whipping up hatred against the Jews in the general public. It took Spain until 1986 to recognize Israel diplomatically.
During the two-day conference in Madrid, the president of the FCJE, Isaac Querub Caro, tried to describe the phenomenon of anti-Semitism in Spain, saying that this hate is so illogical that it is hard to explain it: “We are often asked why the Jews have been being hated so much and for so long. The question has to be made to those who hate us, not to those who are hated.”
Carolina Aisen, coordinator of the Observatory on Anti-Semitism, has stressed that so far, “Spanish ant-Semitism does not involve any act of violence… Mostly, [attacks] consist of writings or offensive comments on different media outlets or on the Internet, but there is no personal aggression.” It was noted that there is, however, a tendency within the Spanish institutions to underestimate the danger deriving from continuously slandering Jews. Author and jurist Jorge Trias Sagnier reminded the audience that last April the Supreme Court of Madrid acquitted four neo-Nazis, as it is not considered a crime to utter sentences such as, “Germans were wrong not to burn them all,” or that “Jews are a pestilential and dangerous breed.”Trías Sagnier, who participated in the debate, ” The Penal Struggle against Anti-Semitism and Hate Offenses,” expressed his repugnance of the Tribunal’s sentencing, describing it as “barbaric.”
The event ended with the hope that European efforts will be initiated by Institutions to end this worrying situation, that, according to the Israeli Ambassador to Spain, Alon Bar, is doomed to increase. The Ambassador argued that in times of economic crisis, minorities are usually attacked, used as the scapegoats of all the evil in the society. “The goal is to expose the invisibility and denial of the problem in Spain, focusing on cultural, legal and educational aspects,” the FCJE’s president concluded.
My response to Bernard Ross is in moderation. I hope it gets released, because it is the unvarnished truth.
Bernard, you make lots of generalizations here. As for the New Testament, no; the “Christ Killer” accusation is not in the New Testament. The NT says that J was tried in the middle of the night by a kangaroo court led by the acting High Priest. Even you Jews acknowledge that Kayafa and his ilk were a corrupt blot on Israeli history. What’s more, he was a Sadducee, and modern Jews identify with the Pharisees. Long after J’s death, the apostle Paul could count on winning the sympathies of the Pharisees against the Sadducees because the former believed, as he did, in the resurrection. J was handed over to the Romans, because the Jews did not have the authority to impose the death penalty; this is exactly what the NT says. Pilate then offered to exchange J for a Jewish insurrectionist named Barabbas; and the mob, incited by the (mainly Sadducee) leaders, called for the release of Barabbas.
I don’t know when the “Christ Killer” narrative entered into Jewish-European relations. Being raised as a Catholic, I never heard the expression.
Don’t blame the Christians for antisemitism. If you look carefully into the matter, I think you will see that Atheists and Moslems are far more antisemitic (especially in the “anti-Zionist” variety) nowadays than Christians. Probably the most antisemitic European in history was Adolph Hitler; and his support came mainly in the Protestant areas of Germany that had previously gone to the Communists and Social Democrats. The Catholics were his main opponents, even though he had been baptized as a Catholic — and if that’s a condemnation of Catholics, remember that Albert Einstein also went to Catholic school. Did he become an antisemite? “Antisemitism” was well established in Europe long before it became Christian. Titus and his legions were decidedly antisemitic; and they had as little love for Christians as they did for Pharisees.
Let me ask you this. European “antisemitism” has historically been a reaction of Europeans, especially poor Europeans who were in hock to Jewish moneylenders, to an alien minority living in their midst. How tolerant have the Jews traditionally been of alien minorities living in THEIR midst? Did they love the Romans? How about the Greeks and Helenists? Why are you trying to paint the Christians as some sort of monsters, and excusing yourselves as some sort of saints? The Jews massacred non-Jews by the hundreds of thousands, simply because they were non-Jews. They did it in the Decapolis, in Alexandria, in Cyprus. Be real.
Perhaps 2000 years of jew killing, swindling and libeling are difficult to shake off in only 60 years. This includes the Roman Catholic libels; perhaps the jews killing christ is one of the few religious precepts that European catholics still fundamentally believe. Isn’t this accusation still a part of the new testament even the the Church officially ended its promotion. The European Christian culture is chronically, congenitally(culturally)and serially Jew hating. this hatred seeks, and can always find rationalizations for their position. I dont care hat their rationalizations are I only care that they are still active in their support of the muslim killers of Jews. Perhaps the bombs that went to Japan went to the wrong place. Europe, and Christianity, is the source of most jew hatred.
This is such an unbelievably stupid piece it’s hardly worth responding to, but maybe the author will lick her wounds and reassess the treatment of the Jews in Spain in light of truth, not from some conversation she overheard once during her college years. BlandOatmeal has it right: It’s difficult to imagine how, with so few Jews living in Spain during Franco’s reign, anti-semitism would have been an issue. As a Catholic, of course, it would be folly to believe in Christ and be anti-semitic. But when Jews attack Catholics, reason goes out the window. Any anti-semitism in Spain is just about exclusively on the Left, a hold-over from the Spanish Civil War and the interference of the Russians.
Her most ridiculous assertion is that priests prayed at each Mass for the “wicked Jews”. That’s a lie, and it’s hateful that you would write something that you either know is a lie or should know is a lie. The only thing that even remotely approximates your lie is some wording (which differed depending on the missal used) on Good Friday in which some missals called for Catholics to pray for the “perfidious” Jews. We can haggle about words and their meanings, but the fact is that the Church has condemned anti-semitism in the strongest terms–well before her arbitrary date of 1965.
Far more pervasive than anti-semitism in Spain was anti-clericalism which, as Stanley Payne points out, used the language and tactics of anti-semitism in other places in Europe.
Finally, Franco’s policies before and during WWII saved the lives of tens of thousands of Jews. Look it up. Read. Don’t rely on what what you hear.
Perhaps if the Spanish along with the rest of Europe actually attempted to do hard work and weren’t dependent on their massive welfare states to take care of them, they might become prosperous and therefore wouldn’t resent the success of the Jews.
Yes, those dangerous scientists and doctors, inventing treatments and cures for diseases and improving the quality of life for all of humanity are such a blight on mankind.
Once again, no such hostility for those who actually present a threat to Spain and who contribute nothing of value, who only destroy and kill.
These attitudes do not come from the Catholic Church. Since there are hardly any Jews in the country, I can only suspect (1) the media, and (2) the universities, which train public school instructors.