Anti-Semitism, Religion & Politics

Blind Definitions That Affect Our Modern Moral Belief Systems

By Roy D. Follendore III

September 22, 2002

It is amazing that modern man has been so influenced by media that we use words without going and looking them up. Webster's Dictionary defines a Semite as a member of a group of people who speaks a middle eastern language, including Hebrew and Arabic. If true, then that would mean any person who is Anti-Semitic would be one who is against some middle eastern speaking group of people, including Jews, Palestinians, Iranians or Iraqis. Because we Americans tend to take a stand against people who speak Arabic, by definition, most people in America are anti-Semitic and yet are often pro Israeli!

If we were to take the same approach and look up the definition of the word Jew, there are similar issues. Webster's Dictionary defines a Jew as "an individual who traces his ancestry to Israelites in the Bible." Another definition is given as "a person whose religion is Judaism." Since no law states that citizenship in the modern state of Israel requires the religion of Judaism, it has been carefully explained to me that Israel is not a Jewish state. Jews are a majority but a minority are in fact Christians and Moslems who vote in democratic election. A Jew is not necessarily an Israeli because he or she may not be a citizen of Israel, any more than a Moslem is not necessarily a citizen of Saudi Arabia.

The political action of a State is not the same thing as the belief system of a religion. The fact that the predominate religion in Nazi Germany and Italy was Christianity, does not mean that Christianity was responsible for the actions of Hitler and Mussolini. It is when religion is used as a political instrument that it becomes a tool of the State. Religious philosophies that politicians and military leaders may choose as their means to reach their ends are tools that are acted upon. To reason otherwise is to blame war on other legitimate philosophies such as Art and Science. When Stalin starved millions of Russians, it was not the science of agriculture that committed the crime.

The underlying point is that modern intelligent people are allowing religious and political propaganda access to affect and control our definitions and rationality of the language we use. There is nothing wrong with being against the actions of a State while supporting the predominate religion and people within that state. In fact we can sometimes be best supportive of a people and their religion by being against their State. Free thinking individuals do not have to be so rigid and unsophisticated as to believe that the actions of all are represented by the actions of a few. It is not anti-Semitic to believe in liberty, freedom and justice for all. Bigotry is bigotry, regardless of anti-Semitic definitions. God bless us all.

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