EV outdoes himself again. And Commentary magazine has had it up to here! Check the comic for yourself, but Commentary’s commentary cites it as exploiting the anti-Christian fears of American Jewry.
First of all, I grew up among the Xtians all my life. There are more Jews who blog on Jewschool than I ever knew until the age of 22. Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, small town California, Oregon and Washington State. I’m not afraid of Christians.
But I do have to be honest, they have some funny ideas about us Hebrews. One asked my family, “Oh, you’re Jewish? So where do you do your sacrifices?” And not because he was an anti-Semite, but because a good read of the Old Testament would lead you to believe that.
And many folks like him happen to believe, in a pretty benign way, that the Jews have been replaced. By them. It’s as easy as saying, “Hey-didn’t-God-tell-the-Israelites-to-kill-the-Canaanites-even-though-they-never-did-anything-wrong?” Yes, indeedy, that easy to believe. Ever met a Canaanite? They’re not around so much, but any Palestinian will do. You see, the ideas of “replacing” a people are quite common here at home among us Jews. They’re not so different, they’re really good people, trust me.
But that doesn’t mean I want them making foreign policy decisions about Israel. Their love of Israel is as uneducated as you can get — and not a tap we want to open without the ability to shut it. American policy vis a vis Israel under greater influence of the Evangelicals is going to become the Jews’ Proposition 8: all the Christians will out-fund and out-influence the Jews on our own issue. Don’t believe me? Look up the 990 tax forms of the biggest churches. Above and beyond any Federation.
I love Eli’s comics because of their double-punch. Not only do we get to lampoon the Evangelicals’ blood thirst for the End of Days, but we harpoon our own people for our unfortunate Crusades-related baggage. Sometimes it’s even hard to tell who’s the main target of the cartoon: us or them.
Commentary asks how this cartoon got past the “liberal, tolerant” editors at The Forward. I’ll explain why: Eli proves time and again that the best comedy material — stupidity, fanaticism, embarassment — is in the mirror.