Reverend Bruce M. Shipman, an Episcopal chaplain at Yale, wrote in The New York Times this week that there is a connection between rising anti-Semitism and “the carnage in Gaza over the last five years,”, “not to mention the perpetually stalled peace talks and the continuing occupation of the West Bank.”
Does this educator of America’s youth similarly blame women for rape?
He then goes on to say that “the best antidote to anti-Semitism would be for Israel’s patrons abroad to press the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for final-status resolution to the Palestinian question.”Shipman later issued a statement, noting a “correlation between the uptick in anti-Semitic violence in the world and the events taking place in Israel/Palestine and Gaza.”
Shipman, who heads The Episcopal Church at Yale recently hosted a “Stand with Gaza” event, and whose website speaks of Occupied Jerusalem says that until the Jewish State behaves there will be anti-Semitic outbreaks. Shipman spent many years in Egypt and Turkey – yet nary a mention about churches being burnt throughout the Middle East.
The man has devoted many years to condemning Israel. While he fashions himself as a Middle East expert, his compassion doesn’t cross to the borders of Syria where hundreds of thousands have been killed, nor does he refer to the ISIS issue where Christians are being killed enmasse.
Does this educator of America’s youth similarly blame women for rape? Or blame America for the 9/11 attacks? What’s the difference?
There have been those throughout history who tell us that the Jews caused anti-Semitism in Germany. They also caused it during Russian pogroms, crusades in Spain, and also wrote Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Lest I forget, as a New Yorker with a more recent history, Jews also caused the Crown Heights riots. Across nations, cultures, religions and more, there have been entire swaths of people opposed to Jews. Few things in history have been as consistent in history as anti-Semitism.
Reverend Shipman: If there were no Jews in the world, there would not be anti-Semitism.
The author is the grandson of Holocaust survivors.