Crusader War College

Rajiv Singh at Israpundit posted an article by Andrew Klavan in the January 14, Los Angeles Times: "Why God Chose the Jews"

There is one good thing about anti-Semitism: It lets you know who the bad guys are. Right, left, black, white, freak or straight, the minute someone starts rattling on about the evil Jews, you know your train just pulled into Slimeball Station.

All bigotry is wrong, of course, but there's something about this particular form of prejudice that is weirdly reliable as a sign of deeper wickedness. Perhaps it's because the Jews contributed so much to humanity's moral code that to hate them as a race is to despise the restraints of morality itself.

Mr. Klavan's article is a masterpiece of cluebat application. Worth a good read and inclusion in the "for the record" category.

However, I have to disagree with his reductionist view of the role of the Jew: In Genesis 12, God explicitly states that Abraham's descendants would be a blessing to the world, and ominously promises, in the Last Universal Promise, that those who curse Abraham, and his descendants, would be cursed, and those who blessed him would be blessed. One (and ONLY ONE) of the indicators that the Chosen son of Abraham was Isaac, not Ishmael, lies in a simple review of the Nobel winners, Muslim vs. Jew. I personally would discount the Peace and Literature prizes as valid indicators, going more with the Economics, Physics, and Math prizes as being more objective indicators that reflect real achievements rather than political agendas and prejudices. That criterion, unfortunately, removes half of the Muslim winners, while affecting a much smaller fraction of the Jewish winners.

Screeching that the Muslims introduced the concept of zero and algebra as an invaluable contribution to world technology ignores the fact that being on the ground floor of the best counting system in the world HAS NOT HELPED THE MUSLIMS grasp the overwhelming numerical superiority of Jewish achievements (much less their qualitative. The Golden Age of Islam happens to coincide with a period in which Jihad against the West was notably checked. There is also no reason to believe that traders working within a Byzantine Empire not terminated by Mohammed would NOT have introduced the same concepts within the same time period: the concept and symbol for zero came from India, and is not an exclusively Arab invention. The supposed "heritage" of greek manuscripts saved by Islam were captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Hagia Sophia, the former great cathedral of the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople (Istanbul), forcibly captured and converted into a Mosque, better symbolizes the modus operandi of supposed "Islamic Achievement".

Don't get me wrong: Mr. Klavan's article is worth a read. But being the Canary in the Coal Mine was not, and continues not to be, the sole reason behind why the Good Lord singled out Abraham and his descendants via Isaac and Jacob. I believe that anti-semitism is an indicator of Jealousy and unbelief: jealousy of the Jews for their selection by God is unmitigated by a belief in God's promise that non-Jews can receive a blessing by blessing the Jews. Such a one should start with the realization that Jealousy is a SIN and needs to be repudiated.

This puts the Jewish people in a rather delicate position: There's no question that they are Chosen, and blessed, by God, and it doesn't seem to be any consolation for them to say to Non-Jews, "But you CAN be blessed, by blessing US!" Although this may sound like the same thing that comes from the lips of your typical Televangelist, the Jews have a sounder scriptural foundation for saying it than he does.