It occurred to me yesterday that 2008 hasn’t exactly been a great year for Jewish role models.

First there was Connecticut Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman (Democratic running-mate to Al Gore 2000, Democratic Presidential hopeful 2004) who betrayed his party - again - this year by endorsing Republican Senator John McCain for president before speaking on his behalf at the RNC.  Though he seems to have largely escaped retribution for disloyalty to the party and the people who supported him for years, his actions will probably be remembered less as those of a “maverick” - like John McCain, Bernie Sanders, or Zel Miller - and more like those of a Benedict Arnold or, dare I say, a “Judas” should the Obama/messiah myth hang around.

Then there was Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who in July became the subject of a criminal investigation regarding charges of corruption, fraud, money laundering, bribery and “breach of the public trust.” Without formerly admitting any wrong doing, Olmert agreed to resign the prime ministership early in the investigation.  If nothing else, the incident showed the willingness of the Jewish people to swiftly dispose of dishonest leaders with the kind of decisiveness we in the States can only dream of.

Let’s not forget Massachusetts Congressman Bailout Barney Frank, whose $700 Billion dollar American Housing Rescue & Foreclosure Prevention Act - opposed by the overwhelming majority of the American public at the time of its introduction - is now being called a total failure as it has yet to slow the speed of home foreclosures across the nation.  Simultaneously, efforts by moral law makers to cap the executive salaries of corporations that receive bailout assistance have thus far stalled at every turn, effectively creating an economy where it is more profitable for a multinational business to fail and fall into a safety net than to turn a profit and subsequently pay income tax.

And finally there’s former NASDEQ Chairman Bernard L Madoff, whose recently uncovered $50 Billion dollar ponzi scheme has effectively destabilized the financial solvency of banks, NGOs, charities, universities and individuals around the world.  Madoff’s crime is in my opinion so heinous that nothing short of hanging will suffice as punishment.  (Seriously, how bad can a life sentence for a white-collar crime really be, especially when the likelihood of serving it is so minimal.)

With so many high profile Jewish offenders in the public eye these days, I can only stand back in appreciative awe that no real spike of anti-Semitism has resulted from these individuals.  It’s truly a testament to how far we’ve come as a nation in terms of race relations when we consider how, in the not too distant past, incidents like these could easily lead to lynchings or worse.  Never was this truer than during times of prolonged economic hardship.

During the Great Depression, for example,  Jews were openly blamed for the nation’s financial woes - even by respected captains of industry like auto manufacturer Henry Ford (whose company is now ironically waiting for bailout Barney to save it) and Pennsylvania Congressman Louis T McFadden.   In 1936, McFadden even attempted to secure the GOP nomination for president on the slogan “Christianity, instead of Judaism.”

Now with the holiday season upon us, the overwhelming majority of Americans will be celebrating some form of Christmas - the most religious of whom will dedicate the season exclusively to the birth of Jesus while even the most secular will pay tribute to “the son of man” to one degree or another.  Historically this would also be the time of year when Christians in America would begin referring to Jews as “Christ Killers” - a racial slur derived from the belief that the Jewish people were - and are - collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.

If now was fifty years ago, with an economy like this, with Jews like those aforementioned on television, and with mistletoe hanging from the doorways of 90+ precent of the houses in the country: I would probably be currently blogging from a crawl space in Holland.  Thankfully during the Vatican II internal “reformation” (1962-1965) Pope Paul VI issued Nostra Aetate - a sort of unilateral peace treaty drafted by the Catholics which, all though strange in concept, has provided unprecedented security for Jews in exiled lands ever since.

In a nut shell, Nostra Aetate concluded that, although Jews are not excused from rejecting Jesus as their savior and the Church as their temporal administrator - their unique history as God’s Chosen People entitles them to have some slack.  While the division between believers (Christians) and the majority of the world’s Jews may be wide, the writings of Paul and Peter suggest a time when Jews will accept Jesus as their savior. Therefore, it would be wrong to associate them with the “accursed.”

Nostra Aetate then goes on to claim that it would be morally wrong and historically/theologically inaccurate to impose collective responsibility for Jesus’ death on the Jewish population of Roman Palestina.  More importantly, it would be ridiculous to accuse modern Jews of having anything to do with said ancient crimes. The document then goes on to declare that any persecution/assault of Jews throughout the world should be interpreted as an assault on the Church itself - thereby obligating practicing Catholics to embrace Jews as their spiritual brothers and defend them from all harm… As I said, this is a strange but convenient document for us.

More recently, January 6, 2004  to be exact, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America issued a statement urging any Lutheran church presenting a Passion Play to adhere to their Guidelines for Lutheran-Jewish Relations, stating that “the New Testament . . . must not be used as justification for hostility towards present-day Jews,” and that “blame for the death of Jesus should not be attributed to Judaism or the Jewish people.” Effectively ending the kinds of performances I had to sit through as a Jew in a Lutheran junior high school back in the late 90s.

These moves have proven so successful that when Mel Gibson refused to move the line “His blood is on us and our children” from his blockbuster film The Passion of the Christ, he became the target of both a scholarly and a social repudiation that probably pushed him into celebrity obscurity. Now it is time for the Anti-Semite to go into hiding and for the practicing Jew, even in times like these, to walk the streets without fear.

Still, what happened to the days when Jews were always the victims and never the perpetrators of social, political and economic injustice? (Ok, they never really existed.  After all, we’re all human).  Where are the great Jewish role models of old?  More importantly, who are we going to use as our token athlete now that Mark Spitz’s 7 gold medal victory at Munich no longer seems remarkable.  How much longer before Jon Stewart needs to beg Steven Colbert’s forgiveness?  These are the questions we need to begin asking.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Politics, Politics & Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.