According to a report by British Parliamentarians (Report of the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry Into Antisemitism, September 2006), an anti-Semitic incident is one in which a person’s actions are “perceived” to be anti-Semitic by the “Jewish community.” In other words, it does not matter whether somebody’s speech or actions are anti-Semitic, it only matters whether they are perceived to be anti-Semitic by Jews. So like Berkeley’s world, to be is to be perceived.
This reminds me of a scene from Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.” After a tennis match Allen asks his partner:
“Did you hear what that guy we were playing against said to me?”
“No, what.”
“I asked him if he ate yet and he said: `No. D’you? Did Jew eat? Jew?’ “How could he say that?”
Norman Finkelstein offers a fuller analysis of the Report.
Michael, can we get you to come on The Narrow Mind audio broadcast to discuss presuppositional apologetics.
Monday, September 18 Kim Riddlebarger
Tuesday, September 19 – Marcia Montenegro
Monday, September 25 – Paul Copan
Wednesday, September 27 – Greg Stafford
Tuesday, September 26 – R. K. Mcgregor Wright
Thursday, September 28 – Jill Martin-Rische
Friday, September 29 – Tim Morris
Monday, October 2 – John Frame
Tuesday, October 3 – Melvin Jones
Also Jay Adams, Sam Harris and others.
Look forward to hearing from you.
In Christ,
Speaking of Norman Finkelstein, Alan Dershowitz is leading a campaign to stop him from receiving tenure at DePaul University. Finkelstein’s scholarly sin is that he exposed Dershowitz’s plagiarism and that he is a trenchant critic of Israel’s racist policies and what he calls “the Holocaust Industry.” See here to get caught up on the case.
DePaul University denied tenure to Finkelstein. Anyone in academia who asks the wrong questions about Judaics risks ending their career — even Judaic scholars. See here.